Capablanca–Alekhine: The World Championship Match
The match between the reigning World Champion José Raúl Capablanca and the challenger Alexander Alekhine took place from September 16 to November 29, 1927, in springtime Buenos Aires. Capablanca was 38 years old at the time; Alekhine was four years younger. According to the rules of the match, established in London in 1922, the contest was to be played until one player achieved six wins. Draws did not count.

Capablanca was considered the favorite. Indeed, before this match, Capablanca and Alekhine had played 12 games against each other, of which Capablanca had won five, while the remaining seven were draws. Up to that point Alekhine had never managed to defeat Capablanca even once!
Alekhine, however, prepared thoroughly for the match and studied both the strengths and weaknesses of the champion. In his view, Capablanca’s strong side was his play in the middlegame, while his weaknesses included excessive caution in opening choices and not so good, for a player of his caliber, endgame technique.

The match began sensationally. In the very first game Alekhine, playing Black, defeated Capablanca, thus finally breaking his scoreless streak! The rest of the match unfolded with extremely tense struggle. Success shifted from one player to the other. The end of the match, however, turned in Alekhine’s favor and he won by a score of 6–3.

A total of 34 games were played, making it the second-longest World Championship match in chess history. The only longer one was the "unlimited match" between Karpov and Kasparov in 1984–1985, which was stopped by FIDE President Campomanes after the 48th game.

Here is Garry Kasparov’s view on why Alekhine managed to win:
In tangled, unresolved positions with mutual weaknesses, Capablanca’s brilliant intuition would falter, and he would begin to lose the thread of the game. Alekhine’s thinking was more unconventional; he watched the balance of weaknesses more subtly and understood which pieces needed to be exchanged and which preserved. This was a significant step forward in the development of chess thought, and the Cuban was not prepared for it.

Chess players can enjoy Alekhine’s victorious final game of the match at this link.

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