[2][3] His victory over Frank Marshall in a 1909 match earned him an invitation to the 1911 San Sebastián tournament, which he won ahead of players such as Akiba Rubinstein, Aron Nimzowitsch and Siegbert Tarrasch.

[5] At the age of eight he was taken to Havana Chess Club, which had hosted many important contests, but on the advice of a doctor he was not allowed to play frequently.

Capablanca's skill in rapid chess lent itself to simultaneous exhibitions, and his increasing reputation in these events led to a US-wide tour in 1909.

[6] Capablanca won brilliantly against Bernstein in the very first round, more simply against Nimzowitsch,[11] and astounded the chess world by taking first place, with six wins, one loss and seven draws, ahead of Akiba Rubinstein, Milan Vidmar, Marshall, Carl Schlechter and Siegbert Tarrasch, et al.[6] His loss, to Rubinstein, was one of the most brilliant achievements of the latter's career.

[20] Hooper and Whyld write, "He had no specific duties, but was expected to act as a kind of ambassador-at-large, a well-known figure who would put Cuba on the map wherever he travelled.

[11] On his way, he gave simultaneous exhibitions in London, Paris and Berlin, where he also played two-game matches against Richard Teichmann and Jacques Mieses, winning all four games.

[29]After the breakdown of his attempt to negotiate a title match in 1911, Capablanca drafted rules for the conduct of future challenges, which were agreed to by the other top players at the 1914 Saint Petersburg tournament, including Lasker, and approved at the Mannheim Congress later that year.

[31][38] Fred Reinfeld mentioned speculations that Havana's humid climate weakened Lasker and that he was depressed about the outcome of World War I, especially as he had lost his life savings.

[40][41][42] Capablanca won the London tournament of 1922 with 13 points in 15 games with no losses, ahead of Alekhine with 11½, Milan Vidmar (11), and Akiba Rubinstein (10½).

[43] During this event, Capablanca proposed the "London Rules" to regulate future World Championship negotiations: the first player to win six games would win the match; playing sessions would be limited to 5 hours; the time limit would be 40 moves in 2½ hours; the champion must defend his title within one year of receiving a challenge from a recognized master; the champion would decide the date of the match; the champion was not obliged to accept a challenge for a purse of less than US$10,000 (about $260,000 in 2006 terms[44]); 20% of the purse was to be paid to the title holder and the remainder divided, 60% to the winner of the match, and 40% to the loser; the highest purse bid must be accepted.

[45] Alekhine, Efim Bogoljubow, Géza Maróczy, Richard Réti, Rubinstein, Tartakower and Vidmar promptly signed them.

[48] After beginning with four draws, followed by a loss,[11] Capablanca placed second at the New York 1924 chess tournament with the score of 14½/20 (+10−1=9), 1½ points behind Lasker, and 2½ ahead of third-placed Alekhine.

[50] A group of Argentinian businessmen, backed by a guarantee from the president of Argentina, promised the funds for a World Championship match between Capablanca and Alekhine in 1927.

[53] In the New York 1927 chess tournament, held from 19 February to 23 March 1927,[54][55] six of the world's strongest masters played a quadruple round-robin, with the others being Alekhine, Rudolf Spielmann, Milan Vidmar, Nimzowitsch and Marshall,[50] with Bogoljubow and Lasker absent.

[11][20][70] Chessmetrics nonetheless ranks Capablanca as the second strongest player in the world (after Alekhine) from his loss of the title through to autumn 1932, except for a brief appearance in the top place.

[72] On 6 December 1933, Capablanca won all 9 of his games in one of the club's weekly rapid chess tournaments, finishing 2 points ahead of Samuel Reshevsky, Reuben Fine and Milton Hanauer.

Then Euwe gives his assessment in Dutch, explaining that his feelings alternated from optimism to pessimism, but in the previous ten years, their score had been evenly matched at 7–7.

[74] Starting his comeback at the Hastings tournament of 1934–35, Capablanca finished fourth, although coming ahead of Mikhail Botvinnik and Andor Lilienthal.

At Moscow 1935 Capablanca finished fourth, 1 point behind the joint winners,[75] while Lasker's third place at the age of 66 was hailed as "a biological miracle.

[36] He tied for second place at Semmering in 1937, then could only finish seventh of the eight players at the 1938 AVRO tournament,[80] an elite contest designed to select a challenger for Alekhine's world title.

[81][82] Capablanca's high blood pressure was not correctly diagnosed and treated until after the AVRO tournament, and caused him to lose his train of thought towards the end of playing sessions.

[83] After winning at Paris in 1938 and placing second in a slightly stronger tournament at Margate in 1939, Capablanca played for Cuba in the 8th Chess Olympiad, in Buenos Aires, and won the gold medal for the best performance on the top board.

The day before his fatal stroke, his vascular specialist Dr. Schwarzer strongly advised him that his life was endangered unless he totally relaxed, but Capablanca said that he could not because his ex-wife and children had started court proceedings against him.

[87] On 7 March 1942, Capablanca was observing a skittles game and chatting with friends at the Manhattan Chess Club in New York City, when he asked for help removing his coat, and collapsed shortly afterward.

Nathan Divinsky and Raymond Keene's book Warriors of the Mind (1989) ranks him fifth, behind Garry Kasparov, Anatoly Karpov, Bobby Fischer and Mikhail Botvinnik—and immediately ahead of Emanuel Lasker.

[20][108] He was also capable of using aggressive tactical play to drive home a positional advantage, provided he considered it safe and the most efficient way to win, for example against Spielmann in the 1927 New York tournament.

[112][113] Research is divided over Capablanca's conclusion: in 2007, Glenn Flear found little difference,[114] while in 1999, Larry Kaufman, analysing a large database of games, concluded that results very slightly favored queen plus knight.

He therefore took the unprecedented step of including virtually all of his tournament and match defeats up to that time in Chess Fundamentals, together with an instructive group of his victories.

[57] In an interview in 1925, Capablanca denied reports that he thought chess had already currently reached its limit because it was easy for top players to obtain a draw.

[120] Similar 10×8 variants had previously been described in 1617 by Pietro Carrera and in 1874 by Henry Bird, differing only in how the new pieces were placed in each side's back row.