Saturday, October 09, 2004

The Capablanca Club

It is well known that Capa lost the least number of games (and the smallest percentage of games played) of any grandmaster, with only 35* losses (23 with Black and 12 with White) over the course of a professional career spanning 30 years and approximately 700 official games. The list of players who defeated Capablanca as an adult (not counting his numerous simultaneous exhibits, of course) numbers 26 . . .

Seven wins
Alexander Alekhine - 1927 Match Games #1,11,12,21,32,34 and AVRO 1938

Two wins
Frank Marshall - 1909 Match Game #7 and Habana 1913
Emmanuel Lasker - Saint Petersburg 1914 and Moscow 1935
Richard Spielmann - Bad Kissingen 1928 and Carlsbad 1929

One win
Roy Black - New York 1911
Akiba Rubenstein - San Sebastian 1911
Charles Jaffe - New York 1913 (**)
David Janowsky - Habana 1913
Arnold Aurbach - 1913 Match Game #1
Eugene Znosko-Borovsky - 1913 Match Game #2
Siegbert Tarrasch - Saint Petersburg 1914
Oscar Chajes - New York 1916
Richard Reti - New York 1924
Alexander Ilyin-Zhenevsky - Moscow 1925
Boris Verlinsky - Moscow 1925
Friedrich Saemisch - Carlsbad 1929
Mir Sultan-Khan - Hasting 1930
George Thomas - Hastings 1934
Andre Lilienthal - Hastings 1934
Nikolai Riumin - Moscow 1935
Samuel Reshevsky - Margate 1935
Salo Flohr - Nottingham 1936
Erich Eliskases - Semmering Baden 1937
Paul Keres - AVRO 1938 (***)
Mikhail Botvinnik - AVRO 1938
Max Euwe - AVRO 1938

(*) The number is often given as 34 with Aurbach's 1913 exhibition match win excluded..

(**) Capablanca and Jaffe played a short informal match in New York in 1912. The first game (10/18/1912) was drawn, and Capablanca won game 2 (10/23/1912) and game 3 (11/9/1912). According to one source I found there was a fourth game that Jaffe won, but I have not been able to obtain a game score or even confirmation of this game's existence.

(***) Keres is the only player with a plus score against Capablanca over more than one game, +1 -0 =5.

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