How Imagination Practice Won a Chess Championship

The April, 1955 issue of Reader's Digest contained an article from The Rotarian by Joseph Phillips, called: "Chess: They Call It a Game."
In this article Phillips tells how the great chess cham­pion, Capablanca, was so superior to all competition that it was believed by experts that he would never be beaten in match play. Yet, he lost the championship to a rather obscure player, Alekhine, who had given no hint that he even posed a serious threat to the great Capablanca.
The chess world was stunned by the upset, which today would be comparable to a Golden Gloves finalist defeat­ing the heavyweight champion of the world.
Phillips tells us that Alekhine had trained for the match very much like a boxer conditioning himself for a fight. He retired to the country, cut out smoking and drinking and did calisthenics. "For three months, he played chess only in his mind, building up steam for the moment when he would meet the champion."