Botvinnik - Capablanca, AVRO 1938
One of my most beloved games of all time, played in one of the strongest tournaments of all time! Engine-perfect? How about picture-perfect :) The way that the sad bishop on b2 becomes the hero of the game is poetry to me, which is funny because Bb2 is really the only objectionable move by Botvinnik. And Capablanca's knight on the b3-outpost it invested so much time in turns out to be his downfall. Not to mention Black's near perpetual at the end...it's the cherry on top of a beautiful little story.
30.Ba3!! Qxa3 31.Nh5+ gxh5 32.Qg5+ Kf8 33.Qxf6+ Kg8 34.e7 Qc1+ 35.Kf2 Qc2+ 36.Kg3 Qd3+ 37.Kh4 Qe4+ 38.Kxh5 Qe2+ 39.Kh4 Qe4+ 40.g4 Qe1+ 41.Kh5 1-0
Some comments by Botvinnik, from page 94 of the Pergamon book Half a Century of Chess (Oxford, 1984) regarding his brilliant 30 Ba3 v Capablanca at AVRO, 1938:
‘The beginning of a 12-move combination, including the following winning manoeuvre. I must admit that I could not calculate it right to the end and operated in two stages. First I evaluated the position after six moves and convinced myself that I had a draw by perpetual check. Then after the first six moves I calculated the rest to the end. A chessplayer’s resources, particularly at the end of a game, are limited.’ (Interesting, since annotators have stated that Botvinnik had foreseen everything.)’
An extract from our translation of an interview with Capablanca published in the Buenos Aires magazine El Gráfico, 1939 and reprinted on pages 103-107 of Homenaje a José Raúl Capablanca (Havana, 1943):
‘[Interviewer’s question: But master: if you took Dr Lasker’s world championship title when the great Berlin master was in the plenitude of his powers, and if modern players, in your opinion, are clearly inferior to Lasker, how do you explain the fact that some of them have finished above you in many international tournaments? How do you explain your seventh place at the AVRO tournament in Holland?]
In the AVRO tournament I played under physical conditions that were absolutely abnormal. Although I am not up to date with chess literature, I played the openings well in all my games for the simple reason that I have judgment. But after the first three hours of play, I felt my head was splitting. It was impossible for me to think and coordinate ideas. Against Fine I had two won games; against Alekhine I should have won one game; and another one against Keres, thanks to an advantageous position which I built up conscientiously. But at the moment of transforming my advantage into victory, I found that my brain was not functioning and I then continued playing not with my head but with my hands. Despite the bitter cold of Holland in November, I immersed my congested head in icy water to try to clear it, although without any result ... I thus participated in the AVRO tournament playing like an automaton after the third hour, and it is therefore understandable how frequently I failed to win.’
Our translation of an extract from an article by Alekhine on Munich, 1941, published on pages 187-189 of his book ¡Legado! (Madrid, 1946), having earlier appeared in Ajedrez Español, January and February 1942 (pages 6-7 and 32-33).
‘This tournament can be compared with advantage to Semmering-Baden 1937 and AVRO 1938, in which the aims were chiefly connected with commercial propaganda; the masters had to play in an unsatisfactory atmosphere quite out of keeping with the elevated spirit which the art of chess requires. There were nonetheless excellent individual results, but the sporting performances were falsified by the inevitable physical fatigue of the players, who were taken on a danse macabre, from one Dutch town or city to another (in the case of AVRO) like exhibition objects or low-grade fighters.’
