amateur games
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
Mair Mammadov: “Always believed in Rajabov”
In Khanty-Mansiysk, the World Cup is coming to its end. Unfortunately, not one of the Russians made it to the finals and won a ticket to the applicants’ tournament. But a stranger to us continues to fight for the Cup. The representative of Azerbaijan and the Baku chess school, Teymur Rajabov, will fight in a tie-break with the Chinese Ding Liren and, perhaps, for the first time in the history of his country, will win this trophy. The vice-president of FIDE and the ASF Mair Mammadov talks about the success of his compatriot.
The winner of the sixth Gashimov Memorial is Magnus Carlsen (left) and Mair Mammadov. Continue reading
On improving the chess player
Each chess player is improving in his own ways. Our masters care little about the transfer of their experience to youth. forcing many first-timers gropingly to seek the right methods of working on themselves. A typical example of such a “wandering in the dark” is my quest for chess. The desire to facilitate the task of young Soviet chess players seeking to improve their skills suggested the idea of this article to me. I hope that my thoughts, supported by the concrete experience of chess improvement, will be able to provide them with at least some help.
I got the first category in 1934. By this time I already had a number of successes in competitions. Further performances in tournaments of the first category and mixed tournaments with the participation of the Continue reading
