100 Instructive Games of Alekhine - The Development of A Chess Genius - Fred Reinfeld, 1959.pdf

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THE DEVELOPMENT
OF
A CHESS GENIUS
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100 INSTRUCTIVE
GAMES
OF ALEKHINE
(Formerly Titled: The Unknown Alekhine)
By
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FRED REINFELD
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DOVER PUBLICATIONS, INC.
NEW YORK
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...
Copyright ©
1959
by Fred Reinfeld.
All rights reserved under Pan American and In­
ternational Copyright Conventions.
pany, Ltd.,
30
Lesmill Road, Don Mills, Toronto,
Ontario.
Published in Canada by General Publishing Com­
Published in the United Kingdom by Constable
and
Company,
Ltd.,
10
Orange Street, London
we 2.
This Dover edition, first published
in 1959,
is an
unabridged and unaltered republication of" the work
lishing Corporation under the title
The Unknown
originally published in
1949
by the Pitman Pub­
Alekhine.
The new Introduction by Fred Reinfeld
appears for the first time in this Dover edition.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Dover Publications, Inc.
New York,
N.
Y.
10014
180
Varick Street
Introduction to Dover Edition
Who was the greatest chessplayer of all time? Opinions
differ, of course, but my favorite for that honor is Alexan­
der Alekhine.
The choice is admittedly a difficult one. Morphy, Stein­
itz, Emanuel Lasker, Capablanca-they all have their enthu­
siastic advocates, and very properly so. And yet Alekhine
towers over them all, by whatever criterion you may care
to choose.
He can hold his own by the cold criterion of statistics-a
dazzling array of first prizes in some of the strongest
tournaments ever held. To have held the World Champion­
ship in the days of such giants as Capablanca, Euwe, Nim­
zovich, Rubinstein, Reti, Tartakover is a feat that speaks
for itself. But what is perhaps even more significant is that
Alekhine was the first World Champion who regained the
title after losing it.
Alekhine won the title in
1927
by defeating the then
World Champion, Jose R. CapabJanqt, in one of the his­
toric struggles of the chess world. He lost the title in
1937
to Dr. Max Euwe
in
a bitterly contested match marked by
startling alternations of superb fighting chess and astound­
i
n
g slips that made the chess world wonder whether Alek­
hine
was through.
Two
years later Alekhine recovered his
tide by a convincing display of his incomparable powers.
Thereafter he retained the title for some eighteen years in
all, at a time when chess cbmpetition had reached its
fiercest level.
To play great chess requires two qualities that do not
necessarily go together; in fact, the presence of one may
irrhibit the
other. A great
master must be possessed
·of
[v]
FRED REINFELD
endless combativeness. He cannot reach the to�½and stay
there-unless he is obsessed with an all-dominating will to
win. But at the same time he must be a great artist; he
must play beautiful chess, producing games that give us
the same pleasure that we get from Shakespf!are's plays,
Beethoven's symphonies, Rembrandt's paintings. The com­
bination of fighting spirit and innate artistry is a difficult
one to fuse. Some players have the one quality, some have
the other. No one has ever combined both so masterfully
as Alekhine did.
"I
dominate them all!" This proud observation of Alek­
hine's sounds naive, but it was true. His arch-rival Bogolyu­
bov said of him that "Alekhine would rather die than not
win!" Reuben Fine added that chess "was the breath of !He
to him." When I met Alekhine at the Pasadena tournament
of
1932
I
was astounded at his readiness to spend hours
analyzing hypothetical possibilities in his games-or any­
one else's.
Alekhine's fighting spirit never waned; at the age
of
forty-six he declared that he was, "more than anything
else, a fighter, with a great deal of fighting spirit, and un­
alterable self-confidence." Like Marshal Foch, he believed
in the slogan: "Always be audacious." Tartakover spoke
admiringly of Alekhine's Sonnenschach-chess that dazzles
like the sun.
Yet
Alekhine was versatile and adaptable too. He could
beat a great master with his own weapons, defeating Capa­
blanca with position play and Bogolyubov with tactical play.
But if we turn from the arena of grueling match and
tournament play, we find that Alekhine was an incompar­
able artist. The battles have been over for a long time, and
Alekhine and his rivals have passed away. But the
games
remain, and greatness is writ large over them-games that
evoke our gratitude and our deep delight. In his collections
of his best games, Alekhine has left the world one of its
most precious heritages of sublime human achievement. For
artistic grandeur these games are unequaled, and may for­
ever remain so.
[vi
]

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