The Romance of the Chess World Championship Match and the World Champions that won them:

There can only be Two.

The Champion to hold the Title he beat all the masters for.

The Challenger on quest for same Title of yore.

Jose Raul Capablanca

The human chess computer.

Jose Raul Capablanca had the best over-all lifetime score against his fellow World Champions. In fact, Capa achieved the somewhat unique feat of not having a single losing lifetime record in classical games against any fellow World Champion. He also had the least number of games lost to World Champions, 11 out of 99; which means that even when playing against a World Champion, Capa could reasonably be expected to lose only about one game out of ten.

By present-day standards Capa started his serious international career quite late, in 1911 at the age of 23. In terms of international experience, the 16 year old Fischer, Kasparov, or Carlsen probably had more of it than the 23 year old Capablanca. It truly must have been astonishing for the top masters of his time to witness a newly graduated college student, with no international experience whatsoever plucked from nowhere and plonked down in the middle of a top international tournament, mow down one experienced master after the other. It was and is the greatest international debut in chess history.

In an era where matches at classical time controls were common because masters often challenged each other for stakes, Capa achieved probably the best match record in all of chess history. In all of his serious chess life, he won around a dozen and a half(!) one-on-one matches, including a massacre of Marshall (+8 -1 =14, 1909), a whitewash of Kostic (+5 -0 =0, 1919); furthermore in two matches against World Champions Lasker (+4 -0 =10, 1921) and Euwe (+2 -0 =8, 1931), Capa the unbeatable did not lose a single game. Capa lost exactly one match, the World Championship Match vs Alekhine which unfortunately for him was the one that cost him his Title (+3 -6 =25, 1927), and tied exactly one, a mini-match vs. Znosko Borovsky (+1 -1 =0, 1913).

In other mini-matches in 1913-1914, Capablanca mowed down such strong masters as Alekhine, Mieses, Teichmann, Dus Chotimirsky, Tartakower, and Bernstein; Capa won 10 games, drew two, and lost none, for an incredible score of 11/12. Capa would be a beast in the World Cup format (successive mini-matches and quick game tie breakers); and IMO would be the only chess master in history whom the odds would actually favor with a probability of winning by more than 50%.

In his 1921 World Championship match with Lasker, Capablanca may have made less errors than any other winner of a WC Match against an opponent who made less errors than any other loser of a WC Match, which if verified would make this match a gold standard for WC matches. Adding to his unbeatable mystique was the fact that Capablanca played incredibly fast, and was regarded by all his colleagues as invincible in rapid and blitz games.

According to computer analysis Capa played the most error-free chess ever in history, probably the closest a human being has ever come to playing like a computer. If computers were self-aware they would undoubtedly choose the 1916-1924 Capablanca as the strongest player humanity has ever produced.

Jose Raul Capablanca vs. Emanuel Lasker 6 - 2 (plus 16 draws)

Jose Raul Capablanca vs. Alexander Alekhine 9 - 7 (plus 33 draws)

Jose Raul Capablanca vs. Max Euwe 4 - 1 (plus 13 draws)

Jose Raul Capablanca vs. Mikhail Botvinnik 1 - 1 (plus 5 draws)

I would also add to this collection:

1. The often neglected classical games that Capablanca played with the top masters of Europe in his European tours of 1913 - 1914, including some of the mini-matches mentioned above. These were played under classical time controls. Even a brief perusal shows that Capablanca demonstrated some of the best chess of his life in these games, and that he and his opponents, the top masters of Europe, gave these games their best efforts.

2. Nearly unbelievable seminal games wherein Capablanca plays middlegame structures of the Modern Benoni, KID, Benko Gambit, Sicilian Scheveningen strategically perfectly. How in the world was Capablanca able to create textbook perfect examples of how these openings should strategically be played at a time when they did not exist?

3. Two games against Corzo I would never believe that a 12 to 13 year old could play with such excellence and with such quickness, if it was not documented as so.