The 1927 World Championship
The 1927 World Chess Championship match between Jose Raul Capablanca and Alexander Alekhine stands as one of the great sporting contests of the twentieth century. Capablanca was considered by many to be the greatest player alive, perhaps the greatest who had ever lived. Alekhine was the challenger. Almost no one expected him to win.
The Road to Buenos Aires
Capablanca had held the world championship since 1921, when he defeated Emanuel Lasker. In the years following, he had dominated nearly every tournament he entered, losing very few games and drawing most of the rest. His technique was considered flawless. Some observers wondered seriously whether chess had been exhausted — whether Capablanca had solved it.
Alekhine had been campaigning for a match since the early 1920s, but Capablanca set terms that many considered deliberately prohibitive: a prize fund of ten thousand dollars, a majority of wins needed to claim the title, and the match to continue until one player reached six victories. Only Alekhine, after enormous effort, managed to raise the necessary funds.
The Match
The match began on September 16, 1927, in Buenos Aires. The conditions favored neither player strongly, though the long Argentine summer was grueling for both. The match was to continue until one player won six games, with draws not counting.
| Player | Wins | Draws | Losses |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alexander Alekhine | 6 | 25 | 3 |
| Jose Raul Capablanca | 3 | 25 | 6 |
The match lasted 34 games — an extraordinarily long contest by any standard. Alekhine won six games, drew twenty-five, and lost only three, claiming the world championship convincingly.
How Alekhine Won
Alekhine's preparation for this match was legendary in its thoroughness. He studied Capablanca's games in exhaustive detail and developed a clear picture of where and how the Cuban could be put under pressure. His key strategic insight was that Capablanca disliked complex, unbalanced positions where precise calculation was required far in advance. Alekhine therefore aimed consistently to complicate.
He avoided the solid, symmetrical positions where Capablanca's technique was most dangerous, and instead chose openings and move orders that led to double-edged play. When the game became sufficiently complicated, Capablanca — somewhat uncharacteristically — made errors.
The Decisive Games
The seventh game of the match is often cited as a turning point. Alekhine obtained a complex middlegame position and outplayed Capablanca over many moves, eventually converting a rook and pawn ending. The thirty-fourth game, which decided the match, saw Alekhine build a long-term positional squeeze that left Capablanca with no good options.
"Alekhine is a poet who composes immortal poems of chess; Capablanca was a mathematician working on equations." — Reuben Fine
Aftermath
Capablanca never received the rematch he sought. The two men disliked each other personally, and Alekhine repeatedly avoided meeting the terms Capablanca requested. When Alekhine lost the world title in 1935, it was to Max Euwe — not Capablanca, who would have been the logical challenger had Alekhine been willing.
The 1927 match remains one of the most studied in chess history. The games are extraordinary, the match format was grueling, and the reversal of expectations was complete. Alekhine had beaten the unbeatable.