Alexander Alekhine is the 4th official world chess champion. He is known for his imaginative attacking style, great positional and endgame skills. He is also a chess writer and theoretician and one of the chess openings named from him “The Alekhine Defence”. He is the only World Chess Champion died while holding the world title.
He was born on October 31, 1892 at Moscow, Russia. He came from wealthy family. His mother taught him how to play chess. At the age of 10, he started participating in many corresponding chess tournaments organized by Chess Review (1902-11). He played his first tournament at 1907 Moscow Chess Club Spring Tournament where he tied 4th-6th place and the following year he got the 1st place on the same tournament. In 1909, he won the All-Russian Amateur Tournament in St. Petersburg.
At the age of 22, Alekhine was already among the strongest chess players in the world. He won his 1st major Russian tournament at 1914 All-Russian Masters Tournament. The same year, he was place 3rd at St Petersburg behind Emanuel Lasker and Jose Raul Capablanca, at the tournament Tsar Nicholas II conferred the title of Grandmaster, and he was one of the 1st to receive the GM title. He became a Grandmaster in his own privilege and in the eyes of the chess players.
In 1922, he was planning to set a match with Jose Raul Capablanca, but the greatest challenge for him was not Capablanca’s play but how to raise the fund of $10,000 under the 1922 London Rules. In 1924, he broke the world record for simultaneous blindfold by playing against 26 opponents (16 wins, 5 draws and 5 losses).
In 1927, he was arranged for World Championship match from Capablanca, the winner will be the one who get the first 6 points excluding the draws with $10,000 prize plus $2,000 appearance fee for Capablanca at Buenos Aires, Argentina where he got the world title. The result was 6 wins, 25 draws and 3 losses.
Alekhine offered him a rematch on the same terms that he set but the negotiation dragged on for years and no progress was made. In 1935, he was set for Max Euwe where he lost his title but he regained it in the 1937 rematch. During the negotiation for title match in 1946 with Mikhail Botvinnik he died while holding the title.
In March 24, 1946, he died and buried at Cimetiere su Montparnasse in Paris, France.
There are 2237 games listed in the chessbase.
Let’s look of his best games which feature in our GMG page.
https://www.chess.com/blog/GMG29/the-ferocious-queen-1
By Coach Gerald Ferriol