Capablanca Interview
Chess historian par excellence Edward Winter has translated a 1939 interview with Jose Raul Capablanca. (HT: Brian Karen) In it he speaks very favorably about Emanuel Lasker, Mikhail Botvinnik, Alexander Alekhine (though only in passing) and Paul Keres (but with some relatively minor and insightful reservations). To the surprise of no one who is familiar with Capablanca's autobiographical writings, he had some high praise for himself as well, acknowledging that he wasn't the player he was in 1918 (he rates his play then even higher than when he won the title in 1921) but fairly plausibly downplaying his failure at AVRO in 1938 to high blood pressure problems that were mostly under control at the Olympiad in 1939. (His last event, unfortunately, due to the outbreak of World War II and his premature death in 1942.)
Worth a read.
Reader Comments (3)
Anyone have a good idea which Lasker-Tarrasch game Capa referenced in the interview? Sounds interesting.
[DM: I'd say I'm at least 99% certain that it's game two of their 1908 World Championship match, and he's referring to Lasker's 14...Ng4:
[Event "World Championship 08th"]
[Site "Germany"]
[Date "1908.08.19"]
[Round "2"]
[White "Tarrasch, Siegbert"]
[Black "Lasker, Emanuel"]
[Result "0-1"]
[ECO "C66"]
[PlyCount "82"]
[EventDate "1908.08.17"]
[EventType "match"]
[EventRounds "16"]
[EventCountry "GER"]
1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Nf6 4. O-O d6 5. d4 Bd7 6. Nc3 Be7 7. Re1 exd4 8.
Nxd4 O-O 9. Nxc6 Bxc6 10. Bxc6 bxc6 11. Ne2 Qd7 12. Ng3 Rfe8 13. b3 Rad8 14.
Bb2 Ng4 15. Bxg7 Nxf2 16. Kxf2 Kxg7 17. Nf5+ Kh8 18. Qd4+ f6 19. Qxa7 Bf8 20.
Qd4 Re5 21. Rad1 Rde8 22. Qc3 Qf7 23. Ng3 Bh6 24. Qf3 d5 25. exd5 Be3+ 26. Kf1
cxd5 27. Rd3 Qe6 28. Re2 f5 29. Rd1 f4 30. Nh1 d4 31. Nf2 Qa6 32. Nd3 Rg5 33.
Ra1 Qh6 34. Ke1 Qxh2 35. Kd1 Qg1+ 36. Ne1 Rge5 37. Qc6 R5e6 38. Qxc7 R8e7 39.
Qd8+ Kg7 40. a4 f3 41. gxf3 Bg5 0-1
This video has Capablanca giving his (brief) opinions in English, on Alekhine and Euwe. The video quality is not the best, I tried to remember the link to the Dutch video archive (which I knew I would never forget -sigh) and this was the only other I could find.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKDcZtq7pBs
[DM: Pity it cuts out so early!]
Dennis, have you seen this? http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=7984
OMG, Chessbase is stealing my brainwaves - I'm going to have all my fillings removed... (On the bright side, I know the name of that Dutch video archive again.)