One thing is to acquire a strong initiative ... and another thing is to say "missed a win!"

<Unfortunately, the CD features an 'analysis' of Alekhine's play and of his writings. All you have to do is read the 'Table of Contents' (a sort of summary of 23 Alekhine games) to see how harshly and negatively Huebner assesses both. For the record, I also looked carefully at several of the heavily-annotated games, which are in the same unimaginative spirit but more boring. Anyway, in Huebner's view of the world, Alekhine had terrible weaknesses in every single aspect of the game, including technical and psychological ones. Here's his entire summary of Alekhine's play and annotation in Game#2: 'Ruining the pawn structure-materialism; underestimating the active counterplay of the opponent-strategic deficiencies in the opening; bad positional judgment-defensive possibilities of the opponent are not exhaustively scrutinized -lack of criticism towards the own conduct of the attack.' [apparently Huebner the linguist didn't check the English translation for grammatical errors, which are frequent; I've corrected some of the spelling]. Or Game#6: 'Overestimating the initiative, underestimating defensive possibilities; this brings about a wrong picture of the course of the game-self-propaganda-lack of criticism towards the own play-materialism-lack of immersion in concrete, tactical defensive possibilities-strategical deficiencies-harmful brilliance-lack of positional judgement and lack of the will to thorough research in the endgame, maybe due to a fear of unpleasant discoveries.' Needless to say, Alekhine won both of these games in very nice style. Many of these 23 analyses are distorted in a negative direction, apparently by Huebner's egotistical point of view. In the very first example (#1), he gives a one-move snippet from a game Alekhine-Romanovsky, St Petersburg 1909. Alekhine gets a '?' for that move, a pawn sacrifice, and Huebner launches into a typically extended analysis of his own suggested alternative, after which he has Black playing provocatively and eventually coming out clearly worse (one analysis goes for 18 moves). Huebner concludes: 'Alekhine's optimism in regard to his attacking chances is really amazing. Throughout his life he did not lose such an excessive faith in his own tactical opportunities.' But two moves into the analysis, Huebner ignores several attractive (and I think good) alternatives if Black doesn't play so riskily, blithely providing only a single line in which Black commits suicide. Alekhine's move, moreover, is extremely creative, if eventually proven to be bad; one would never know that in the full game (annotated in the database and not even given a link!), it takes a very difficult sequence to ultimately turn the game against him. Regarding Alekhine's annotations, one might do well to remember that he was first and foremost a player. Although he enjoyed writing about chess and improved his play thereby, I'm sure that the sort of obsessive immersion that would have been required to match the grindings of Fritz, with psychoanalytic sessions on the side, would not have benefited either his health or his play. His writings do, however, reflect the imaginative nature of the struggle, which is why so many generations have enjoyed them. A few more snippets about Alekhine from Huebner (sorry, but this is sort of fun): 'gross tactical inaccuracy during liquidation-sloppy calculation-underestimating the defence', 'strategical misjudgments; overestimating the own possibilities (blatantly)-a lot of mistakes in detail-bad technique in a won position', ' strategical deficiencies of the highest order in the opening and in the middlegame', 'lack of strategical understanding-ruining the own pawn structure-inappropriate play for the attack; impatience-premature breakdown', ' playing for traps; addiction to combinations-lack of interest and feeling for positional subtleties; impatience-destruction of the own pawn structure-overestimating the initiative-lack of precision in calculating variations-tirelessness-unperturbed by changes of fortune', ' -sloppiness-chess blindness.' Again, the above quotes refer mostly to victories, e.g., over Nimzowitsch, Bernstein, and Mieses. A funny question to ponder is whether Alekhine's rating would have gone up or down after thorough tutoring by Huebner-my guess is the latter. Certainly down if one believes in positive feedback: In the 23 games considered in this 'Table of Contents', I count only 4 or perhaps 5 positive comments, 3 of them in one sentence!>

1) -1.15 (25 ply) 10...Qb3 11.Bxg7 Rg8 12.Be5 Nd7 13.Bg3 Nb6 14.e4 Bxe4 15.Be2 Bxg2 16.Bd1 Bxc3 17.bxc3 Qd5 18.Rg1 Bf3 19.Qd3 Bxd1 20.Kxd1 Rg6 21.Ke2 Nc4 22.Qf3 O-O-O 23.Rgd1 f6 24.Rab1 Nb6 25.Qxd5 cxd5 26.f3

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Stockfish_19070114_x64_modern:

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Stockfish_19070114_x64_modern:

"Nature of the struggle, which is why so many generations have enjoyed them. A few more snippets about Alekhine from Huebner (sorry, but this is sort of fun): 'gross tactical inaccuracy during liquidation-sloppy calculation-underestimating the defence', 'strategical misjudgments; overestimating the own possibilities (blatantly)-a lot of mistakes in detail-bad technique in a won position', ' strategical deficiencies of the highest order in the opening and in the middlegame', 'lack of strategical understanding-ruining the own pawn structure-inappropriate play for the attack; impatience-premature breakdown', ' playing for traps; addiction to combinations-lack of interest and feeling for positional subtleties; impatience-destruction of the own pawn structure-overestimating the initiative-lack of precision in calculating variations-tirelessness-unperturbed by changes of fortune', ' -sloppiness-chess blindness.' "

It makes it seems as if attacking players are to be derided. Fact is you can be way down in material but checkmate ends the game. There is the notion of "Independence" of material which Huebner clearly doesn't appreciate it much. But the fact is "Checkmate ends the game". So so what about " impatience-destruction of the own pawn structure"

Some of Fischer's most brilliant wins were with Isolated Queen pawn situations for the dynamics of the pieces to be maximised. Checkmate ends the game.

As for "playing for traps; addiction to combinations-lack of interest and feeling for positional subtleties;" - well people like drama and combinations - and CG certainly appreciates the puzzles for Alekhine games.