How good of a chess player was jose raul capablanca and who if any where better at the time.?

Question

some said he was a stand up guy, getting money from cuba whooping *** at chess undefeated for years at one time.

Answer 1

In his entire chess career, Capablanca suffered fewer than 40 losses in serious games. He was undefeated for over eight years of active, world-class competition, from February 10, 1916, when he lost from a superior position against Oscar Chajes; to March 21, 1924, when he lost to Richard Réti in the New York International tournament. This was an unbeaten streak of 63 games, and included the strong London tournament of 1922, as well as the world championship match against Lasker.

In fact, only Marshall, Lasker, Alekhine and Rudolf Spielmann won two or more serious games with the mature Capablanca, but their overall lifetime scores were minus (Capablanca beat Marshall +20 -2 =28, Lasker +6 -2 =16, Alekhine +9 -7 =33), except for Spielmann who was level (+2 -2 =8).

Of top players, only Keres had a narrow plus score against him (+1 -0 =5), and that win was when Capablanca was 50 and Keres 22.

Except for Lasker early on, Capablanca was clearly superior to anyone else during the 1910s and 1920s....

It does appear to be true that Capa did not study the game in the way that other GMs of the time did.

According to IM Jacob Aargaard,  Capa was the only player of his generation who had a good understanding of weaknesses.

His opponents would often make weakening pawn moves and then Capa would exploit them. Perhaps this is why his games look to be so clear. It's because he had a clear plan.

The example Aargaard gives is Bogoljubov vs Capablanca, 1924.

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame...

If you know even some basic elements of positional chess, you see how ridiculous some of Bogoljubov's moves are.

But notice what Capa does, he sees potential dark squared weaknesses on the queen side, so he exchanges off dark squared bishops, he then uses those dark squares to attack the backward pawns on the light squares.

If you keep this in mind, the reasons for Capa's superiority over the other players becomes more apparent. It could also explain why he didn't need to study much. He basically had a 'system' that would allow him to beat almost every one. This changed with the new generation who had a greater positional understanding.

The reason Capa lost the world title to Alekhine in 1927 was because he didn't prepare properly for the match (he was overconfident because Alekhine had never beaten him), while Alekhine threw himself into the study of every game Capa ever played.

Once Alekhine won the title, he never played a match against Capa again.  His promises of a rematch were never honored.  That's another long story.

But in rating chess players by how far ahead they were in comparison to their contemporaries, Capa would be up there with Morphy, Kasparov  and Fischer.

Answer 2

Capablanca is my favorite Grandmaster.  His kind of chess was very simple and direct.  While he could play and win in any kind of game, Capablanca would cut to straight to the heart once he obtained a winning advantage.  While Dr. Lasker was an incredible champion, he was well past his prime in the 20s.  Alekhine was great and liked playing complicated games, Capablanca was always his match.  Even when he lost to Alekhine in 1920 he would have won a rematch, but Alekhine never gave him one.  Alekhine was truly a miserable person and a n**i sympathizer.  To show how great he was even Alekhine said that at the 1914 St. Petersburg tournament, no one (and that includes all the grandmasters) could even come close to beating Capablanca at 5 minute quick games that the masters would play amongst themselves for fun and money.  American champion Frank Marshall first unveiled his now famous Marshall Gambit against Capablanca.  Marshall saved it for when he went up against Capablanca in a match.  The only problem was that Capablanca won the game after enduring the blistering attack.  Capablanca was better than anyone at endings.  His mind could just see clearly all the issues at the end of a game much more so than anyone else.  Plus he was a handsome and sophisticated champion.  He was always well dressed and was the star of any occasion when he arrived.  He really was the perfect champion, the only blemish being that he underestimated Alekhine and then there were no international protocols for when a rematch could be demanded.  Alekhine died poor and disgraced, but Capablanca will always be known as a great and classy champion.

Answer 3

Tweety has a very good answer, but I would say that both Emmanuel Lasker before World War I and Alexander Alekhine beginning with the World Championship match in 1927 had legitimate claims to being stronger than Capablanca.  That would put Capablanca's period of dominance around a decade.  That's good, but hardly unprecedented.  After all, Lasker was World Champion for 27 years and was clearly the best player in the world for much of his reign.

Lasker's claim to being better than Capablanca before World War I is based largely on taking first place in the historic tournament in St Petersburg, 1914 - Capablanca was second.  It would have been great for chess fans if they had managed to arrange a championship match during this time period, when Lasker was still close to the top of his game.  It's fun to speculate on what might have been.

Alekhine's superiority to Capablanca during the late 1920's and early 1930's is much clearer than Lasker's edge before World War I.  Alekhine was by far the better player during their match in 1927 and also dominated tournament chess during his days as World Champion.  He won a number of tournaments by lopsided margins that were unmatched for decades, until the days of Bobby Fischer.

It's important to keep in mind that whenever you are comparing the likes of Lasker, Capablanca and Alekhine, you are talking about three chess giants who would be on anyone's short list of the best players of all time.  There is no easy way to "prove" which of them was best, so you can find an argument no matter which side you take.  My money is on Lasker, but feel free to pick any of the three.  At their best, all three grandmasters looked invincible.