One of the most greatest and famous champions in the history of chess, José Raúl Capablanca, was born on November 19, 1888 (ChessToday.net).
Where would you rank Capablanca among the greatest World Champions?
Chess Daily News from Susan Polgar
Capablanca
Capablanca was a natural-born chess genius and will always rank among the very best world champions. His speed, simplicity ,logic and clarity of the games is a pleasure; he had a very pleasing and commanding personality and,above all, he was a far superior player than Alekhine! The latter knew that well and therefore never gave Capa a chance for a return match. Mathur
I just want to ask the audience what follows… what would Capa have achieved if he had had the same conditions as Kasparov or others modern top players ??? I mean Botvinnik’s Team as Trainers…updated openings books…computers….Just think about it a tell us your opinion…
equals Anand
Capablanca’s Primer of Chess was one of the very first chess books I ever purchased. In response to ottob’s question: I think Capablanca would have have been the greatest chess player of all time assuming he availed himself of the chess training resources we have today. Although I read somewhere that Capa only read books on the endgame despite many books on openings etc. that apparently Alekhine and others made use of. Capa loved to party.
I’m convinced that Capablanca was the best ever.
I think the great cuban is among the 3 best players of all time, at the same level that Karpov and Kasparov
I would say that he is the best ever, with Kasparov & Fisher in a close 2nd place
Top three, along with Kasparov and Fischer.
Top two,with Mihail Tal
#1 Kasparov
#2 Fischer
#3 Alekhine
#4 Capablanca, Anand
Survey of specific openings. Beginning with the hypermodern systems which were all the rage during most of Capa’s career.
Beginning with the Reti opening. Lasker’s system of defense with Black against the Reti was very good but flawed in that it allowed the light squared Black Bishop to become the initial target for a White kingside advance and attack against the Black castled kingside position. In contrast White’s hypermodern opening theoretical discussion with Capa’s Black system of defense left White with at best equality. It is the only Black opening defense system named after him that I know of in this opening. The Capablanca System.
Capablanca discovered that development and activity are not the same.
All You need is to read “Chess fundamentals”:A piece is active only if it has use according to the main positional theme.
This point is the key and allow you to see new ideas on the board.
1.Topalov
2.Lasker
3.Karpov
To me Capablanca is one of the all time greats! His games are still very accurate as anyone with Rybka will see! Try that with games of Anand, Topalov, Kasparov and you will see what I mean. In my opinion, with Rybka assistance I would rate Capablanca, Fischer as the most accurate and Fischer and Morphy as the most dominant while Lasker and Kasparov stayed on top the longest. Alekhine and Lasker’s games are very good also albeit dense. Karpov, Kramnik, Petrosian, Botvinnik were good technicians but Tal played the most inspired chess of all.
Capa sure is one of the top notch. His style is completely mechanical, at one stage invincible.
Morphy
Alekhine, Fischer
Capa