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Capablanca: Move by Move
Jose Raul Capablanca is a chess legend, world champion and quite simply one of the greatest players in the history of the game. His achievements and seemingly effortless style of play won many admirers, and his legacy includes a treasure of instructive games. Studying Capablanca’s play is a must for any aspiring chess player. For Cyrus Lakdawala, it was a key factor in his chess development and improvement, and in this book he revisits many of his favourite Capablanca games. Lakdawala examines Capablanca’s skills in attack, defence, counter-attack, exploiting imbalances, accumulating advantages and, of course, his legendary endgame play.Move by Move provides an ideal platform to study chess. By continually challenging the reader to answer probing questions throughout the book, the Move by Move format greatly encourages the learning and practising of vital skills just as much as the traditional assimilation of knowledge. Carefully selected questions and answers are designed to keep you actively involved and allow you to monitor your progress as you learn. This is an excellent way to improve your chess skills and knowledge.* Learn from the games of a chess legend* Utilizes an ideal approach to chess study* Important ideas absorbed by continued practice
- GenresChess
539 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 16, 2012
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
January 31, 2024
An excellent book on one of the best chess players in history, the legendary third world champion José Raúl Capablanca from Havana, Cuba. He learned chess when he was four years old by watching his father play a friend, then he remarked that his father had made an illegal move, challenged his old man, and beat him. Capablanca grew up to be the strongest chess master of his era. He was heads and shoulders above his competitors, which the fifty-nine games in this book illustrate quite nicely.
The games are divided in five different sections. We get to see Capa on the attack, on defence, on exploiting imbalances, on accumulating advantages, and finally on endings, his specialty, the thing that truly set him apart from the rest. Riveting stuff. Some of it utterly mind-blowing. I really enjoyed playing through these games, and I am sure you will too, if you are a deep fan of this wonderfully obsessive game.
The games are divided in five different sections. We get to see Capa on the attack, on defence, on exploiting imbalances, on accumulating advantages, and finally on endings, his specialty, the thing that truly set him apart from the rest. Riveting stuff. Some of it utterly mind-blowing. I really enjoyed playing through these games, and I am sure you will too, if you are a deep fan of this wonderfully obsessive game.
January 26, 2023
This is a very decent collection of 59 games by 3rd official chess world champion Jose Raul Capablanca, divided into five themes as chapters (though some games could have been included in multiple chapters): attack, defense, exploiting imbalances (e.g. knight vs bishop, two rooks vs queen), accumulating advantages, and endings (endgames).
The chapter on the attack is perhaps a shock, because Capablanca wasn't known for dashing play. He might even have had a reputation of being boring, but this certainly was not the case. He was a pure genius on the board and the games in this chapter are just further proof. Capa was no less an attacking player than Morphy or Alekhine.
The chapter on defense might make you cringe -- it's unbelievable some of the positions that Capablanca willfully placed himself in and then managed to draw or even swindle a win from his opponent.
The next two chapters are pretty similar thematically, though they have their emphases. This is where the book takes on the role of a light guide to chess strategy. The nice thing about Capa's games is that his competition wasn't nearly as fierce as in later eras of chess, so his ideas are much more clear. In fact, there are many moments in multiple games here and elsewhere in the book where Capa's play looks like it's from the 21st century -- he was that ahead of his time.
Last chapter: In my opinion, if you desire to understand strategic endgames at their core, you must study Capablanca's. His play is often simple and understated, methodical yet elegant. His moves are subtle and smooth as butter. And I think seeing lots of his endgames all in a row is a great way to learn how to play the game. He himself advocated learning the endgame first, and the way he plays, he might even convince you of it. Certainly he didn't care that much for openings (his opening play was usually boring and theoretically non-critical, and Cyrus is sure to critique Capa when he can't excuse him for lacking future knowledge).
5/5.
The chapter on the attack is perhaps a shock, because Capablanca wasn't known for dashing play. He might even have had a reputation of being boring, but this certainly was not the case. He was a pure genius on the board and the games in this chapter are just further proof. Capa was no less an attacking player than Morphy or Alekhine.
The chapter on defense might make you cringe -- it's unbelievable some of the positions that Capablanca willfully placed himself in and then managed to draw or even swindle a win from his opponent.
The next two chapters are pretty similar thematically, though they have their emphases. This is where the book takes on the role of a light guide to chess strategy. The nice thing about Capa's games is that his competition wasn't nearly as fierce as in later eras of chess, so his ideas are much more clear. In fact, there are many moments in multiple games here and elsewhere in the book where Capa's play looks like it's from the 21st century -- he was that ahead of his time.
Last chapter: In my opinion, if you desire to understand strategic endgames at their core, you must study Capablanca's. His play is often simple and understated, methodical yet elegant. His moves are subtle and smooth as butter. And I think seeing lots of his endgames all in a row is a great way to learn how to play the game. He himself advocated learning the endgame first, and the way he plays, he might even convince you of it. Certainly he didn't care that much for openings (his opening play was usually boring and theoretically non-critical, and Cyrus is sure to critique Capa when he can't excuse him for lacking future knowledge).
5/5.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews