All Conflicts Settled... Hopefully

Cyrus Lakdawala writes in his book 'Capablanca Move By Move', "It isn't easy to write a book about one's chess hero and remain an unbiased annotator."  In the same book, he referenced that he wrote in another book, “When it comes to 'all things Capa', I am one of those love-struck annotators who itches to give every move he played an exclamation mark.”  And in another book, “As a faithful acolyte of Saint Capa, I hope you will forgive me for sneaking in yet another of the Blessed One’s games into the book.”

He also made mention of the fact that at a 2500 UCF rating, he accidentally became a beneficiary of a 'Capa-boost' in rating, by just writing the said book and looking at Capablanca's games.  (His rating unexpectedly began to climb until it reached about 2588.)

Regarding Capablanca's openings, he quoted Bobby Fischer, "Some kid of 14 today, or even younger, could get an opening advantage against Capablanca...", but he painted a totally different picture of the middle and endgame.  "On the other hand", he continued, "Capa’s middlegame play, especially when it came to pawn structure and planning, was two or more generations ahead of his time.  Strategically, Capa had a deceptive, elegant way of threading through the maze, the only sighted person among the multitude of his day.  He would somehow find a way of removing the complexity of any position, no matter how chaotic, and translate it into a plan which we can all understand."

He finalized the section with, "In the late middlegames and endings he has no rival and may well be the greatest player of all time.  Only Bobby Fischer could make a case to be his equal in technical endings."

To concrete his convictions, he started the section with a quote from another great master:
"What others could not find in a month’s study, he (Capablanca) saw at a glance." – Reuben Fine

On the question of his greatness, the writer concluded, "Well, I’m sorry to disappoint but, in my opinion, Capablanca was the second strongest player in the history of the game, behind Fischer but ahead of Morphy and Kasparov.  Capa easily possessed the most natural talent but was also, unfortunately, the laziest world champion, who couldn’t be bothered to log heavy study hours.  Had he been ingrained with the fanatical zeal of an Alekhine or a Fischer, then Capa would most certainly have reached the number one spot."

And the decisive note, "Of course, this is all total speculation and it’s impossible to say who was or wasn’t the greatest.  The only marker we go by is to gauge who dominated his peers most in his prime.  No player ever logged an impossible, mythical performance like Fischer did immediately before his match with Spassky – not even Capablanca."