While Capablanca was the master of endgames, Alekhine was a genius of opening to middle-game phase especially middle-game complications. While it is easy to say about an endgame expert that he is a real master of endgames, it is not that easy to say that about the endgame expertise of a middle-game expert as he wins before endgame arrives, rarely playing an equal or inferior endgame.Capablanca, in his book claims Alekhine to be a weak endgame player but this statement might have come out of personal rivalry. But one thing is sure that a combination of Capblanca and Alekhine can be a deadly one even for a present player. If someone plays opening to middle-game phase like Alekhine and also plans his endgame like Capa, he can even beat strongest software today (my personal guess).
But is it possible? Are the Capablanca system and Alekhine system compatible with each other? Will the opening to endgame advantage approach of Capablanca not interfere with middle-game strong attack approach of Alekhine? We will now break their approaches in elements and analyze this aspect.
While all the previous champions claimed that positional advantage can result in strong combinations, this aspect is most clearly visible in Alekhine's games. But then why Alekhine is claimed to be a combinational attacking player rather than a positional genius. It may be because Alekhine made adjustments in the positional principles of that time soothing to his attacking style.
Kasparov calls Alekhine "the pioneer of universal style of play". According to Kasparov's theory about Alekhine's success, chess has 3 components:
1. Material: Quite obvious
2. Time: More complicated but understandable like gain of tempo, passed pawn advance or attack on the king
3. Quality of Position: The least obvious strategic factor consisting of:
i) Pawn Structure
ii) Strong & Weak Squares
iii) Active & Passive pieces
iv) Two Bishops
v) Bad King
Only a master understands these factors fully. Alekhine linked these 3 factors intuitively in his play. He showed that sacrifice of material which was strictly regulated by the Steinitz school, is perfectly OK depending on position.
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But is it possible? Are the Capablanca system and Alekhine system compatible with each other? Will the opening to endgame advantage approach of Capablanca not interfere with middle-game strong attack approach of Alekhine? We will now break their approaches in elements and analyze this aspect.
While all the previous champions claimed that positional advantage can result in strong combinations, this aspect is most clearly visible in Alekhine's games. But then why Alekhine is claimed to be a combinational attacking player rather than a positional genius. It may be because Alekhine made adjustments in the positional principles of that time soothing to his attacking style.
Kasparov calls Alekhine "the pioneer of universal style of play". According to Kasparov's theory about Alekhine's success, chess has 3 components:
1. Material: Quite obvious
2. Time: More complicated but understandable like gain of tempo, passed pawn advance or attack on the king
3. Quality of Position: The least obvious strategic factor consisting of:
i) Pawn Structure
ii) Strong & Weak Squares
iii) Active & Passive pieces
iv) Two Bishops
v) Bad King
Only a master understands these factors fully. Alekhine linked these 3 factors intuitively in his play. He showed that sacrifice of material which was strictly regulated by the Steinitz school, is perfectly OK depending on position.
Euwe System
Main Page
