Alekhine's real genius is in the preparation and construction of a position, long before combinations or mating attacks come into consideration at all.

Capablanca plays very superficially sometimes, in a way that can only be ascribed to lack of concentration. This is an integral weakness of his make-up and can only be partially compensated by his employing his time allowance to the full.

Alekhine's real genius is in the preparation and construction of a position, long before combinations or mating attacks come into consideration at all.

Strategy requires thought, tactics require observation

The 'chess machine', by which admiring title he had been known, revealed the great drawback of a machine: it had not sufficient flexibility to adapt itself to altered circumstances.

Poor Capablanca! Thou wert a brilliant technician, but no philosopher. Thou wert not capable of believing that in chess, another style could be victorious than the absolutely correct one.

He can be regarded as the great master of simplification. The art of resolving the tension at the critical moment and in the most effacious way so as to clarify the position as desired is Capablanca's own.