Botvinnik-Capablanca (Moscow 1936)

Submitted by RookHouse on Sun, 01/25/2009 at 9:18am.

The third Moscow international chess tournament in 1936 had an impressive field of participants, including two former world champions (Jose Raul Capablanca, Emanuel Lasker) and one future world champion (Mikhail Botvinnik). The tournament took place at the Hall of Columns in Moscow, Russia from May 14th to June 8th, 1936.

The solid mix of Western and Soviet competitors were to play a double round-robin, consisting of eighteen total games. Capablanca, nine years removed from being the world champion, was alone in first place at the halfway mark. A point and a half behind him were Botvinnik, Lasker, and Viacheslav Ragozin. The only player to keep within reasonable distance of the leader was Botvinnik, but he eventually finished a full point behind the tournament champion, Capablanca.

The tournament book was written by one of the participants, Gregory Levenfish and later translated to English by Jimmy Adams. Copies of the book are available HERE at Labate Chess, and feel free to mention the “Rook House” name to get an additional 10-15% off.

Lastly, the seventh round game between Capablanca and Botvinnik was an instant classic and is shown below. Enjoy.

For more chess history, visit www.rookhouse.com/blog

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| 1657 reads | 14 comments |

2 votes:

Comments:

by jcapuano21 - 9 months ago
new york United States

Member Since: Jan 2009
Member Points: 1

Impressive.

by razorblade12 - 9 months ago
Herefordshire United Kingdom

Member Since: Dec 2008
Member Points: 801

white should have exchanged queens, black would have to take queen.

then white should play b7 and white has a queen cause the king can only stop one of the pawns

by robert63 - 9 months ago
Scotland

Member Since: Aug 2007
Member Points: 51

Thank you. Enjoyed that game.

by chawil - 9 months ago
Lowestoft, Suffolk United Kingdom

Member Since: Dec 2007
Member Points: 445

Good game, thanks for posting it.

by FischerBat - 9 months ago
Baton Rouge United States

Member Since: Jun 2008
Member Points: 48

According to Chessmetrics.com, in May 1936 Botvinnik's performance level was 2719 (5th in world at that time) and Capablanca's was 2689 (7th in the world at that time).