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Alekhine vs Champions & Prodigies Decisive Games 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 ancient Title he bested all the world's chess masters for. The Challenger on the same climb to to take the same Title of yore. Alexander Alekhine has been the model for imaginative attacking and tactical play for generations of chessplayers. He has been inspirational to champion tacticians such as Tal, Spassky, and Kasparov. Contrary to popular conception, the brilliant Alekhine was probably at least a match for the rising youngsters of the 1930s. Alekhine got edged by Botvinnik (0 - 1) and Fine (2 - 3) by only one game. Alekhine in turn edged Reshevsky (2 - 1) by one game. One game differences are not conclusive. On the other hand Alekhine was crushing against Keres (5 to 1) and Flohr (5 to 0). Looking at the whole forest and not merely at the trees, Alekhine's integrated decisive games total against all the rising stars of the succeeding generation was a stunning 14 to 6. In particular there has been a popular notion that Botvinnik in the 1930s had already surpassed Alekhine in chess strength. The fact is that Botvinnik's 1930s match records against Flohr (+2 -2 =8 in 1933) and Levenfish (+5 -5 =3 in 1937) were just ties. There are no convincing data that Botvinnik would have fared better against Alekhine, who was dominating against both Flohr and Levenfish, had they played in a similar match in the 1930s. Hence, had Alekhine come in sober and as fanatically prepped as usual, he probably would have beaten any of the rising stars of the 1930s (Botvinnik, Keres, Fine, Reshevsky, Flohr) in a World Championship Match before WW2. It is scarcely known but Alekhine was the last Russian Empire Chess Champion in 1914 (together with Nimzovich) and the first Soviet Union Chess Champion in 1920. The Soviet school of chess may directly owe its well-known propensity for analysis and well prepared openings and novelties to Alekhine, who was known to study chess 8 hours a day, analyzing games and preparing opening novelties. Overshadowed in his early career by Lasker and Capablanca, Alekhine may well have been one of the most driven chess players to seek the World Title, already planning in advance for his match with Capablanca, whom he expected to become World Champion, as youngster before WW1 when Lasker still held the Title. Alekhine is also the best blindfold chess practitioner in history; some of his simultaneous blindfold feats almost defy belief not only for the mass of his games but for their quality as well. He had to have a photographic memory in order to accomplish this, which raises an interesting question. Given a chess master with a photographic memory, unequaled work ethic, fantastic combinative and creative powers, and given a computer and chess opening data base, what kind of opening monster would he have become if he were active today? I am also doubling this with all of Alekhine's decisive classical games against the World Champions. Alexander Alekhine vs. Emanuel Lasker 1 - 3 (plus 4 draws) Alexander Alekhine vs. Jose Raul Capablanca 7 - 9 (plus 33 draws) Alexander Alekhine vs. Max Euwe 26 - 20 (plus 38 draws) Alexander Alekhine vs. Mikhail Botvinnik 0 to 1, (plus 2 draws) 86 games, 1913-1942 Anand vs World Champs decisive games+Torre games Viswanathan Anand is a Tamil from Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India; and is the first Tamil, Indian, and Asian to become Chess World Champion. I regard him as the greatest natural talent that the chess world has produced since Capablanca. When in the zone, some chess players may experience a rare phenomenon. They see a chess game's variations as rapidly moving pictures flashing in and out of their mind's eye. When this occurs, you do not analyze in the traditional step by step manner: I move this, he moves that, in an iterative process. Instead, chess positions appear and disappear in your mind's eye very quickly. You stop analyzing as much as simply viewing these potential positions. Playing the game then becomes a matter of choosing which of these positions you go into. I believe that this phenomenon has occurred to most chess players, but it does not happen all the time, or only rarely. However for chess players like Capablanca, and before him I believe Morphy, it occurred nearly all the time. This explains the rapidity in which they could hack their way through the weirdest and most bizarre middlegame complications with hardly an error. Anand I believe has this rare ability to a degree better than any one else active today. It is a gift that cannot be taught. It's the reason why in crucial rapid tourneys, when he is motivated he has been able to impose his game on other players. It's the main reason IMO why he is so good in calculating variations in the middlegame. This game collection includes Anand vs World Champions decisive games and vs Asian GMs. Viswanathan Anand tied Vasily Smyslov 0 to 0, with 2 draws Viswanathan Anand beat Mikhail Tal 1 to 0, with 0 draw Viswanathan Anand beat Boris Spassky 1 to 0, with 1 draw Viswanathan Anand beat Anatoli Karpov 8 to 5, with 18 draws Garry Kasparov beat Viswanathan Anand 16 to 6, with 32 draws Viswanathan Anand beat Vladimir Kramnik 9 to 8, with 67 draws I am trying to find Anand games vs Asian GMs, but the data base seems incomplete during his early years when he was still active in the Asian circuit. After 1990, we see Anand playing mostly in the European circuit. I have doubled the above with Eugene Torre's games from the 1974 Nice Olympiad (second best performance on board 1, right behind Anatoly Karpov), which made him the first Asian to obtain a GM title, and his 1982 Toluca Interzonal victory (shared first with Hungarian GM Lajos Portisch), which made him the first Asian to get to the Candidates. Eugenio Torre hails from Iloilo, Western Visayas, Philippines; and is the first Ilonggo, Visayan, Filipino, and Asian to become a Chess Grandmaster and a Candidate for the World Championship Title. He also now holds the world record in number of Chess Olympiad appearances- 21 times! I have also placed in GM Torre's decisive games against the World Champions. Torre vs Smyslov (+1 -2 =1) 1.5/4 Torre vs Tal (+1 -0 = 3) 2.5/4 Torre vs Petrosian (+0 -0 = 4) 2/4 Torre vs Spassky (+0 -1 =3) 1.5/4 Torre vs Karpov (+2 -4 =6) 5/12 Torre vs Kasparov(+0 -3 +1) 0.5/4 Torre vs Anand (+1 -2 =2) 2/5 111 games, 1973-2011 Capablanca vs the World Champions Decisive Games 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 ancient Title he bested all the world's chess masters for. The Challenger on the same climb to to take the same Title of yore. 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 or Kasparov 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. 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) and a whitewash of Kostic (+5 -0 =0, 1919). 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. In their only matches against Capablanca, World Champions Lasker and Euwe could not win a single game (Capa winning +4 -0 =10 and +2 -0 =8 respectively). 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. The most naturally gifted chessplayer of all time, and deservingly nicknamed "the chess machine" for his quickly played and flowingly impeccable games, the lucidity of his technique probably makes him the most ideal World Champion for beginners to study and has inspired later generations of Champions such as Fischer, Petrosian, Karpov, Kramnik, and Anand, whose styles all bear a similarity to Capa's. Unfortunately, Capablanca was also saddled with inherent laziness and familial hypertension; otherwise, there is little doubt that he could have attained greater heights for a longer period of time. 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. 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) Since I am limited to only 8 game collections, I am doubling this with 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. 47 games, 1913-1938 Euwe vs. the World Champions Decisive Games 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 ancient Title he bested all the world's chess masters for. The Challenger on the same climb to to take the same Title of yore. Max Euwe had the worst over-all lifetime score against his fellow World Champions, although he worked hard for and fully deserved his Title. At a time when, after everything has been said and done, it was the reigning World Champion that determined his Challenger, Euwe sportingly accepted Alekhine's re-match challenge as he had pledged before the first match. Unknown to most chess fans, Euwe has tied lifetime scores against Botvinnik and Fischer. Later, he was the best model President that FIDE ever had. Max Euwe vs. Emanuel Lasker 0 - 3 (no draws) Max Euwe vs. Jose Raul Capablanca 1 - 4 (plus 13 draws) Max Euwe vs. Alexander Alekhine 20 - 26 (plus 38 draws) Max Euwe vs. Mikhail Botvinnik 2 - 2 (plus 8 draws) Max Euwe vs. Vasily Smyslov 1- 7 (no draws) Max Euwe vs. Tigran Vartanovich Petrosian 0 - 1 (plus 1 draw) Max Euwe vs. Robert James Fischer 1 - 1 (plus 1 draw) 69 games, 1921-1960 Fischer vs the World Champions Decisive Games 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 ancient Title he bested all the world's chess masters for. The Challenger on the same climb to to take the same Title of yore. Bobby Fischer in general had good scores against his fellow World Champions. Only Tal had a plus score against him; while Euwe and Botvinnik had tied scores. Fischer had plus scores against Smyslov, Petrosian, and Spassky. The most peculiar of all World Champions outside of chess for his adamant views on his own USA government, Russians, and Jews, Fischer also left a taint to his otherwise sterling competitive record by defaulting two matches that, after all is said and done, he probably doubted his ability to win - the unfinished 1961 Reshevsky Match and the would-be 1975 World Championship Match with Karpov - giving rise to more or less permanent notions among some chess pundits that he got scared and ran away. Over the chessboard Fischer developed a clear flowing style reminiscent of his favorite players Morphy and Capablanca, that could be relatively easy to study and understand but so extremely difficult to face that Fischer's opponents were often said to be hopelessly intimidated even at the start of each game. In his prime in 1970 to 1972, Fischer totally dominated the chessworld as no other player ever has, before or since. His incredible 19 straight victories in the Interzonals - Candidates matches of 1970 to 1971, including a wipe-out of two Candidates matches (Taimanov 6 - 0 and Larsen 6 - 0) was such a massive crush of the world's top players that it would have been unbelievable, save that it actually happened. Robert James Fischer tied Max Euwe 1 to 1, with 1 draw Robert James Fischer tied Mikhail Botvinnik 0 to 0, with 1 draw Robert James Fischer beat Vasily Smyslov 3 to 1, with 5 draws Mikhail Tal beat Robert James Fischer 4 to 2, with 5 draws Fischer beat Tigran Vartanovich Petrosian 8 to 4, with 15 draws Robert James Fischer beat Boris Spassky 17 to 11, with 28 draws 52 games, 1957-1992 Karpov vs. the World Champions Decisive Games 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 ancient Title he bested all the world's chess masters for. The Challenger on the same climb to to take the same Title of yore. Anatoli Karpov, one of the greatest of World Champions in chess history, has played all the post WW2 World Champions at least a dozen times each in serious classical games except for Fischer and Botvinnik. Karpov holds the unique distinction of having played the most games against the most World Champions. He has negative scores against Kasparov and Anand; tied scores with Petrosian and Kramnik; positive scores against Smyslov, Tal, and was massively dominating against Spassky, who once complained that he could not fathom Karpov's style. During his heyday from 1974 to 1984, Karpov so totally dominated the chessworld that tournaments that he joined essentially became fights for second place, as it was almost a foregone conclusion that he would win first even before the start. Karpov claims that the first player that he seriously studied was Capablanca, yet many fans see in his prophylactic style a kind of more active and aggressive Petrosian. Karpov won the Title by default from a Fischer who would not play him in 1975, and lost it to Kasparov in their second match in 1985. In their fourth match in 1987, Karpov nearly won the Title back, but lost in the very last game. Had Karpov drew or won that last game, Kasparov's superiority over him would not have been that clearly demonstrated. In the tradition of Lasker, Botvinnik, Smyslov, and the Almost World Champion Korchnoi, Karpov played world class chess until he was 50, and until 1999, he arguably might still have had reasonable chances of beating anybody in a World Championship Match except Kasparov. Anatoli Karpov beat Vasily Smyslov 3 to 1, with 10 draws Anatoli Karpov beat Mikhail Tal 1 to 0, with 19 draws Anatoli Karpov tied Tigran Vartanovich Petrosian 1 to 1, with 12 draws Anatoli Karpov beat Boris Spassky 14 to 1, with 21 draws Garry Kasparov beat Anatoli Karpov 28 to 20, with 117 draws Anatoli Karpov tied Vladimir Kramnik 2 to 2, with 9 draws Viswanathan Anand beat Anatoli Karpov 8 to 5, with 18 draws 86 games, 1971-2003 Kramnik on a King Hunt & vs the World Champions 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 ancient Title he bested all the world's chess masters for. The Challenger on the same climb to to take the same Title of yore. The supposedly dull and dry former World Champion embarks on a King Hunt in piece-laden middle games, winning by flushing the hostile King to the center, to the other side of the board, to the middle ranks; or trapping it on the edge or corner. Unrecognized by many chess fans, Kramnik has produced some of the most brilliant tactical games in chess history. I am doubling this with a Kramnik vs. the World Champions Decisive Games collection. 102 games, 1984-2012 Lasker vs the World Champions Decisive Games 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 ancient Title he bested all the world's chess masters for. The Challenger on the same climb to to take the same Title of yore. Emanuel Lasker was the first chessplayer to play at super GM level. Lasker belonged to the first generation of masters who all throughout their careers played in competitive tournaments in the presence of the newly invented chess clock, which seems to have standardized what could have been rather messy and irregular past tournament conditions and so allowed the rise of the super GM caliber chessplayer. His middlegames were at least at par with present-day super GMs, and his endgames were better than most. Given that the human genome and the brain it blueprints, and chess rules, the chess clock, and time controls remain very similar, it would follow that the human brain limits the human ability to play classical chess. Increasing the number of human chess players, thus expanding the normal curve of players, simply creates a larger probability of players playing at the brain's limit, but will not create a mental superman who plays chess at computer levels; there would always be a sudden limit seen as a drop on the right side of the normal curve. Players who do play close to this limit, assuming they occur at a very low proportion of the chess-playing population, say one out of hundreds of millions, would tend to be rarities in each generation or not exist at all, and they would all play at a similar level close to this limit. Lasker was the first. This explains why human and computer analysis indicate that Lasker at his prime was playing on a qualitatively similar level as more recent dominant World Champions who during some periods of their career played close to this limit, or as well as a human being could. Lasker totally demolished the first official Titleholder Wilhelm Steinitz, who may have played significantly below super GM level. IMO Emanuel Lasker was the real founder of modern dynamics-oriented chess; and like modern super GMs knew exactly when it was advantageous to trade material and static advantages for dynamic play and piece activity. World Champion for a record 27 years, he definitively relinquished his Title in 1921 to Capablanca in what could be the most error-free and well-played World Championship match in all of chess history. Until he was in his mid fifties Lasker played World Championship caliber chess; until 1924 he was still regarded as the second best chessplayer in the world. Emanuel Lasker vs. Wilhelm Steinitz 26 - 8 (plus 12 draws) Emanuel Lasker vs. Jose Raul Capablanca 2 - 6 (plus 16 draws) Emanuel Lasker vs. Alexander Alekhine 3 - 1 (plus 4 draws) Emanuel Lasker vs. Max Euwe 3 - 0 (no draws) Emanuel Lasker vs. Mikhail Botvinnik 0 - 1 (plus 3 draws) 50 games, 1894-1936