On Nov 23, 2:47 am, "help bot" wrote:
Taylor Kingston wrote:
On Nov 22, 1:50 am, "help bot" wrote:

In addition to, perhaps, not liking to defend, it should
be noted that, in his prime, Alekhine had little *need*
to defend. No doubt some exceptions could be found,
but for example in his book "My Best Games of Chess",
Alekhine rarely was on the defensive.

Of course! That particular sample is biased.

Are you trying to suggest that the author was biased,
pro-Alekhine, or against him?

Since Alekhine himself was the author of the books in question, I am
saying that Alekhine had a definite pro-Alekhine bias. In this, though,
he was hardly alone. I have yet to see any chess master publish
anything along the lines of "My Worst Games" or "My Most Embarassing
Mistakes."
Znosko-Borovsky once wrote a book titled something like "Capablanca's
Losses." Told of this, Capa replied that he intended to publish a book
titled "Znosko-Borovsky's Good Games," but so far he had been unable to
collect any suitable examples.

Maybe he was just
jealous of Alekhine's amazing skill.

Alekhine jealous of himself? A paradoxical idea. Though not entirely
implausible, I suppose -- after all, we've seen Innes argue with
himself.

For a "best games" collection Alekhine was not about to include any games
showing him losing a defensive battle.

With so many brilliant wins, surely he could afford
to toss in a couple of losses. I don't remember, but
this would easy to check -- even for me.

Surprise us then, and do some actual research for once.

But it's quite true that in his prime Alekhine was rarely on the
defensive. Few players were so insistent on, and successful at, gaining
the initiative early in the game.

I wish I had said that; you're a very insightful guy. (Let me
guess: IM Innes told you Alekhine was a world champ?)

No, I learned it from Neil "the Historian" Brennen, who was tutored
by none other than Herodotus.

Some years ago I acquired and reviewed "Alexander Alekhine's Chess
Games, 1902-1946" (McFarland, 1998), which has every game he ever
played that survives -- over 2,500 of them. Looking at its openings
index, the most frequently played openings a

1. QGD Orthodox -- about 335 games
2. Ruy Lopez -- 330
3. French Defense -- 240
4. Other symmetrical QP -- 175
5. Sicilian -- 165
6. QGD Slav/Semi-Slav -- 125
7. Nimzo-Indian -- 100
8-9. Caro-Kann -- 90
8-9. Vienna Game -- 90
10. Queen's Indian -- 70

It would be interesting to weed out the choices made
by his opponents, leaving only the choices indicating
Alekhine's own openings preferences.

Indeed, an interesting project. Post your results here when you have
completed it.

For example,
1.e4 c6 leads to a Caro-Kan, yet if Alekhine had White
this in no way implies that he prefered that opening;
rather, it indicates that his opponent did.

Yet the fact that Alekhine played 1.e4 indicates definite
non-hypermodern tendencies. One of the hypermodern rallying cries was
"After 1.e4 White's game is in its last throes!" (Breyer)