José Raúl Capablanca was born in Havana on 19 November 1888. He was Cuban and American champion. He was the third World Champion of chess. As tradition says he learnt chess all by himself at the age of four. He used to watch his father in the evenings playing chess and once when his father was playing with a friend, Capablanca interrupted and told him the winning move. He was considered to be a child prodigy.

He held the World Champion title for six years from 1921 to 1927. He won the title from Lasker. Capablanca was leading 9 to 5 (+4-0=10) when Lasker gave up the game due to health reasons (Wikipedia). With that Capablanca defended the title in a World Championship match which was automatically given to him when Lasker officially renounced in 1920. In 1927 Alekhine challenged Capablanca and won to 6-3, won the title and became the fourth official chess World Champion.

In 1939 in Buenos Aires in the 8th Chess Olympiad, playing for Cuba, he won individual gold on the first board, and placed fourth in team.

He was one of the best ten players between 1909 and 1941. His peak World Ranking: 1st (in 85 different months between May 1914 and July 1937). According to Chessmetrics his highest rating is 2877.

Interesting facts:

His second wife, Olga, contributed with her memoirs to the book “The Genius and the Princess” written by Edward Winter. In this book she remembers that Capablanca did not play chess at home, and he did not even own a chess board, and was very different from all the other chess masters.

In Havana the Capablanca Tournament has been organised annually since 1962 to his tribute.

He played against a lot of famous chess players such as Frank Marshall, Alexander Alekhine, Ossip Bernstein or Savielly Tartakower.

There are several openings named after him, such as the Capablanca freeing maneuver or the Capablanca variation of the Gruenfeld Gambit.

He died on 8 March 1942 of haemorrhage at the age of 53.