Alexander Alekhine was the fourth world chess champion. He won the title from José Raúl Capablanca in 1927 in a thirty-four-game match in Buenos Aires, defended it against Bogoljubov twice in the early 1930s, lost it to Max Euwe in 1935, regained it in 1937, and held it until his death in 1946 — the only world champion to die while still holding the title.
His style was combinative in a way that earlier champions had not quite reached. Where Lasker calculated when needed and Capablanca preferred clear positional play, Alekhine sought sharp positions and calculated through complications most opponents avoided. His best games — particularly the Buenos Aires match and the great international tournaments of San Remo 1930 and Bled 1931 — contain combinations whose depth has since been verified by computer analysis and that he found across the board in hours.
His later years were difficult. He left Russia in 1921 and took French citizenship in 1925. During the German occupation of France he published a series of antisemitic chess articles under his name — he later claimed they had been written by others — that damaged his reputation among colleagues who had fled or perished. He died in Estoril, Portugal, in 1946, days before he was due to defend the title against Mikhail Botvinnik. The cause of his death has been disputed in print for eighty years and remains unresolved.
Career data
Alexander Alekhine was born in 1892, in Moscow, Russian Empire, and died in 1946. They earned the Grandmaster title in 1950. They represent the Fédération Française des Échecs. Their peak FIDE rating was 2700, reached in 1930. Alexander Alekhine held the world championship title in 1927–1935, 1937–1946. Their playing style is characterised as: Combinative · deep calculation · sharp attacker. They competed for France at the international level throughout their career. This biography summarises the publicly recorded career data; for game records and tournament results, follow the related-content links elsewhere on this page.
Notable games & rivals
Notable rivals: José Raúl Capablanca, Emanuel Lasker.