The Weekly Show: A Capablanca classic

by Lawrence Trent
4/7/2020 – In his weekly show IM Lawrence Trent takes a look at a classic and analyses a typical and typically instructive win by Capablanca. | Lawrence is on air from 16:00 UTC (18:00 CEST, 12 Noon EDT) and free for a limited time, or forever on-demand with a ChessBase Basic Account. You can always register a free 90-day account to watch.
He was a child prodigy and he is surrounded by legends. In his best times he was considered to be unbeatable and by many he was reckoned to be the greatest chess talent of all time: Jose Raul Capablanca, born 1888 in Havana.

A beautiful squeeze

José Raúl Capablanca, World Champion from 1921 to 1927, is famous for his solid play (in his entire career he played 578 official tournament and match games and lost only 36(!) of them) and his seemingly simple but powerful positional chess. In today's how we will take a look at a beautiful positional squeeze by the Cuban genius: his win against Viacheslav Ragozin from the 6th round of the Moscow International Tournament 1935.

But to level things out, here's a position in which things went better for Ragozin: White has had the best of things so far, but is there a concrete way to convert the advantage?

 
Ragozin-Menchik, Moscow International 1935
Position after 25...Re8

Try your moves!

This week's show

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MoveNResultEloPlayers
1.e41,165,57054%2421---
1.d4946,47455%2434---
1.Nf3281,31256%2441---
1.c4181,93756%2442---
1.g319,68856%2427---
1.b314,23654%2427---
1.f45,88648%2377---
1.Nc33,79651%2384---
1.b41,75348%2380---
1.a31,19754%2403---
1.e31,06848%2408---
1.d394850%2378---
1.g466246%2361---
1.h444653%2374---
1.c342651%2425---
1.h327956%2416---
1.a410860%2468---
1.f39147%2431---
1.Nh38966%2508---
1.Na34262%2482---
1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.a3 Bxc3+ 5.bxc3 d6 6.Qc2 0-0 7.e4 e5 8.Bd3 c5 9.Ne2 Nc6 10.d5 Ne7 11.f3 Nd7 12.h4 Nb6 13.g4 f6 14.Ng3 Kf7 15.g5 Ng8 16.f4 Ke8 17.f5 Qe7 18.Qg2 Kd8 19.Nh5 Kc7 20.gxf6 gxf6 21.Ng7 Bd7 22.h5 Rac8 23.h6 Kb8 24.Rg1 Rf7 25.Rb1 Qf8 26.Be2 Ka8 27.Bh5 Re7 28.Qa2 Qd8 29.Bd2 Na4 30.Qb3 Nb6 31.a4 Rb8 32.a5 Nc8 33.Qa2 Qf8 34.Be3 b6 35.a6 Qd8 36.Kd2 Qf8 37.Rb2 Qd8 38.Qb1 b5 39.cxb5 Nb6 40.Qa2 c4 41.Qa3 Qc7 42.Kc1 Rf8 43.Rbg2 Qb8 44.Qb4 Rd8 45.Rg3 Rf8 46.Ne6 Bxe6 47.dxe6 Rc7 48.Qxd6 Ne7 49.Rd1 1–0
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WhiteEloWBlackEloBResYearECOEventRnd
Capablanca,J-Ragozin,V-1–01935E32Moscow International-026

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Read a review of Trent's previous FritzTrainer on the "Bombastic Bird's Opening"!

Welcome to the Bombastic Bird's, a revolutionary repertoire for one of the most enterprising and underrated openings in chess theory (1.f4). In this series, IM Lawrence Trent uncovers a number of groundbreaking theoretical novelties and new ideas that will soon have scorners of this romantic system regretting they ever doubted its soundness.

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Born in 1986, Lawrence Trent is an international master, who has represented England in numerous international youth championships (including a 7th place in the U18 WCh in 2003). The Londoner, who has a degree in Romance languages, already has a lot of experience as a trainer. Trent has recorded several DVDs for ChessBase.

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