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| Jun-25-10 | | LIFE Master AJ: <<Jun-24-10> <<paladin at large>: Capa was rusty in 1935, not having played serious chess since 1931. <He was remotivated to play, having met Olga, whom he wished to marry.> In 1936, he had the best record of anyone.>> I was curious after reading the above.
So I went to the following website. (http://db.chessmetrics.com/) In February of 1935, (http://db.chessmetrics.com/CM2/Sing...); Capa was rated 2629 and was ranked # 18 in the world. In January of 1937, (http://db.chessmetrics.com/CM2/Sing...); Capa is rated a whopping 2751, and is second ONLY to Botvinnik ... and there only by a few measley points. Then I went to my excellent program, CHESSBASE 10.0. I pulled up Capa's ID card. On it is a button to generate a "dossier" for that player, so I pressed it. I thumbed through the results. It seems that in that year (that paladin mentioned) Capa won MOSCOW 1936. CLEAR First! (13 points from a possible 18.) Botvinnik finished second. <(By the way, Capa did not lose a single game!!)> Now many of you may not know this. But for about 100 years, MOST serious chess historians considered Nottingham, 1936 ... to be simply the strongest tournament ever held!!!!! Capa tied for first with Botvinnik, he lost only one game ... to the ever powerful Salo Flohr. (And the tie-breaks seem to indicate that Capa finished ahead of Botvinnik.) So - I would say that the facts support paladin's statement. |
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| Sep-10-10 | | Lil Swine: the reason no one really cares about this game is because it just seems immortal, but after all these sacrifices he gets his material all back, and also, there were a number of more famous people who also beat capa, so everyone likes to see the ones by fischer or alekhine |
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Sep-10-10
 | | Shams: <But for about 100 years, MOST serious chess historians considered Nottingham, 1936 ... to be simply the strongest tournament ever held> When did public perception change? Must have been around 2040. ;) |
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| Sep-11-10 | | LIFE Master AJ: <When did public perception change?> Probably a few of Garry Kasparov's tournaments would be stronger ... |
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| Sep-11-10 | | LIFE Master AJ: Some guys open their mouths, and pearls of wisdom flow out. Others ... http://www.ajschess.com/lifemastera... And) This page does not even consider many of the tournaments played in the last five years ... According to several mathematicians, statisticians, and several chess historians, (right now); the strongest tournament ever held was Linares (#11) of 1993. Like Category 27 or 28, it was won by Garry with the PHENOM score of 10/13. (An inhuman PR.) There are (NOW) about five tournaments that are considered stronger than Nottingham. The WC tournament - a few years ago - won by Topalov ... would also have to be considered stronger than Nottingham. |
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| Sep-11-10 | | LIFE Master AJ: And this is not just me talking.
Soltis, Sonas, Winter ... (I could give about 10 more, but it would be overkill.) but what the heck, you probably don't even know who these guys are either ... |
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Sep-11-10
| | Shams: Don't tell me you missed the joke. |
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| Sep-11-10 | | LIFE Master AJ: You joked, I was using dry sarcasm ... |
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Sep-11-10
| | Shams: Don't ever change, AJ. |
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Sep-11-10
 | | Marmot PFL: How much of the change is actual strength, and how much rating inflation? I can't see much difference at the top, but the bottom players today seem better than those from older events. |
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Sep-11-10
 | | Eric Schiller: Part of the change is that rabbits are extinct. Used to be that every tournament had a weak local player serving as cannon fodder. You could count on them being hunted down with fine attacks and combinations. But then organizers got obsessed with "category" and stopped inviting them. Too bad. Being a rabbit was not terrible, as your expectation was to lose almost every game. I was a rabbit at Peterborough 1986 but got 2.5/9 including a draw with GM Speelman! In fact, I like being the lowest rated in an event. At Reykjavik 1986, an event filled with GMs, I was #74 out of 74 (I was supposed to be an arbiter, but they wanted an even number of players) and finished tied for 28th, ahead of some GMs and basically earned my FM rating. I had lots of interesting games and got to go over them with Mikhail Tal!! You can see those games on my profile page. |
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| Sep-12-10 | | LIFE Master AJ: Good job, Eric!
BTW, you are right about "rabbits." Todays <SUPER-Tournaments> have no low category players at all. |
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| Sep-12-10 | | LIFE Master AJ: <Sep-11-10 Shams: Don't ever change, AJ.> Since I consider myself a good person ... I'll take that as a compliment! :) |
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Sep-12-10
 | | Phony Benoni: Just thinking. Outside of Candidates events, did Fischer ever play in what we would consider today a "Super" tournament, without rabbits? The closest I can think of was Santa Monica 1966 (Second Piatigorsky Cup), but even that had players like Donner and Panno who were strong GMs, but not of the top class. |
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| Sep-12-10 | | LIFE Master AJ: Big difference between Panno ... and Donner. |
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Sep-12-10
| | Phony Benoni: No doublt about that. But I shouldn't rely on what's left of my memory. Panno played in the 1st Piatigorsky Cup in 1963, but not 1966. The players at Santa Monica were: Donner
Fischer
Ivkov
Larsen
Najdorf
Petrosian
Portisch
Reshevsky
Spassky
Unzicker
Fischer, Larsen, Petrosian, Portisch, Spassky were elite players at the time; Reshevsky and Najdorf past their prime, but what primes!; Ivkov and Unzicker maybe just a bit short of the top. And Donner. |
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| Sep-12-10 | | LIFE Master AJ: Agreed.
And Reshevsky later tied for first at a U.S. Championship ... My last memory of Reshevsky was around 1990 or 1991 ... he was playing in a tournament. Some young upstart was dragging the game on forever, probably in the hope that Reshevksy would tire and lose ... Reshevsky has a hat on, a small sort of thing, like golfers in the 1930's wore ... I have his autograph in one of my books, I believe. |
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Sep-12-10
| | Phony Benoni: My close encounters with Reshevsky:
Bastrikov vs Shamkovich, 1958 |
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Sep-12-10
 | | keypusher: <Just thinking. Outside of Candidates events, did Fischer ever play in what we would consider today a "Super" tournament, without rabbits?> Even the candidates...I looked at Chessmetrics and saw that the 1959 event included Olafsson (#20) and Benko (#29). In 1962 Filip was #18 and Benko was #38. Of the ten players at Santa Monica, three were in the top 10. http://db.chessmetrics.com/CM2/Sing... Like Eric Schiller, I think the modern practice of having only elite players in supertournaments is kind of a shame. |
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Sep-12-10
| | Phony Benoni: <keypusher> Well, they did have seven of the top 20, and the rest of the top 10 were Soviet players; Fischer was the only outsider in that group. Though I'm sure the players wouldn't have minded staging the USSR Championship in Santa Monica, the organizers must have wanted more diversity. Najdorf's #12 at that stage surprises me. I wouldn't have thought him any stronger than Reshevsky, who was #27. Donner's #48 meant he was not a rabbit in the traditional sense. Portisch, Ivkov, and Spassky are the only players still with us. 45 years is a long time. |
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| Sep-13-10 | | LIFE Master AJ: Larsen passed away just a little while back ...
***sigh***
another chess legend has departed. |
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Feb-06-11
 | | Eduardo Bermudez: e.f6 !!!!!!!!!! |
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| Feb-12-11 | | LIFE Master AJ: http://www.ajschess.com/lifemastera... |
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| Jul-29-12 | | SeanAzarin: Capa's mistake was on the 19th move. If he plays 19... N/2xP, folowed by 20... O-O, he secures his position satisfactorily. Once he played 19... QxKP??? the K file opened up and the pins along it wiped him out in a hurry. |
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Jul-29-12
 | | perfidious: < SeanAzarin: Capa's mistake was on the 19th move. If he plays 19... N/2xP, folowed by 20... O-O, he secures his position satisfactorily....> This points up the need for White to keep the pressure on and not let his opponent settle. One idea which comes to mind off the top of my head is 20.Rad1. |
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sac: 20.exf6