Body: <p>Former world champion JR Capablanca was not a particularly good opening player. Yet he was the "champ" because once he survived the opening, he played better middle and endgames than others. And this occurred because he was able to play a handful of openings time and time again.</p>
  
  <p>Late in his career, he had particular difficulties against Russian masters. Not only the stars like Alekhine, Botvinnik, and Keres, but even second-rank Russian players. A major reason was that they played varied and complicated openings, and got the "jump" on Capablanca in this part of the game.</p>
  
  <p>Why didn't non-Russian players do more to take Capablanca out of his familiar opening lines?</p>
  
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2016-07-14T19:36:45.510Z
Comments.Text: This may be due to the development of hypermodern ideas in opening theory. Hypermodern play hadn't really been advanced in Capablanca's day and with the exception of Reti players thought the Queen's Gambit Declined was the only way to play against 1.d4.
Comments.UserDisplayName: magd
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2016-07-14T21:00:48.917Z
Comments.Text: @magd: But the Russians were among the first to explore Queen's Gambit Accepted. Why didn't the others do the same?
Comments.UserDisplayName: Tom Au
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2016-07-15T11:11:48.757Z
Comments.Text: Maybe the Russians had worked out the theory but the others hadn't. This wasn't in the days of games broadcast on the internet.
Comments.UserDisplayName: magd
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2016-07-15T14:00:43.520Z
Comments.Text: @magd: So maybe the answer is the Russians had cooperated to "work out the theory" together (because they were in the same country together), and the others hadn't?
Comments.UserDisplayName: Tom Au
Tags: <opening>
Title: Why did non-Russian masters allow Capablanca to play "standard" openings against them?
ThreadText: # Why did non-Russian masters allow Capablanca to play "standard" openings against them?
  
  (Asked by: username_0 on 2016-07-14)
  
  Former world champion JR Capablanca was not a particularly good opening player. Yet he was the "champ" because once he survived the opening, he played better middle and endgames than others. And this occurred because he was able to play a handful of openings time and time again.
  
  Late in his career, he had particular difficulties against Russian masters. Not only the stars like Alekhine, Botvinnik, and Keres, but even second-rank Russian players. A major reason was that they played varied and complicated openings, and got the "jump" on Capablanca in this part of the game.
  
  Why didn't non-Russian players do more to take Capablanca out of his familiar opening lines?
  
  **Tags:** opening
  
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_1**: This may be due to the development of hypermodern ideas in opening theory. Hypermodern play hadn't really been advanced in Capablanca's day and with the exception of Reti players thought the Queen's Gambit Declined was the only way to play against 1.d4.  
  > **username_0**: @username_1: But the Russians were among the first to explore Queen's Gambit Accepted. Why didn't the others do the same?  
  > **username_1**: Maybe the Russians had worked out the theory but the others hadn't. This wasn't in the days of games broadcast on the internet.  
  > **username_0**: @username_1: So maybe the answer is the Russians had cooperated to "work out the theory" together (because they were in the same country together), and the others hadn't?  
  
  ---
  
  ## 0 answers
  
  