José Raúl Capablanca: Most instructive chess games 1901-1918

José Raúl Capablanca: Most instructive chess games 1901-1918

José Raúl Capablanca was a Cuban chess player who was the world chess champion from 1921 to 1927.

His games are among the clearest of the World champions to understand the fundamentals of positional play and endgame mastery.

This course checks out his most important games from early in his career between 1901 and 1918.

From the outset, Capablanca's strength in endgame play is particularly evident, and his ability to make use of very simple openings emphasises his middlegame and endgame strengths.

He defeated very early in his career one of the strongest players in the United States - Frank Marshall in a crushing eight wins. 1 loss, 18 draw match which took the world by surprise. Even more surprising is Capablacan's victory at the international San Sebastián tournament of 1918 which had very strict entry criteria of having won previous tournaments. Capablanca had only a match victory against Marshall and some players protested at his entry. Capablanca showed he was extremely capable of playing at their level and beyond and won the tournament, defeating his fiercest critics such as Ossip Berstein and Aron Nimzovich in the process in brilliant fashion.

The course tries to provide an objective analysis of the games without too much bias for the winner. The concept here is that with the "truth" of games we can use such games to really improve our play to the maximum. We can also pick up opening theory, middlegame tactics and strategy, and of course endgame strengths through the inspiration of the key Capablanca games chosen in this course. The course bypasses the hundreds of Simul games Capablanca played - perhaps they can be in another course in the future. Instead, the course focuses on the most important tournament and match games of the time period the course has scope for.

In the process of creating the course, Kingscrusher himself has experienced more powerful confidence for endgame transitioning and "small combinations" - and believes any attentive student will too - and find many inspirational concepts and philosophies to enrich your chess through game example after example.

Chess Strategy and Tactics of arguably one of the strongest and most talented natural players of all time

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What you will learn

• Ability to play "simple positional chess" and reduce complexity
• Ability to appreciate Chess "Fundamentals" (time independent insights) that Capablanca was gifted with at very young age - he never opened a book on Openings :)
• Ability to appreciate Boris Spassky's view that Capablanca was the best player of all time

Rating: 4.66667

Level: All Levels

Duration: 32.5 hours

Instructor: Tryfon Gavriel