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Jose Raul Capablanca
Jose Raul Capablanca y Graupera was born on
November 19, 1888 in Havana. He was the most
famous Cuban chess player and the third world
chess champion. He reigned in 1921 - 1927.
Capablanca was considered a cheesy genius
child. His first significant success was his victory
in the match against Kuba in 1901. Capablanca
was 12 at the time, his brilliant game was quickly
noticed and appreciated. To this day he is
considered one of the most talented chess
players in history. Particularly appreciated is his
positional play and playing the ends. Capablanca
met chess while cheering on his father.
Throughout his life, even as a chess expert, he remained largely a "natural"
player, spending relatively little time on preparing for tournaments and matches.
His greatest rival, Alexander Alechin, who became the fourth world champion,
after Capablanca's death wrote: "With this death, a great chess genius that we
will never see again goes away." Throughout his career, Capablanca suffered
a bit of defeat in less than fifty official parties. He remained unbeaten for eight
consecutive years, from 1916 to 1923. Capablanca claimed that chess would
quickly "die for a draw." He predicted that eminent chess players would achieve
such level of knowledge of the game that their parties would always end in
a draw. To date, these forecasts have not come true, although the symptoms of
"draw disease" are visible in tournaments with the participation of the strongest
players. Capablanca invented his own variant of chess, called "Capablanka
chess", in which one plays a 10x10 or 10x8 chessboard.
IX.4 Chess - curiosities
1. on the 8x8 chessboard there are 32 white fields
2. at the beginning of the game on the chessboard there are 8 white and
black pieces
3. the first world champion in chess was Wilhelm Steinitz
4. Shah means in translation of the Persian king into Polish
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