Chessable: My Great Predecessors (part 1)

% BOOKTITLE = My Great Predecessors (part 1) [Event ?]

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[White About this Publication]

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[Annotator Garry Kasparov]

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[EventDate 1952.??.??]

[SourceDate 2012.10.05]

{The battle for the World Chess Championship has witnessed numerous titanic struggles which have engaged the interest not only of chess enthusiasts but also of the public at large. The chessboard is the ultimate mental battleground and the world champions themselves are supreme intellectual gladiators. These magnificent compilations of chess form the basis of the first two parts of Garry Kasparovs definitive history of the World Chess Championship. Garry Kasparov, who is universally acclaimed as the greatest chessplayer ever, subjects the play of his predecessors to a rigorous analysis.

} 1. {Part one features the play of champions Wilhelm Steinitz (1886-1894), Emanuel Lasker (1894-1921), Jose Capablanca (1921-1927) and Alexander Alekhine (1927-1935 and 1937-1946).} (1. {Garry Kasparov is generally regarded as the greatest chess player ever. He was the thirteenth World Champion, holding the title between 1985 and 2000. His tournament record is second to none, featuring numerous wins in the worlds major events, often by substantial margins. As well as his outstanding successes, Kasparov has constantly promoted the game; he has done more than anyone to popularize chess in modern times.}) *

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[Annotator Garry Kasparov]

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[EventDate 2009.12.10]

[SourceDate 2013.01.12]

{The Champions as Symbols of their Time: For quite some time I have been wanting to write a book on the new and modern history of chess. And moreover, deviating from the traditional approach, to demonstrate the continuous progress of the game through the play of the world champions. Since it is this elite group of super-stars (only 14 in 117 years!) that has made the greatest contribution to chess: to win the supreme title, they had to overcome the best of the best, discover something new, and catch highly experienced and talented opponents unawares. According to official legend, a slow war game not unlike chess originated nearly two thousand years ago in India, and, undergoing slight changes, made the endlessly long journey through the south of Central Asia, Persia and the Arab countries of the Middle East, to the Iberian Peninsula. However, the Indian version of the origin of chess became known to Europeans only at the end of the 17th century. Only one thing can he stated with certainty: modern chess originated in the 15th century on the Mediterranean. And this is already a purely European invention - an intellectual game, modelling psychological warfare. The best chess masters of every epoch have been closely linked with the values of the society in which they lived and worked. All the changes of a cultural, political and psychological background are reflected in the style and ideas of their play.

This deep connection can be traced back a long time. Was it not logical that, in the era of the Renaissance, in the 15th-17th centuries, chess developed most rapidly in Spain and Italy? Was it an accident that the first maestro, who tried to create a theory of positional play, lived in the epoch of the Enlightenment and of the philosophy of rationalism - the great Franois-Andr Philidor (incidentally, a well-known composer and a friend of Diderot)? And remember the slogan that he proclaimed in the middle of the 18th century

The pawns are the soul of chess! Do we not hear in this echoes of the coming Great French Revolution?} 1. {Later, in the first half of the 19th century, in full accordance with geopolitical reality, chess was the arena for battles between the best players from England and France: McDonnell-La Bourdonnais, Staunton-Saint-Amant In the middle of the century the outstanding chess romantic Adolf Anderssen was the leading player. His style was that of reckless attacks on the king, with mind-boggling sacrifices, personifying the triumph of mind over matter (fully typical of an educated German, and not alien to the ideas of Hegel and Schopenhauer). We also remember the brilliant flight of the American super-genius Paul Morphy, who in a couple of years (1857-59) conquered both the New and the Old Worlds. He revealed a thunderous blend of pragmatism, aggression and accurate calculation to the world - qualities that enabled America to accomplish a powerful spurt in the second half of the 19th century. The London international tournament of 1883 intrigued the public: who was in fact the stronger - Wilhelm Steinitz or Johann Hermann Zukertort? And in 1886 (only after Morphys death!) they finally met in an official match for the title Champion of the World. That was how this title arose - the result of public recognition of the result of a match between the two strongest players on the planet. Running through the fourteen champions of the world, we again observe an inseparable link between chess and social surroundings.} (1. {Wilhelm Steinitz (world champion 1886-1894): Steinitz effectively dominated chess from the early 1870s. He was an ardent follower of the scientific method, which could, in his opinion, provide the key to the solving of any problems arising on the chessboard. He was the first to divide a position into its component elements, to pick out its most important factors, and to state the general principles of strategy.

This was a great discovery, a turning point in chess history! But in practice Steinitz often overestimated the importance of the theory of positional play he had created, and relied excessively on abstract principles. Well, he was a true child of his materialistic time, when there prevailed a nave belief in the omnipotence of science and in the inevitability that soon all natural processes would be completely understood.}) (1. {Emanuel Lasker (world champion 1894-1921): A native of Germany, a Doctor of philosophy and mathematics, Lasker was the first, and at that time the only player to appreciate the importance of psychological factors. While being an excellent tactician and strategist, at the same time he realised that the art of exploiting the opponents deficiencies was sometimes far more important than the ability to make the most correct moves. A deep knowledge of human psychology and an understanding of the relative value of chess strategy helped him to win almost all the events in which he competed, and to retain the title of champion for 27 long years. An absolute record! And who at that time were the masters of thinking? Of course, Einstein and Freud! As they say, commentary is superfluous}) (1. {Jos Ral Capablanca (world champion 1921-1927): The chess machine - this was what the Cuban genius was called, on account of the purity of his playing style. A favourite with the public, he was a person of refined manners and a man of the world. The great Capa crushed his opponents in an apparently offhand manner, with exquisite ease and elegance. Also attractive was the fact that he gained his brilliant victories apparently without any serious preparatory work on chess. But now remember that time - the years of hope and optimism, when the world was enjoying the peace and quiet after the horrors of the First World War. It was at that time that the global export of American cultural values began - from literary bestsellers to Hollywood productions. Stories involving successful heroes, with dazzling smiles and invariable happy endings, healed the wounds of the recent war. And Capa, a successful socialite and a spoilt child of fortune, corresponded excellently with the spirit of the times.}) (1. {Alexander Alekhine (world champion 1927-1935, 1937-1946): The product of a rich noble family - and at the same time the first champion of Soviet Russia! Even before this he had known much sorrow in the hard times of war and revolution. Then came emigration to France, the diploma of Doctor of Law, the grandiose battle with Capablanca, years of travelling, victories and defeats, the Second World War, tournaments in occupied Europe, then accusations of collaboration with the Nazis and the threat of disqualification Alekhines style was the embodiment of psychological aggression. Enormous preparatory work, explosive energy at the board, and a maniacal striving to finish off the opponent, together with rich combinative imagination. All this amazingly resembles the devastating wars that shook Europe in the first half of the 20th century.