Capablanca went into the match enormously confident (surprise surprise), but in the very first game he was given a rude awakening when Alekhine beat him with the Black pieces. Indeed, Capablanca had not taken the match preparations seriously (if at all!). Less than three weeks before the start of the match, he was playing casual exhibition games in Sao Paulo! Alekhine, by contrast, prepared thoroughly for the contest. He was one of the most hard-working players in the history of the game.

The problem for Capablanca was not that he wasn't in form -- just a few months earlier he won the strong New York tournament with ridiculous ease, not losing a single game in 20 against five very strong opponents (Alekhine included). The problem was that Alekhine was also in form, and it turned out that, thanks to his hard work, he was the stronger player in the match. Hard work, not luck.

And I think he more than confirmed his status as World Champion with his stellar performances thereafter. Look at his 8.5/9 in Bradley Beach 1929, his two demolitions of Bogoljubow (who obviously was not the strongest challenger, and I would never defend Alekhine for selecting him and avoiding a rematch, but that's a separate matter), and of course his spectacular performance at San Remo 1930, his perfect 9/9 at the Hamburg Olympiad 1930, his stunning domination at Bled 1931, his 9/11 at London 1932 (with some very strong players competing), and his 13/15 in Zurich 1934 (ahead of Euwe, Flohr, Bogoljubow, Lasker, Nimzowitsch, Bernstein, Stahlberg, etc). There are others, but I think I covered the most impressive results in his first period as World Champion (1927-1935).

Compare these results to Capablanca's after he became WC in 1921. Capablanca had two very nice tournament wins in that period (London 1922 and New York 1927 were excellent), but Alekhine's list above is more extensive (he just played in more tournaments) and his results were at least as dominating. And let's not forget that Capablanca had two distinct disappointments in his period as WC: first when he came behind Lasker in New York 1924, and then when he finished third behind Bogoljubow and Lasker (again!) in Moscow 1925.

Don't get me wrong, I rank Capablanca as one of the greatest of all time (like you and most others) and I also rank him higher than Alekhine on my list of World Champions. But, given everything above, I don't see how or why we should refer to Alekhine as "the luckiest of World Champions."

I'd choose Euwe. He was of course very good and all that, but was given a match by Alekhine without being the strongest candidate and won with the smallest possible margin thanks to Alekhine not being in form.

I'd call Kramnik a bit lucky as well. First Shirov didn't get his match, then Anand declined, and first then Kramnik got his chance (and took it impressively).

I suppose Botvinnik was lucky in that he had a rematch clause. On the other hand, if there had been no World War II I think he would have gotten the title a few years sooner, via a match win over Alekhine.

You could make an argument that Petrosian was lucky. He finished half a point ahead of Geller and Keres at Curacao, with a plus 8 score (compared to Tal's plus 12 three years before). Keres botched his chances in the fourth cycle by losing to Benko for the only time in his life (against 10 or so wins). Tal was sick, played poorly and eventually had to drop out.

And, of course, unlike Smyslov and Tal, Petrosian didn't have to face Botvinnik in a rematch.

<""From the 14 games I played in this tournament only once I felt that my opponent outplayed me - it was the game with Botvinnik in round seven">

And what a masterpiece it was!

Botvinnik vs Alekhine, 1938

Their draw at Nottingham Alekhine vs Botvinnik, 1936 may have been short, but it was also a rich and fantastic encounter.

I think that a match between Botvinnik and Alekhine in 1937 on later on would have ended in a fairly convincing victory for Botvinnik.

When the Nazis rose to power and Hitler became dictator in 1933, Lasker,a Jew, was forced to emigrate. He and his wife Martha went to England, where they lived until 1935.

Gareth Williams, writing in Chess Monthly, describes those painful years: