Fisher refuses
Jose Raul Capablanca – 3rd World Chess Champion
Jose Raul Capablanca was born on November 19, 1888 in the administrative center of one of the Spanish colonies in the city of Havana (the Spaniards left Cuba in 1898 according to the Paris Peace Treaty). He met the ancient game at the age of 4, watching his father, Jose Maria, play against his colleagues. A few days later, the boy already knew perfectly how the pieces walk and even drew the parent’s attention to the error in the completed move. On the same day, he was able to easily beat his dad. The young child prodigy was sent for further training to the Havana Chess Club. Here he worked real miracles, defeating the strong masters of Taubengauz and Iglesias with a handicap in the form of a queen! And it’s only 5 years old! By the age of eight, he firmly became the second chess player on his native island, losing so far only to reigning champion H. Corso.
In 1901, the 12-year-old Capablanca met Corso in an official match. Jose Raul was able to answer his two Continue reading
Computer or person
MG Emil Sutovsky recently published shocking news on his Facebook page: the computer program “Ponanza” beat the best shogi player in the world. But that is not all! The program applied the novelty on the first move: no professional shogi player had ever played like this before! I think this is about how to start a debut with 1.Ka3 or 1.f3.
Of course, this is not so shocking news for chess players. Unfortunately, we have already left this stage of computer development far behind.
Today, the top-end program can easily beat Magnus Carlsen by playing literally any initial move. The future Continue reading
How the Russian princess conquered the world famous chess king, or the most brilliant game of Jose Capablanca
When they met in 1934 at a reception at the Cuban Embassy in Washington, Princess Chegodaeva was probably the only one to whom the name of Jose Raul Capablanca did not say anything. She was not interested in chess and did not know that he was a world-famous grandmaster. He was called a chess genius and they said: “Mozart is in music, Capablanca is in chess.” At the time of their meeting, Capablanca was 46 years old, Chegodaeva was 35. Both had families. But from that day on, they never parted.
Jose Capablanca used to win since childhood. At 4 years old, he first won a chess tournament with his father. Everyone was surprised at his abilities and called him a child prodigy, because the boy was self- Continue reading
