[blind-chess] Annotated Game #139: Reuben Fine - Paul Keres, Amsterdam 1938
- From: "Roderick Macdonald" <rjmacdonald@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Blind-Chess Mailing List" <blind-chess@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 14 Apr 2013 12:58:42 -1000
Annotated Game #139:
Reuben Fine - Paul Keres, Amsterdam 1938
Adapted and Condensed from
Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
Contents:
++1. Reuben Fine
++1.A Biography
++1.A1 Teenage Master
++1.A2 U.S. Open Champion
++1.A3 Olympiad brilliance
++1.A4 North American successes
++1.A5 Narrow misses at U.S. Championship
++1.A6 International triumphs
++1.A7 AVRO showdown
++1.A8 Wartime years
++1.A9 After the war
++1.A10 1948 World Championship
++1.B Chess record
++1.B1 Lifetime scores against top players
++1.B2 Top ten for eight years
++1.B3 Notable games
++1.C Psychologist
++1.D Books by Reuben Fine
++1.D1 On chess
++1.D2 On psychology
++2. Paul Keres
++2.A Early life
++2.B Pre-war years
++2.C World Championship match denied
++2.D World War II
++2.E Dangerous circumstances
++2.F World Championship Candidate (1948 - 1965)
++2.G Three-time Soviet champion, career peak
++2.H Unmatched International team successes
++2.I Later career
++2.J Death
++2.K Chess legacy and writings
++2.L Acknowledgements
++2.M Notable chess games
++2.N Quotes
++2.O Books
++2.P Tournament and match record
++2.P1 Tournaments
++2.P2 Matches
++2.P3 Scores against other outstanding Grandmasters
++3. Reuben Fine - Paul Keres, Amsterdam 1938
++1. Reuben Fine
Reuben Fine (October 11, 1914 - March 26, 1993) was one of the
strongest chess players in the world from the mid-1930s through the
1940s, an International Grandmaster, psychologist and author of
books on both chess and psychology. Fine won five medals (four
gold) in three chess Olympiads. Fine won the U.S. Open Chess
Championship all seven times he entered (1932, 1933, 1934, 1935,
1939, 1940, 1941). He was the author of several chess books that
are still popular today, including important books on the chess
endgame, opening, and middlegame. He earned a bachelor's degree
from the City College of New York in 1932. After World War II, he
earned his doctorate in psychology, and wrote many successful books
in that field as well. Although he was regarded as a serious
contender for the World Chess Championship, he declined his
invitation to participate in the six-player 1948 match-tournament
to determine the World Champion after the death of reigning
champion Alexander Alekhine.
++1.A Biography
++1.A1 Teenage Master
Fine was born in New York City to a poor Russian-Jewish family. He
learned to play chess at age eight, and began tournament-level
chess at the famous Marshall Chess Club in New York City, stomping
grounds for many famous grandmasters such as Bobby Fischer, later
on. At this stage of his career, Fine played a great deal of blitz
chess, and he eventually became one of the best blitz players in
the world. Even in the early 1930s, he could nearly hold his own in
blitz chess against the then world chess champion Alexander
Alekhine, although Fine admitted that the few times he played
Alekhine's predecessor Jose Raul Capablanca, the latter beat him
"mercilessly".
Fine's first significant master-level event was the 1930 New York
Young Masters tournament, which was won by Arthur Dake. He narrowly
lost a 1931 stakes match to fellow New Yorker Arnold Denker. Fine
placed second at the 1931 New York State Championship with 8/11,
behind Fred Reinfeld. Fine won the 15th Marshall Chess Club
Championship of 1931 with 10.5/13, half a point ahead of Reinfeld.
He defeated Herman Steiner by 5.5-4.5 at New York 1932; this was
the first of three matches the two players would contest.
++1.A2 U.S. Open Champion
At seventeen, Fine won his first of seven U.S. Open Chess
Championships at Minneapolis 1932 with 9.5/11, half a point ahead
of Samuel Reshevsky; this tournament was known as the Western Open
at the time. Fine played in his first top-class international
tournament at Pasadena 1932, where he shared 7-10th with 5/11; the
winner was world chess champion Alexander Alekhine. Fine repeated
as champion in the 16th Marshall Club Championship, held from Oct.-
Dec. 1932, with 11.5/13, 2.5 points ahead of the runner-up. After
graduating from City College of New York in 1932, at age 18, where
he was a brilliant student, and where he captained CCNY to the 1931
National Collegiate team title, Fine decided to try the life of a
chess professional for a few years.
++1.A3 Olympiad brilliance
Fine won the U.S. Team Selection tournament, New York 1933, with
8/10. This earned him the first of three national team berths for
the chess Olympiads. Fine won five medals (including three team
golds) representing the United States; his detailed record follows
(from olimpbase.org). His totals are (+20 =19 -6), for 65.6 per
cent.
* Folkestone 1933: board three, 9/13 (+6 =6 -1), team gold,
board silver;
* Warsaw 1935: board one, 9/17 (+5 =8 -4), team gold;
* Stockholm 1937: board two, 11.5/15 (+9 =5 -1), team gold,
board gold.
++1.A4 North American successes
Fine repeated as champion at the U.S./Western Open, Detroit 1933,
with 12/13, half a point ahead of Reshevsky. Fine won the 17th
Marshall Club Championship, 1933-34, with 9.5/11. He defeated Al
Horowitz in a match at New York 1934 by 6-3. Fine shared 1st-2nd
places at the U.S./Western Open, Chicago 1934, on 7.5/9, with
Reshevsky. He then shared 1st-3rd places at Mexico City 1934, on
11/12, with Herman Steiner and Arthur Dake. At Syracuse 1934, Fine
shared 3rd-4th places, on 10/14, as Reshevsky won. Fine won his
fourth straight U.S./Western Open at Milwaukee 1935, scoring 6.5/9
in the preliminary round, and then 8/10 in the finals. Having had
outstanding successes in North America, Fine tried his first
European individual international tournament at Lodz 1935, where he
shared 2nd-3rd places with 6/9 behind Savielly Tartakower. Fine won
the Hastings 1935-1936 with 7.5/9, a point ahead of Salo Flohr.
++1.A5 Narrow misses at U.S. Championship
Although Fine was active and very successful in U.S. open
tournaments, he was never able to finish first in the U.S.
Championship, usually placing behind his great American rival,
Samuel Reshevsky. When in 1936 Frank Marshall voluntarily gave up
the American Championship title he had held since 1909, the result
was the first modern U.S. Championship tournament. Fine scored
10.5/15 in the U.S. Championship, New York 1936, a tied 3rd-4th
place, as Reshevsky won. In the U.S. Championship, New York 1938,
Fine placed 2nd with 12.5/16, with Reshevsky repeating as champion.
In the U.S. Championship, New York 1940, Fine again scored 12.5/16
for 2nd, as Reshevsky won for the third straight time. Then in the
1944 U.S. Championship at New York, Fine scored 14.5/17 for 2nd,
though losing to Denker, as the latter won. Fine tallied 50/64 in
his four U.S. title attempts, for 78.1 per cent, but was never
champion.
++1.A6 International triumphs
However, Fine's international tournament record in the 1930s was
superior to Reshevsky's. By the end of 1937, Fine had won a string
of strong European international tournaments, and was one of the
most successful players in the world. Fine won at Oslo 1936 with
6.5/7, half a point ahead of Flohr. Fine captured Zandvoort 1936
with 8.5/11, ahead of World Champion Max Euwe, Savielly Tartakower,
and Paul Keres. Fine shared 3rd-5th places at the elite Nottingham
1936 event with 9.5/14, half a point behind winners Jose Raul
Capablanca and Mikhail Botvinnik. Fine shared 1st-2nd places at
Amsterdam 1936 on 5/7 with Euwe, half a point ahead of Alekhine.
Fine placed 2nd at Hastings 1936-1937 with 7.5/9, as Alekhine won.
The year 1937 would be Fine's most successful. He won at Leningrad
1937 with 4/5, ahead of Grigory Levenfish, who would come joint
first in that year's Soviet Championship. Fine won at Moscow 1937
with 5/7. Those two victories make Fine one of a very few
foreigners to win on Russian soil. Fine shared 1st-2nd places at
Margate 1937 with Paul Keres on 7.5/9, 1.5 points ahead of
Alekhine. Fine shared 1st-3rd places at Ostend 1937 with Paul Keres
and Henry Grob on 6/9. At Stockholm 1937, Fine won with 8/9, 1.5
points ahead of Gideon Stahlberg. Fine then defeated Stahlberg by
5-3 in a match held at Goteborg 1937. Fine placed 2nd at the elite
Semmering/Baden 1937 tournament with 8/14, behind Paul Keres. At
Kemeri 1937, Fine had a rare relatively weak result, with just 9/17
for 8th place, as the title was shared by Reshevsky, Flohr, and
Vladimir Petrov. Fine shared 4-5th places at Hastings 1937-38 with
6/9 as Reshevsky won.
++1.A7 AVRO showdown
In 1938, Fine tied for first place with Paul Keres in the
prestigious AVRO tournament in the Netherlands, on 8.5/14, with
Keres placed first on tiebreak. This was one of the most famous
tournaments of the 20th century, and some believe to this day that
it is the strongest tournament ever staged. It was organized with
the hope that the winner of AVRO, a double round-robin tournament,
would be the next challenger to world champion Alexander Alekhine.
Fine finished ahead of future champion Mikhail Botvinnik, current
champion Alekhine, former world champions Max Euwe and Capablanca,
and Grandmasters Samuel Reshevsky and Salo Flohr. Fine won both of
his games against Alekhine.
++1.A8 Wartime years
As World War II interrupted any prospects for a world championship
match, Fine turned to chess writing. In 1941 he wrote Basic Chess
Endings, a compendium of endgame analysis which, more than 60 years
later, is still considered one of the best works on this subject.
His The Ideas Behind the Chess Openings, though badly dated, is
still useful for grasping the underlying ideas of many standard
chess openings. During World War II, Fine worked for the U.S. Navy,
performing the task of calculating the probability of German U-
boats surfacing at certain points in the water. Fine also worked as
a translator.
Fine was unable to compete in Europe during the war, since it was
cut off by the German naval blockade. However, Fine did play a few
serious American events during World War II, and continued his
successes, but there was little prize money even for winning. He
won the U.S. Open at New York 1939 with 10.5/11, half a point ahead
of Reshevsky. In the 23rd Marshall Club Championship of 1939, Fine
won with 14/16. He won the 1940 U.S. Open at Dallas with a perfect
8/8 in the finals, three points ahead of Herman Steiner. Fine won
the New York State Championship, Hamilton 1941, with 8/10, a point
ahead of Reshevsky, Denker, and Isaac Kashdan. Fine won the 1941
Marshall Club Championship with 14/15, ahead of Frank Marshall.
Fine won the 1941 U.S. Open at St. Louis, with 4/5 in the
preliminaries, and 8/9 in the finals.
Fine won the 1942 Washington, D.C. Chess Divan title with a perfect
7/7. He defeated Herman Steiner in match play for the second time
by 3.5-0.5 at Washington 1944. Fine won the U.S. Speed
Championships of both 1944 (10/11) and 1945 (10/11). In the Pan-
American Championship, Hollywood 1945, Fine placed 2nd with 9/12
behind Reshevsky. He played in the 1945 USA vs USSR Radio team
match, scoring 0.5/2 on board three against Isaac Boleslavsky. Then
Fine travelled to Europe one last time to compete, in the 1946
Moscow team match against the USSR, scoring 0.5/2 on board three
against Paul Keres.
++1.A9 After the war
As the war ended in late 1945, Fine was working on his doctorate in
psychology. Once he completed this, he again played some
competitive chess. He won at New York 1948 with 8/9, ahead of
Miguel Najdorf, Max Euwe, and Herman Pilnik. Fine drew a match by
4-4 against Najdorf at New York 1949. He participated in the 1950
radio match USA vs Yugoslavia, drawing his game. Fine was named an
International Grandmaster in 1950, on the inaugural list from the
FIDE, the World Chess Federation. His last significant tournament
was the Maurice Wertheim Memorial at New York 1951, where he scored
7/11 for 4th, as Reshevsky won.
++1.A10 1948 World Championship
After Alekhine died in 1946, FIDE (the World Chess Organization)
organized a World Chess Championship tournament to determine the
new champion. As co-winner in the AVRO tournament, Fine was invited
to participate, but he declined, for reasons that are the subject
of speculation. Fine had played a third match against Herman
Steiner at Los Angeles 1947, winning 5-1; this match was training
for his potential world championship appearance.
Publicly, Fine stated that he could not interrupt work on his
doctoral dissertation in psychology. Negotiations over the
tournament had been protracted, and for a long time it was unclear
whether this World Championship event would in fact take place.
Fine wrote that he didn't want to spend many months preparing and
then see the tournament cancelled. However, it has also been
suggested that Fine declined to play because he suspected there
would be collaboration among the three Soviet participants to
ensure that one of them won the championship. In the August 2004
issue of Chess Life, for example, GM Larry Evans gave his
recollection that "Fine told me he didn't want to waste three
months of his life watching Russians throw games to each other."
Fine's 1951 written statement on the matter in his book "The
World's Greatest Chess Games" was:
"Unfortunately for the Western masters the Soviet political
organization was stronger than that of the West. The U.S. Chess
Federation was a meaningless paper organization, generally
antagonistic to the needs of its masters. The Dutch Chess
Federation did not choose to act. The FIDE was impotent. The result
was a rescheduling of the tournament for the following year, with
the vital difference that now half was to be played in Holland,
half in the U.S.S.R. Dissatisfied with this arrangement and the
general tenor of the event, I withdrew."
Edward Winter discusses the evidence further in a 2007 Chessbase
column.
++1.B Chess record
++1.B1 Lifetime scores against top players
Fine had a relatively short career in top-level chess, but scored
very impressively against top players. He faced five World
Champions: Emanuel Lasker (+1 =0 -0); Jose Raul Capablanca (+0 =5
-0); Alexander Alekhine (+3 =4 -2); Max Euwe (+2 =3 -2); and
Mikhail Botvinnik (+1 =2 -0). His main American rivals were Samuel
Reshevsky (+3 =12 -4); Herman Steiner (+21 =8 -4); Isaac Kashdan
(+6 =6 -1); Albert Simonson (+6 =1 -1); Al Horowitz (+10 =7 -2);
Arnold Denker (+7 =7 -6); Fred Reinfeld (+10 =7 -5); and Arthur
Dake (a shocking +7 =5 -7, but three losses as a sixteen year old
against Dake in his twenties). Internationally, Fine faced the best
of his time, and usually more than held his own, with three
exceptions. He struggled against Paul Keres (+1 =8 -3); Milan
Vidmar (+0 =2 -1); and Isaac Boleslavsky (+0 =1 -1). But he handled
everyone else: Miguel Najdorf (+3 =5 -3); Savielly Tartakower (+2
=4 -1); Salo Flohr (+2 =7 -0); Grigory Levenfish (+1 =0 -0); George
Alan Thomas (+2 =3 -0); Erich Eliskases (+1 =2 -0); Viacheslav
Ragozin (+1 =1 -0); Vladimir Petrov (+2 =1 -1); Efim Bogolyubov (+1
=1 -0); Jan Foltys (+2 =0 -0); Salo Landau (+4 -0 =1); George
Koltanowski (+2 =1 -0); Igor Bondarevsky (+1 =0 -0); Giza Maroczy
(+1 =0 -0); William Winter (+4 =0 -0); Ernst Gruenfeld (+1 =0 -0);
Gideon Stahlberg (+4 =5 -2); Andor Lilienthal (+1 =0 -0); Laszlo
Szabo (+0 =1 -0); Vladas Mikenas (+1 =1 -0); Rudolph Spielmann (+0
=1 -0); and Conel Hugh O'Donel Alexander (+1 =3 -0). Finally,
against the new generation of American masters which emerged in the
late 1940s, Fine proved he could still perform well: Arthur
Bisguier (+1 =1 -0); Larry Evans (+0 =2 -0); George Kramer (+1 =1
-0); and Robert Byrne (+0 =1 -0).
++1.B2 Top ten for eight years
Although FIDE, the World Chess Federation, did not formally
introduce chess ratings for international play until 1970, it is
nevertheless possible to retrospectively rate players' performances
from before that time. The site chessmetrics.com, which specializes
in historical ratings throughout chess history, ranks Fine in the
world's top ten players for more than eight years, from March 1936
until October 1942, and then again from January 1949 until December
1950. Between those two periods, he was less active as a player, so
his ranking dropped. Fine was #1 in the world from October 1940
until March 1941, was in the top three from December 1938 until
June 1942, and reached his peak rating of 2762 in July 1941.
However, chessmetrics.com is missing several of Fine's major events
from its database.
++1.B3 Notable games
* Reuben Fine vs Mikhail Botvinnik, Amsterdam AVRO 1938, French
Defence, Winawer/Advance Variation (C17), 1-0 In the final
position, "Black does not have a single move, and Rf3 is
threatened. A combination of a splendid strategic idea with
tactical subtleties." (Botvinnik)
* Reuben Fine vs Salomon Flohr, Amsterdam AVRO 1938, French
Defence, Winawer/Advance Variation (C17), 1-0 Deep tactics in
an unusual variant of French Defense.
* Reuben Fine vs Herman Steiner, Pan-American champ, Hollywood
1945. Queen's Gambit Accepted, Classical (D29), 1-0 Fine sees
further than his opponent in a sharp tactical position.
++1.C Psychologist
After receiving his doctorate in psychology from the University of
Southern California, Fine abandoned professional chess to
concentrate on his new profession. Fine continued playing chess
casually throughout his life (including several friendly games
played in 1963 against Bobby Fischer, one of which is included in
Fischer's My 60 Memorable Games). In 1956 he wrote an article,
"Psychoanalytic Observations on Chess and Chess Masters", for a
psychological journal. Later, Fine turned the article into a book,
The Psychology of the Chess Player, in which he provided insights
steeped in Freudian theory. (Fine is not the first person to
examine the mind as it relates to chess--Alfred Binet, the inventor
of the IQ test, had studied the mental functionality of good chess
players, and found that they often had enhanced mental traits, such
as a good memory.) He went on to publish A History of
Psychoanalysis (1979) and a number of other books on psychology. As
did many psychoanalysts of his day, Fine believed that
homosexuality could be "cured" (through conversion therapy), and
his opinions on the subject were cited in legal battles over
homosexuality, including the legislative battle over same-sex
marriage in Hawaii. Fine served as a visiting professor at CCNY,
the University of Amsterdam, the Lowell Institute of Technology,
and the University of Florence. Fine founded the Creative Living
Center in New York City.
++1.D Books by Reuben Fine
++1.D1 On chess
* Basic Chess Endings, by Reuben Fine, 1941, McKay. Revised in
2003 by Pal Benko. ISBN 0-8129-3493-8.
* The Ideas Behind the Chess Openings, by Reuben Fine, 1943.
Revised in 1989. McKay, ISBN 0-8129-1756-1.
* Practical Chess Openings, by Reuben Fine.
* The Middlegame in Chess, by Reuben Fine. ISBN 0-8129-3484-9.
* Modern Chess Openings, sixth Edition, by Reuben Fine.
* Chess the Easy Way, by Reuben Fine, 1942. 1986 Paperback re-
issue. ISBN 0-6716-2427-X
* Chess Marches On, by Reuben Fine, 1946.
* Dr. Lasker's Chess Career, by Reuben Fine and Fred Reinfeld,
1935.
* Lessons From My Games, by Reuben Fine, 1958.
* The Psychology of the Chess Player, by Reuben Fine, 1967.
* Bobby Fischer's Conquest of the World's Chess Championship:
The Psychology and Tactics of the Title Match, by Reuben Fine,
1973. ISBN 0923891471
* The World's Great Chess Games, by Reuben Fine; Dover; 1983.
ISBN 0-486-24512-8.
++1.D2 On psychology
* Freud: a Critical Re-evaluation of his Theories, by Reuben
Fine (1962).
* The Healing of the Mind, by Reuben Fine (1971).
* The Development of Freud's Thought, by Reuben Fine (1973).
* Psychoanalytic Psychology, by Reuben Fine (1975).
* The History of nalPsychoaysis, by Reuben Fine (1979).
* The Psychoanalytic Vision, by Reuben Fine (1981).
* The Logic of Psychology, by Reuben Fine (1985).
* The Meaning of Love in Human Experience, by Reuben Fine
(1985).
* Narcissism, the Self, and Society, by Reuben Fine (1986).
* The Forgotten Man: Understanding the Male Psyche, by Reuben
Fine (1987).
++2. Paul Keres
Paul Keres (January 7, 1916 - June 5, 1975), was an Estonian chess
grandmaster, and a renowned chess writer. He was among the world's
top players from the mid-1930s to the mid-1960s.
Keres narrowly missed a chance at a World Chess Championship match
on five occasions. He won the 1938 AVRO tournament, which led to
negotiations for a World Championship match against champion
Alexander Alekhine, but the match never took place due to World War
II. Then after the war he was runner-up in the Candidates'
Tournament on four consecutive occasions.
Due to these and other strong results, many chess historians
consider Keres the strongest player never to become World Chess
Champion. He was nicknamed "The Crown Prince of Chess". Keres was
the only player in chess history to defeat nine undisputed world
champions.
++2.A Early life
Paul Keres was born in Narva, Estonia.
Keres first learned about chess from his father and older brother
Harald (later a prominent physicist). With the scarcity of chess
literature in his small town, he learned about chess notation from
the chess puzzles in the daily newspaper, and compiled a
handwritten collection of almost 1000 games. In his early days, he
was known for a brilliant and sharp attacking style.
Keres was a three-time Estonian schoolboy champion, in 1930, 1932,
and 1933. His playing matured after playing correspondence chess
extensively while in high school. He probably played about 500
correspondence games, and at one stage had 150 correspondence games
going simultaneously. In 1935, he won the International
Fernschachbund (IFSB) international correspondence chess
championship. From 1937 to 1941 he studied Mathematics at the
University of Tartu, and competed in several inter-university
matches.
++2.B Pre-war years
Keres achieved a very good result at age 17 in a Master tournament
at Tallinn 1933 with 5/7 (+5 =0 -2), tied 3rd-4th, half a point
behind joint winners Paul Felix Schmidt and V. Kappe. Keres became
champion of Estonia for the first time in 1935. He tied for first
(+5 =1 -2) with Gunnar Friedemann in the tournament, then defeated
him (+2 =0 -1) in the playoff match. In April 1935, Keres defeated
Feliks Kibbermann, one of Tartu's leading masters, in a training
match, by 3-1 (+3 =0 -1).
Keres played on top board for Estonia in the 6th Chess Olympiad at
Warsaw 1935, and was regarded as the new star, admired for his
dashing style. His success there gave him the confidence to venture
onto the international circuit.
At Helsinki 1935, he placed 2nd behind Paulin Frydman with 6.5/8
(+6 =1 -1). He won at Tallinn 1936 with 9/10 (+8 =2 -0). Keres'
first major international success against top-level competition
came at Bad Nauheim 1936, where he tied for first with Alexander
Alekhine at 6.5/9 (+4 =5 -0). He struggled at Dresden 1936, placing
only 8th-9th with (+2 =3 -4), but wrote that he learned an
important lesson from this setback. Keres recovered at Zandvoort
1936 with a shared 3rd-4th place (+5 =3 -3). He then defended his
Estonian title in 1936 by drawing a challenge match against Paul
Felix Schmidt with 3.5-3.5 (+3 =1 -3).
Keres had a series of successes in 1937. He won in Tallinn with
7.5/9 (+6 =3 -0), then shared 1st-2nd at Margate with Reuben Fine
at 7.5/9 (+6 =3 -0), 1.5 points ahead of Alekhine. In Ostend, he
tied 1st-3rd places with Fine and Henry Grob at 6/9 (+5 =2 -2).
Keres dominated in Prague to claim first with 10/11 (+9 =2 -0). He
then won a theme tournament in Vienna with 4.5/6 (+4 =1 -1); the
tournament saw all games commence with the moves 1. d4 Nf6 2. Nf3
Ne4, known as the Dory Defense. He tied for 4th-5th places at
Kemeri with 11.5/17 (+8 =7 2), as Salo Flohr, Vladimirs Petrovs and
Samuel Reshevsky won. Then he tied 2nd-4th in Parnu with 4.5/7 (+3
=3 -1).
This successful string earned him an invitation to the tournament
at Semmering-Baden 1937, which he won with 9/14 (+6 =6 -2), ahead
of Fine, Jose Raul Capablanca, Reshevsky, and Erich Eliskases.
Keres, in his autobiographical games collection, refers to this
major event as a 'Candidates' Tournament', and claimed that he was
recognized as a Grandmaster after winning it, although its parallel
connection with later FIDE-organized Candidates' tournaments (from
1950 onwards) is not exact, and the Grandmaster title was not
formalized by FIDE until 1950.
Keres tied for second at Hastings 1937-1938 with 6.5/9 (+4 =5 -0)
(half a point behind Reshevsky), and at Noordwijk 1938 (behind
Eliskases) with 6.5/9 (+4 =5 -0). Keres drew an exhibition match at
Stockholm 1938 with Gideon Stahlberg with a score of 4-4 (+2 =4 -
2).
He continued to represent Estonia with success in Olympiad play.
His detailed results for Estonia follow. Of note was the team
bronze medal attained by Estonia in 1939; this was exceptional for
a country with a population of less than two million people.
* Warsaw 1935, Estonia board 1, 12.5/19 (+11 =3 -5);
* Munich 1936 (unofficial Olympiad), Estonia board 1, 15.5/20
(+12 =7 -1), board gold medal;
* Stockholm 1937, Estonia board 1, 11/15 (+9 =4 -2), board
silver medal;
* Buenos Aires 1939, Estonia board 1, 14.5/19 (+12 =5 -2), team
bronze medal.
++2.C World Championship match denied
In 1938 he tied with Fine for first, with 8.5/14, in the all-star
AVRO tournament, held in various cities in the Netherlands, ahead
of chess legends Mikhail Botvinnik, Max Euwe, Reshevsky, Alekhine,
Capablanca and Flohr. AVRO was one of the strongest tournaments in
history; some chess historians believe it the strongest ever
staged. Keres won on tiebreak because he beat Fine 1.5-.5 in their
individual two games.
It was expected that the winner of this tournament would be the
challenger for the World Champion title, in a match against World
Champion Alexander Alekhine, but the outbreak of the Second World
War, especially because of the first occupation of Estonia by the
Soviet Union in 1940-1941, brought negotiations with Alekhine to an
end. Keres had begun his university studies in 1937, and this also
played a role in the failed match.
Keres struggled at Leningrad-Moscow 1939 with a shared 12th-13th
place; he wrote that he had not had enough time to prepare for this
very strong event, where he faced many Soviet stars for the first
time. But he recovered with more preparation time, and won Margate
1939 with 7.5/9 (+6 =3 -0), ahead of Capablanca and Flohr.
++2.D World War II
At the outbreak of World War II, Keres was in Buenos Aires at the
Olympiad. He stayed on to play in a Buenos Aires International
tournament after the Olympiad, and tied for first place with Miguel
Najdorf with 8.5/11 (+7 =3 -1).
His next event was a 14-game match with former World Champion Max
Euwe in the Netherlands, held from December 1939 - January 1940.
Keres managed to win a hard-fought struggle by 7.5-6.5 (+6 =3 -5).
This was a superb achievement, because not only was Euwe a former
World Champion, but he had enormous experience at match play, far
more than Keres.
With the Nazi-Soviet Pact having been concluded on August 23, 1939,
Estonia was occupied by the Soviet Union on August 6, 1940. Keres
played in his first Soviet Championship at Moscow 1940 (12th USSR
Championship), placing fourth (+9 =6 -4) in an exceptionally strong
field. This was ahead of the defending champion Mikhail Botvinnik,
however. The Soviet Chess Federation organized the "Absolute
Championship of the USSR" in 1941, with the top six finishers from
the 1940 championship meeting each other four times; it was split
between Leningrad and Moscow. Botvinnik won this super-strong
tournament, one of the strongest ever organized, with 13.5/20, and
Keres placed second with 11/20, ahead of Vasily Smyslov, Isaac
Boleslavsky, Andor Lilienthal, and Igor Bondarevsky.
With the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941,
Estonia came under German control soon afterwards. During 1942 and
1943, Keres and Alekhine both played in four tournaments organized
by Ehrhardt Post, a President of Nazi Grossdeutscher Schachbund.
Alekhine won at the Salzburg 1942 chess tournament (Six
Grandmasters' Tournament) in June 1942, at Munich (European
Individual Chess Championship) in September 1942, and at Prague
(International Tournament) in April 1943, always ahead of Keres,
who placed second in all three of those tournaments. They tied for
first at Salzburg (Six Grandmasters' Tournament) in June 1943, with
7.5/10.
During World War II, Keres played in several more chess
tournaments. He won all 15 games at Tallinn 1942 (Estonian
Championship), and swept all five games at Posen 1943. He also won
at Tallinn 1943 (Estonian Championship), and Madrid 1944 (13/14,
+12 =2 -0). He was second, behind Stig Lundholm, at Lidkoping 1944
(playing hors concours in the Swedish Championship). Keres won a
match with Folke Ekstrom at Stockholm in 1944 by 5-1 (+4 =2 -0).
++2.E Dangerous circumstances
The close of World War II placed Keres in dangerous circumstances.
During the war, his native Estonia was successively occupied by the
Soviet Union, Germany and again the Soviet Union. Estonia had been
under Russian control when Keres was born in 1916, but it was an
independent nation between the two World Wars. Keres participated
in several tournaments in European regions under German occupation,
and when the Soviets occupied Estonia in 1944, he attempted to
escape. As a consequence he was harassed by the Soviet authorities
and feared for his life. Fortunately, Keres managed to avoid
deportation or any worse fate (e.g., that of Vladimirs Petrovs);
however, he may have been held in detention. But his return to the
international chess scene was delayed, in spite of his excellent
form; he won at Riga 1944-1945 (Baltic Championship) (10.5/11).
Presumably for political reasons, he was excluded from the ten-
player Soviet team for the 1945 radio match against the U.S.A., and
he did not participate in the first great post-war tournament at
Groningen 1946, which was won by Botvinnik, just ahead of Euwe and
Vasily Smyslov.
He won the Estonian Championship at Tallinn 1945 with 13/15 (+11 =4
-0), ahead of several strong visiting Soviets, including Alexander
Kotov, Alexander Tolush, Lilienthal, and Flohr. He then won at
Tbilisi 1946 (hors concours in the Georgian Championship) with a
near-perfect score of 18/19, ahead of Vladas Mikowanas and a 16-
year-old Tigran Petrosian.
Keres returned to international play in 1946 in the Soviet radio
match against Great Britain, and continued his excellent playing
form that year and the next year. Even after he resumed a
relatively normal life and chess career, however, his play at the
highest level appears to have been affected by living under the
enemy occupation of the Soviet Union, which at a minimum must have
aggravated the stress of playing under the watchful eye and tight
control of the Soviet chess hierarchy.
++2.F World Championship Candidate (1948-1965)
Although he participated in the 1948 World Championship tournament,
arranged to determine the world champion after Alekhine's death in
1946, his performance was far from his best. Held jointly in The
Hague and Moscow, the tournament was limited to five participants:
Mikhail Botvinnik, Vasily Smyslov, Keres, Samuel Reshevsky, and Max
Euwe. (Reuben Fine had also been invited but declined.) The event
was played as a quintuple round robin. Keres finished joint third,
with 10.5 out of 20 points. In his individual match with the
winner, Botvinnik, he lost four of five games, winning only in the
last round when the tournament's result was already determined.
Since Keres lost his first four games against Botvinnik in the 1948
tournament, suspicions are sometimes raised that Keres was forced
to "throw" games to allow Botvinnik to win the championship. Chess
historian Taylor Kingston investigated all the available evidence
and arguments, and concluded that: Soviet chess officials gave
Keres strong hints that he should not hinder Botvinnik's attempt to
win the World Championship; Botvinnik only discovered this about
half-way though the tournament and protested so strongly that he
angered Soviet officials; Keres probably did not deliberately lose
games to Botvinnik or anyone else in the tournament.
Keres finished second or equal second in four straight Candidates'
tournaments (1953, 1956, 1959, 1962), making him the player with
the most runner-up finishes in that event. (He was therefore
occasionally nicknamed "Paul II".) Keres participated in a total of
six Candidates' Tournaments:
* Budapest 1950, 4th, behind David Bronstein and Isaac
Boleslavsky, with 9.5/18 (+3 =13 -2).
* Zurich 1953, tied 2nd-4th, along with David Bronstein and
Reshevsky, two points behind Smyslov, with 16/28 (+8 =16 -4).
* Amsterdam 1956, 2nd, 1.5 points behind Smyslov, with 10/18 (+3
=14 -1).
* Yugoslavia 1959, 2nd, 1.5 points behind Mikhail Tal, with
18.5/28 (+15 =7 -6). He had positive or equal scores against
all the competitors, including 3-1 against Tal, but this was
not enough, since Tal scored 14.5/16 against the bottom four
finishers.
* Curacao 1962, tied 2nd-3rd, with Efim Geller, half a point
behind Tigran Petrosian, with 17/27 (+9 =16 -2). This event is
discussed further at World Chess Championship 1963. Keres won
a match at Moscow 1962 against Geller, for an exempt place in
the 1965 Candidates, by 4.5-3.5 (+2 =5 -1).
* Riga 1965, lost his quarter-final match to eventual
Candidates' winner Boris Spassky by 6-4 (+2 =4 -4). This was
the only match loss of Keres' long career.
Keres' run of four successive second places in Candidates'
tournaments (1953, 1956, 1959, 1962) has prompted suspicions that
he was under orders not to win these events. Taylor Kingston
concludes that: there was probably no pressure from Soviet
officials, since from 1954 onwards, Keres was rehabilitated and
Botvinnik was no longer in favor with officials. At Curacao in 1962
there was an unofficial conspiracy by Petrosian, Geller and Keres,
and this worked out to Keres' disadvantage, since he may have been
slightly stronger than both Petrosian and Geller at this stage.
Bronstein, in his final book, published just after his death in
late 2006, wrote that the Soviet chess leadership favored Smyslov
to win Zurich 1953, and pressured several of the other top Soviets
to arrange this outcome, which did in fact occur. Bronstein wrote
that Keres was ordered to draw his second cycle game with Smyslov,
to conserve Smyslov's fading physical strength; Keres, who still
had his own hopes of winning the event, tried as White to win an
attacking game, but instead lost because of Smyslov's excellent
play.
++2.G Three-time Soviet champion, career peak
In several other post-war events, however, Keres dominated the
field. He won the exceptionally strong USSR Chess Championship
three times. In 1947, he won at Leningrad, 15th USSR Championship,
with 14/19 (+10 =8 -1); the field included every top Soviet player
except Botvinnik. In 1950, he won at Moscow, 18th USSR
Championship, with 11.5/17 (+8 =7 -2) against a field which was
only slightly weaker than in 1947. Then in 1951, he triumphed again
at Moscow, 19th USSR Championship, with 12/17 (+9 =6 -2), against
a super-class field which included Efim Geller, Petrosian, Smyslov,
Botvinnik, Yuri Averbakh, David Bronstein, Mark Taimanov, Lev
Aronin, Salo Flohr, Igor Bondarevsky, and Alexander Kotov.
Keres won Parnu 1947 with 9.5/13 (+7 =5 -1), Szczawno-Zdroj 1950
with 14.5/19 (+11 =7 -1), and Budapest 1952 with 12.5/17 (+10 =5 -
2), the latter ahead of world champion Botvinnik and an all-star
field which included Geller, Smyslov, Gideon Stahlberg, Laszlo
Szabo, and Petrosian. The Budapest victory, which capped a stretch
of four first-class wins over a two-year span, may represent the
peak of his career. The Hungarian master and writer Egon Varnusz,
in his books on Keres, states that at this time, "The best player
in the world was Paul Keres".
++2.H Unmatched International team successes
After being forced to become a Soviet citizen, Keres represented
the Soviet Union in seven consecutive Olympiads, winning seven
consecutive team gold medals, five board gold medals, and one
bronze board medal. Of note was his appearance on board one for the
USSR in 1952, when the Soviets entered the event for the first
time; Keres was the only Soviet team member with Olympiad
experience (from his previous appearances for Estonia), and world
champion Mikhail Botvinnik was not on the Soviet team. His four
straight board gold medals from 1954-1960 is an Olympiad record.
Although not selected after 1964, Keres served successfully as a
team trainer with Soviet international teams for the next decade.
Altogether, in 11 Olympiads, playing for the USSR and
Estonia(counting the unofficial Munich 1936 event), and in 161
games, Keres accumulated a brilliant total of (+97 =51 -13), for
76.7%. His detailed Soviet Olympiad results are:
* Helsinki 1952, USSR board 1, 6.5/12, team gold;
* Amsterdam 1954, USSR board 4, 13.5/14 (+13 =1 -0), team gold,
board gold, best overall score;
* Moscow 1956, USSR board 3, 9.5/12 (+7 =5 -0), team gold, board
gold;
* Munich 1958, USSR board 3, 9.5/12 (+7 =5 -0), team gold, board
gold;
* Leipzig 1960, USSR board 3, 10.5/13 (+8 =5 -0), team gold,
board gold;
* Varna 1962, USSR board 4, 9.5/13 (+6 =7 -0), team gold, board
bronze;
* Tel Aviv 1964, USSR board 4, 10/12 (+9 =2 -1), team gold,
board gold.
Keres also appeared three times for the Soviet Union in the
European Team Championships, winning team and individual gold
medals on all three occasions. He scored 14/18 (+10 =8 -0), for
77.8%. His detailed Euroteams results are:
* Vienna 1957, USSR board 2, 3/5 (+1 =4 -0), team gold, board
gold;
* Oberhausen 1961, USSR board 3, 6/8 (+4 =4 -0), team gold,
board gold;
* Kapfenberg 1970, USSR board 8, 5/5 (+5 =0 -0), team gold,
board gold.
Keres also represented the USSR in many international team matches,
in Europe and the Americas, with great success. He represented
Estonia on top board with distinction in Soviet team championships,
contested between regions.
++2.I Later career
Beginning with the Parnu 1947 tournament, Keres made some
significant contributions as a chess organizer in Estonia; this is
an often overlooked aspect of his career.
Keres continued to play exceptionally well on the international
circuit. He tied 1st-2nd at Hastings 1954-1955 with Smyslov on 7/9
(+6 =2 -1). He dominated an internal Soviet training tournament at
Parnu 1955 with 9.5/10. Keres placed 2nd at the 1955 Goteborg
Interzonal, behind David Bronstein, with 13.5/20. Keres defeated
Wolfgang Unzicker in a 1956 exhibition match at Hamburg by 6-2 (+4
=4 -0). He tied 2nd-3rd in the USSR Championship, Moscow 1957 (24th
USSR Championship) with 13.5/21 (+8 =11 -2), along with Bronstein,
behind Mikhail Tal. Keres won Mar del Plata 1957 (15/17, ahead of
Miguel Najdorf), and Santiago 1957 with 6/7, ahead of Alexander
Kotov. He won Hastings 1957-1958 (7.5/9, ahead of Svetozar
Gligoric). He was tied 3rd-4th at Zurich 1959, at 10.5/15, along
with Bobby Fischer, behind Tal and Gligoric. He placed tied 7th-8th
in the USSR Championship, Tbilisi 1959 (26th USSR Championship)
with 10.5/19, as Petrosian won. Keres was third at Stockholm 1959-
60 with 7/9. He won at Parnu 1960 with 12/15. He was the champion
at Zurich 1961 (9/11, ahead of Petrosian). At the elite Bled 1961
event, Keres shared 3rd-5th places, on 12.5/19 (+7 =11 -1), behind
only Mikhail Tal and Bobby Fischer. In the USSR Championship, Baku
1961 (29th USSR Championship), Keres scored 11/20 for a shared 8-
11th place, as Boris Spassky won. Keres shared first with World
Champion Tigran Petrosian at the very strong 1963 Piatigorsky Cup
in Los Angeles with 8.5/14.
Further tournament championships followed. He won Beverwijk 1964,
with 11.5/15, tied with Iivo Nei. He shared first place with World
Champion Tigran Petrosian at Buenos Aires 1964, with 12.5/17. He
won at Hastings 1964-1965 with 8/9. He shared 1st-2nd places at
Marianske Lazne 1965 on 11/15 with Vlastimil Hort. In the USSR
Championship at Tallinn 1965 (33rd USSR Championship), he scored
11/19 for 6th place, as Leonid Stein won. He won at Stockholm 1966-
1967 with 7/9. At Winnipeg 1967, he shared 3rd-4th places on 5.5/9
as Bent Larsen and Klaus Darga won.
At Bamberg 1968, he won with 12/15, two points ahead of World
Champion Tigran Petrosian. He was 2nd at Luhacovice 1969 with
10.5/15, behind Viktor Korchnoi. At Tallinn 1969, he shared 2nd-3rd
places on 9/13 as Stein won. At Wijk aan Zee 1969, he shared 3rd-
4th places on 10.5/15, as Geller and Botvinnik won. He won Budapest
1970 with 10/15, ahead of Laszlo Szabo. Also in 1970, Keres's 3-1
win over Ivkov on the tenth board gave victory to the Soviet team
in the match vs Rest of the World. He shared 1st-2nd at Tallinn
1971 with Mikhail Tal on 11.5/15. He shared 2nd-3rd at Parnu 1971,
on 9.5/13, as Stein won. He shared 2nd-4th at Amsterdam 1971 with
9/13, as Smyslov won. He shared 3rd-5th places at Sarajevo 1972 on
9.5/15, as Szabo won. He placed 5th at San Antonio 1972 on 9.5/15,
as Petrosian, Lajos Portisch, and Anatoly Karpov won.
At Tallinn 1973, he shared 3rd-6th places on 9/15, as Mikhail Tal
won. His last Interzonal was Petropolis 1973, where he scored 8/17
for a shared 12th-13th place, as Henrique Mecking won. That same
year, he made his last Soviet Championship appearance, at Moscow
for 41st USSR Championship, scoring 8/17 for a shared 9th-12th
place, as Boris Spassky won.
++2.J Death
His health declined the next year, and he did not play any major
events in 1974. Keres' last major tournament win was Tallinn 1975,
just a few months before his death.
He died of a heart attack in Helsinki, Finland, at the age of 59
(it is commonly reported that he died on the same date in
Vancouver, Canada). His death occurred while returning to his
native Estonia from a tournament in Vancouver, which he had won.
The Paul Keres Memorial Tournaments have been held annually mainly
in Vancouver and Tallinn ever since.
Over 100,000 were in attendance at his state funeral in Tallinn,
Estonia, where the leaders of Estonia were on guard of honor, and
FIDE President Max Euwe, his old friend and rival, was also
present.
++2.K Chess legacy and writings
The unofficial Chessmetrics system places Keres in the top 10
players in the world between approximately 1936 and 1965, and
overall he had one of the highest winning percentages of all
grandmasters in history. He has the seventh highest Chessmetrics
20-year average, from 1944 to 1963.
He was one of the very few players who had a plus record against
Capablanca. He also had plus records against World Champions Euwe
and Tal, and equal records against Smyslov, Petrosian and Anatoly
Karpov. In his long career, he played no fewer than ten world
champions. He beat every world champion from Capablanca through
Bobby Fischer (his two games with Karpov were drawn), making him
the only player ever to beat nine undisputed world champions. Other
notable grandmasters against whom he had plus records include Fine,
Flohr, Viktor Korchnoi, Efim Geller, Savielly Tartakower, Mark
Taimanov, Milan Vidmar, Svetozar Gligoric, Isaac Boleslavsky, Efim
Bogoljubov and Bent Larsen.
He wrote a number of chess books, including a well-regarded, deeply
annotated collection of his best games, Grandmaster of Chess ISBN
0-668-02645-6, The Art of the Middle Game (with Alexander Kotov)
ISBN 0-486-26154-9, and Practical Chess Endings ISBN 0-7134-4210-7.
All three books are still considered among the best of their kind
for aspiring masters and experts. He also wrote several tournament
books, including an important account of the 1948 World
Championship Match Tournament. He authored several openings
treatises, often originally in the German language, as listed by
the Hungarian writer Egon Varnusz: Spanisch bis Franzosisch,
Dreispringer bis Konigsgambit, and Vierspringer bis Spanisch. He
contributed to the first volume, 'C', of the first edition of the
Yugoslav-published Encyclopaedia of Chess Openings (ECO), which
appeared in 1974, just before his death the next year. Keres also
co-founded the Riga magazine Shakhmaty.
Keres made many important contributions to opening theory. Perhaps
best-known is the Keres Attack against the Scheveningen Variation
of the Sicilian Defense (1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6
5. Nc3 e6 6. g4), which was successfully introduced against Efim
Bogolyubov at Salzburg 1943, and today remains a topical and
important line. An original system on the Black side of the Closed
Ruy Lopez (1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6 4. Ba4 Nf6 5. 0-0 Be7 6.
Re1 b5 7. Bb3 d6 8. c3 0-0 9. h3 Na5 10. Bc2 c5 11. d4 Nd7) was
introduced by Keres at the 1962 Candidates' tournament, and it had
a run of popularity for several years. He also popularized the
Keres Defense (1. d4 e6 2. c4 Bb4+). Another important system on
the Black side of the English Opening was worked out by him; it
runs 1. c4 e5 2. Nc3 Nf6 3. g3 c6.
The Hungarian writer Egon Varnusz wrote that Keres "published 180
problems and 30 studies. One of his rook endings won first prize in
1947."
Keres won top-class tournaments from the mid-1930s into the mid-
1970s, a span of 40 years, and won major events in western Europe,
eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, South America, and North America.
Botvinnik, by contrast, never competed in the Americas during his
career.
His rival Samuel Reshevsky, while paying tribute to Keres' talent,
tried to pinpoint why Keres never became world champion, and also
complimented his friendly personality. "Well, I believe that Keres
failed in this respect because he lacked the killer instinct. He
was too mild a person to give his all in order to defeat his
opponents. He took everything, including his chess,
philosophically. Keres is one of the nicest people that I have ever
had the pleasure of meeting. With his friendly and sincere smile,
he makes friends easily. He is goodnatured and kind. Yes, he loves
chess, but being a human being is his first consideration. In
addition to chess, Keres was interested in tennis, Ping-Pong,
swimming, and bridge."
++2.L Acknowledgements
The five kroons (5 krooni) Estonian banknote bears his portrait. He
is the only chess player whose portrait is on a banknote.
A statue honouring him can be found on Tonismagi in Tallinn.
Stamp of the USSR was devoted to Paul Keres in 1991.
An annual international chess tournament has been held in Tallinn
every other year since 1969. Keres won this tournament in 1971 and
1975. Starting in 1976 after Keres' death, it has been called the
Paul Keres Memorial Tournament. There are also the annual Keres
Memorial tournament held in Vancouver and a number of chess clubs
and festivals named after him.
In 2000, Keres was elected the Estonian Sportsman of the Century.
There is also a street in Nomme, a district of Tallinn, which was
named after Keres.
++2.M Notable chess games
* Paul Keres vs Alexander Alekhine, Margate 1937, Ruy Lopez
(C71), 1-0. Here Keres outplayed Alekhine already in the first
15 moves. The game is crowned by two small combinations.
* Paul Keres vs Jose Raul Capablanca, AVRO Amsterdam 1938,
French, Tarrasch, Open Variation, Main line (C09), 1-0. Almost
unpredictable jumps of the White Knight slowly destroy Black's
position. A beautiful tactical game.
* Max Euwe vs Paul Keres, Amsterdam 1940 (match), Queen's
Indian, Old Main line (E19), 0-1. Black reveals a series of
brilliant tactical surprise moves, concluding elegantly
against the former world champion.
* Paul Keres vs Jaroslav Sajtar, Amsterdam 1954, Sicilian,
Najdorf (B94), 1-0. A typical Sicilian sacrifice on e6 leads
to swift resignation.
* Paul Keres vs Mikhail Botvinnik, Moscow 1956 (Alekhine
Memorial), Sicilian, Richter-Rauzer Attack (B63), 1-0. Keres
had a minus score against Botvinnik, but here he defeats the
world champion in convincing positional style.
* Paul Keres vs Edgar Walther, Tel Aviv 1964, King's Indian,
Petrosian System (E93), 1-0. The game where Keres introduced
a new plan against the King's Indian opening: Bg5, h4, Nh2 and
a sacrifice on g4.
++2.N Quotes
* "At Amsterdam in 1954 he scored 96.4% on fourth board and won
another game so brilliant against Sajtar of Czechoslovakia
that the Soviet non-playing captain, Kotov, told to me that it
was "a true Soviet game." I told this to Keres who, with the
nearest approach to acerbity I ever saw him show, said: 'No,
it was a true Estonian game."" - Grandmaster Harry Golombek.
* "At the Warsaw team tournament in 1935, the most surprising
discovery was a gangling, shy, 19-year-old Estonian. Some had
never heard of his country before, nobody had ever heard of
Keres. But his play at top board was a wonder to behold. Not
merely because he performed creditably in his first serious
encounters with the world's greatest; others have done that
too. It was his originality, verve, and brilliance which
astounded and delighted the chess world." - Grandmaster Reuben
Fine.
* "I loved Paul Petrovitch with a kind of special, filial
feeling. Honesty, correctness, discipline, diligence,
astonishing modesty - these were the characteristics that
caught the eye of the people who came into contact with Keres
during his lifetime. But there was also something mysterious
about him. I had an acute feeling that Keres was carrying some
kind of a heavy burden all through his life. Now I understand
that this burden was the infinite love for the land of his
ancestors, an attempt to endure all the ordeals, to have full
responsibility for his every step. I have never met a person
with an equal sense of responsibility. This man with
internally free and independent character was at the same time
a very well disciplined person. Back then I did not realise
that it is discipline that largely determines internal
freedom. For me, Paul Keres was the last Mohican, the carrier
of the best traditions of classical chess and - if I could put
it this way - the Pope of chess. Why did he not become the
champion? I know it from personal experience that in order to
reach the top, a person is thinking solely of the goal, he has
to forget everything else in this world, toss aside everything
unnecessary - or else you are doomed. How could Keres forget
everything else?" - Former World Champion Boris Spassky.
* "I was unlucky, like my country." - Paul Keres, on why he
never became world champion.
++2.O Books
* Keres, Paul; Kotov, Alexander (1964). The Art of the Middle
Game. Penguin Books.
* Keres, Paul (1984). Practical Chess Endings. Batsford. ISBN 0-
7134-4210-7.
++2.P Tournament and match record
Keres' tournament and match record:
++2.P1 Tournaments
1935 Warsaw Olympiad 1935 (6th Olympiad) - +11 -5 =3 on first board
for Estonia.
1935 Helsinki - 2 Frydman won.
1936 Nauheim - 2 shared 1-2 with Alekhine.
1936 Dresden - 8-9 Alekhine won.
1936 Zandvoort - 3-4 Fine won.
1937 Margate - 1-2 shared 1-2 with Fine.
1937 Ostend - 1-3 shared 1-3 with Grob and Fine.
1937 Prague - 1 ahead of Zinner.
1937 Vienna - 1 Quadrangular.
1937 Kemeri - 4-5 Reshevsky, Flohr, and Petrovs shared 1st-3rd.
1937 Parnu - 2-4 Schmidt won.
1937 Stockholm Olympiad 1937 (7th Olympiad) - individual silver (+9
-2 =4) on first board for Estonia.
1937 Semmering/Baden - 1 ahead of Fine.
1937-1938 Hastings - 2-3 Reshevsky won.
1938 Noordwijk - 2 Eliskases won.
1938 AVRO - 1-2 shared 1-2 with Fine, ahead of Botvinnik.
1939 Leningrad-Moscow - 12-13 Flohr won.
1939 Margate - 1 ahead of Capablanca and Flohr.
1939 Buenos Aires Olympiad 1939 (8th Olympiad) - +12 -2 =5 on first
board for bronze medal winning Estonia.
1939 Buenos Aires - 1-2 shared 1-2 with Najdorf.
1940 USSR Championship 1940 (12th USSR Championship) - 4 Lilienthal
and Bondarevsky won.
1941 USSR Championship 1941 (Absolute USSR Championship) - 2 behind
Botvinnik.
1942 Tallinn - 1 Estonian Championship +15 -0 =0.
1942 Salzburg - 2 behind Alekhine.
1942 Munich - 2 "European Championship", behind Alekhine.
1943 Prague - 2 behind Alekhine.
1943 Pozna - 1 ahead of Gruenfeld.
1943 Salzburg - 1-2 shared 1-2 with Alekhine.
1943 Tallinn - 1 Estonian Championship +6 -1 =4.
1943 Madrid - 1.
1944 Lidkoping - 2 Swedish Championship.
1944-1945 Riga - 1 Baltic Championship.
1946 Tbilisi - 1 Georgian Championship.
1947 Parnu - 1.
1947 USSR Championship 1947 (15th USSR Championship) - 1.
1947 Moscow 6-7.
1948 World Championship Tournament - 3-4 Botvinnik 1st, Smyslov
2nd.
1949 USSR Championship 1949 (17th USSR Championship) - 8.
1950 Budapest - 4 Candidates Tournament, Bronstein and Boleslavsky
1st- 2nd, Smyslov 3rd.
1950 Szczawno-Zdroj - 1.
1950 USSR Championship 1950 (18th USSR Championship) - 1.
1951 USSR Championship 1951 (19th USSR Championship) 1.
1952 USSR Championship 1952 (20th USSR Championship) - 10-11
Botvinnik won.
1952 Budapest - 1.
1952 Helsinki Olympiad 1952 (10th Olympiad) - +3 -2 =7 on first
board for gold medal USSR team.
1953 Zurich - 2-4 Candidates Tournament, Smyslov 1st.
1954 Amsterdam Olympiad 1954 (11th Olympiad) - individual gold (+13
-0 =1) on fourth board for gold medal USSR team.
1954-1955 Hastings - 1-2 shared 1-2 with Smyslov.
1955 USSR Championship 1955 (22nd USSR Championship) - 7-8 Geller
won.
1955 Goteborg - 2 Interzonal, Bronstein won.
1956 Amsterdam - 2 Candidates Tournament, Smyslov won.
1956 Moscow Olympiad 1956 (12th Olympiad) - individual gold (+7 -0
=5) on third board for gold medal USSR team.
1956 Moscow - 7-8.
1957 USSR Championship 1957 (24th USSR Championship) - 2-3 Tal won.
1957 Mar del Plata - 1.
1957 Santiago - 1.
1957-1958 Hastings - 1.
1958 Munich Olympiad 1958 (13th Olympiad) - individual gold (+7 -0
=5) on third board for gold medal USSR team.
1959 USSR Championship 1959 (26th USSR Championship) - 7-8
Petrosian won.
1959 Zurich - 3-4 Tal won.
1959 Bled/Belgrade/Zagreb - 2 Candidates Tournament, Tal won.
1959-1960 Stockholm 3.
1960 Leipzig Olympiad 1960 (14th Olympiad) - individual gold (+8 -0
=5) on third board for gold medal USSR team.
1961 Zurich - 1.
1961 Bled - 3-5 Tal won.
1961 USSR Championship 1961 (29th USSR Championship) - 8-11.
1962 Curacao - 2-3 1962 Candidates Tournament, Petrosian won.
1962 Varna Olympiad 1962 (15th Olympiad) - individual bronze (+6 -0
=7) on fourth board on gold medal USSR team.
1963 Los Angeles - 1-2 1st Piatigorsky Cup, tied with Petrosian for
first.
1964 Beverwijk - 1-2 Hoogovens tournament, shared 1-2 with Nei.
1964 Buenos Aires - 1-2 shared 1-2 with Petrosian.
1964 Tel Aviv Olympiad 1964 (16th Olympiad) - individual gold (+9 -
1 =2) on fourth board for gold medal USSR team.
1964-1965 Hastings - 1.
1965 Marienska Leznia - 1-2 shared 1-2 with Hort.
1965 USSR Championship 1965 (33rd USSR Championship) - 6 Stein won.
1966-1967 Stockholm - 1.
1967 Moscow - 9-12.
1967 Winnipeg - 3-4.
1968 Bamberg - 1.
1969 Beverwijk - 3-4 Hoogovens tournament, behind Botvinnik and
Geller.
1969 Tallinn - 2-3.
1970 Budapest - 1.
1971 Amsterdam - 2-4.
1971 Parnu - 2-3.
1971 Tallinn - 3-6.
1972 Sarajevo - 3-5.
1972 San Antonio - 5 Karpov, Petrosian, and Portisch shared 1st-
3rd.
1973 Tallinn - 3-6.
1973 Dortmund - 6-7.
1973 Petropolis - 12-13 Interzonal, Mecking 1st; Geller,
Polugaevsky, and Portisch 2nd-4th.
1973 USSR Championship 1973 (41st USSR Championship) - 9-12 Spassky
won.
1975 Tallinn - 1.
1975 Vancouver - 1.
++2.P2 Matches
1935 Gunnar Friedemann +2 -1 =0.
1935 Feliks Kibbermann +3 -1 =0.
1936 Paul Felix Schmidt +3 -3 =1.
1938 Gideon Stahlberg +2 -2 =4.
1939-1940 Max Euwe +6 -5 =3.
1944 Folke Ekstrom +4 -0 =2.
1956 Wolfgang Unzicker +4 -0 =4.
1962 Efim Geller +2 -1 =5.
1965 Boris Spassky +2 -4 =4.
1970 Borislav Ivkov +2 -0 =2.
++2.P3 Scores against other outstanding Grandmasters
Only official tournament or match games are accounted for.
* Alexander Alekhine: +1 -5 =8.
* Mikhail Botvinnik: +3 -8 =9.
* David Bronstein: +4 -6 =18.
* Jose Raul Capablanca: +1 -0 =5.
* Max Euwe: +11 -7 =9.
* Reuben Fine: +3 -1 =8.
* Bobby Fischer: +3 -4 =3.
* Efim Geller: +8 -7 =21.
* Anatoly Karpov: +0 -0 =2.
* Viktor Korchnoi: +4 -1 =12.
* Bent Larsen: +2 -0 =4.
* Tigran Petrosian: +3 -3 =27.
* Lajos Portisch: +1 -4 =3.
* Vasily Smyslov: +8 -10 =21.
* Boris Spassky: +3 -5 =29.
* Mikhail Tal: +8 -4 =20.
++3. Reuben Fine - Paul Keres, Amsterdam 1938
Amsterdam 1938, Round 7
White: Reuben Fine
Black: Paul Keres
Result: 0-1
ECO: C86 - Ruy Lopez Opening, Morphy Variation, Closed Variation, Worrall Attack
Notes by R.J. Macdonald
1. e4 e5
2. Nf3 Nc6
3. Bb5
(The Ruy Lopez Opening.)
3. ... a6
(The Morphy Variation.)
4. Ba4 Nf6
5. 0-0 Be7
(The Closed Variation.)
6. Qe2
(The Worrall Attack.)
6. ... b5
(Black can achieve equality with 6. ... d6 7. Bxc6+ bxc6 8. d4 exd4 9. Nxd4 Bd7
10. Nc3 0-0 11. Bf4 Re8 12. Qd3 g6 13. Rab1 c5.)
7. Bb3 d6
(7. ... 0-0 8. Nc3 Bc5 9. d3 d6 10. Nd5 Bg4 11. c3 h6 12. Be3 Bxe3 13. Qxe3
Nxd5 14. Bxd5 offers equal chances.)
8. a4 Bg4
9. c3 0-0
10. axb5 axb5
11. Rxa8 Qxa8
12. Qxb5 Na7
(Black threatens to win material: Na7xb5. 12. ... Na5 13. Bc2 Nxe4 14. Nxe5 Rb8
15. Bxe4 Rxb5 16. Bxa8 dxe5 17. b4 Bf5 18. Na3 Rb8 19. Bd5 c6 20. Ba2 Nb7 21.
Re1 Bf6 22. f3 h5 23. Kf2 c5 24. b5 Nd6 25. Nc4 Be6 26. Nxd6 Bxa2 27. Ba3 1-0
in 31 moves, as in the game B. Amin (2400) - A. Najjar (2339), Dubai 2005.)
13. Qe2
(Other options include (a) 13. Qa5 Qxe4 14. Qxa7 (14. d3 Qb7 15. Nbd2 h6 16.
Qa2 Nc6 17. Re1 Bf5 18. Ne4 Nd8 19. Nfd2 Ne6 20. Nxf6+ Bxf6 21. Bd5 c6 22. Be4
Ra8 23. Qb1 Bxe4 24. Nxe4 Be7 25. Qc2 Ra1 26. Nd2 Bg5 27. Nb3 Ra8 28. Bxg5 hxg5
1-0 in 51 moves, as in the game D. Zoler (2275) - Y. Yonathan, Tel Aviv 1990)
14. ... Bxf3 15. gxf3 Qxb1 16. Qxc7 Qg6+ 17. Kh1 Qd3 18. Kg1 Qg6+ 19. Kh1 Qd3
20. Kg1 1/2-1/2, as in the game D. Ilievski - A. Matanovic, Skopje 1968; and
(b) 13. Qa5 Qxe4 (13. ... Nxe4?? 14. Bd5 c6 15. Bxe4 is very strong for white)
14. Qxa7 Bxf3 15. gxf3 Qg6+ 16. Kh1 Qxb1 17. Qxc7 Qd3 with equal chances.)
13. ... Qxe4
14. Qxe4 Nxe4
15. d4 Bxf3
16. gxf3
(White has the pair of bishops.)
16. ... Ng5
17. Kg2 Rb8
(Black threatens to win material: Rb8xb3.)
18. Bc4 exd4
19. cxd4 Ne6
20. d5 Nc5
21. Nc3 Nc8
22. Re1 Kf8
(22. ... Rb4 23. Bf1 Kf8 leads to equality.)
23. Re2
(23. Bf1 Rb4 offers equal chances.)
23. ... f5
(23. ... Nb6 24. Bb5 gives black a solid advantage.)
24. Nb5
(White threatens to win material: Nb5xc7. 24. Be3 Bf6 gives black a slight
edge.)
24. ... Nb6
25. b3
(Prevents intrusion on a4.)
25. ... Nxd5
26. Nd4
(26. Nxd6 Bxd6 (26. ... cxd6 is weaker: 27. Bxd5 Bf6 28. Bf4 offers equal
chances) 27. Bxd5 Nxb3 gives black a solid advantage.)
26. ... Nb4
27. Bd2
(27. Nxf5!? is worth consideration: 27. ... Bf6 28. Be3 gives black a slight
edge.)
27. ... d5
(Black now has a solid advantage.)
28. Bxb4 Rxb4
(Not 28. ... dxc4, because of 29. Bxc5 Bxc5 30. Ne6+ Ke7 31. Nxc5+ Kd6 32. b4
Rxb4 33. Ne6 with a slight advantage for white.)
29. Nc6
(29. Rxe7 Kxe7 30. Nc6+ Kd6 31. Nxb4 dxc4 32. bxc4 g6 is very strong for black.)
29. ... dxc4
30. Nxb4
(30. bxc4 Rxc4 31. Rxe7 Nd3 32. Rxc7 g6 is strong for black.)
30. ... cxb3
(Black now has a very strong advantage.)
Key Move Diagram:
5k2/
2p1b1pp/
8/
2n2p2/
1N6/
1p3P2/
4RPKP/
8
Position after black's 30th move.
31. Nd5?
(Relatively better is 31. Rb2, but black still has a very strong advantage.)
31. ... Nd3
32. Rd2
(32. Kf1 b2 33. Nc3 Bf6 is very strong for black.)
32. ... b2
33. Rd1 c5
(33. ... Nc1!? might be the shorter path: 34. Nc3 c5 35. Nb1 with a decisive
advantage for black.)
34. Rb1 c4
35. Kf1 Bc5
36. Ke2 Bxf2
37. Ne3
(37. Kd2 Bd4 is decisive for black.)
37. ... c3
38. Nc2
(38. Kxd3 Bxe3 39. Kxc3 Bc1 is decisive for black.)
Key Move Diagram:
5k2/
6pp/
8/
5p2/
8/
2pn1P2/
1pN1Kb1P/
1R6
Position after white's 38th move.
38. ... Ne1!
(The best thing is for Black to hand back some material.)
39. Na3
(If 39. Rxe1 Bxe1; or if 39. Nxe1 Bxe1.)
39. ... Bc5
(39. ... Bh4 secures the win: 40. Kd1 with a decisive advantage for black.)
40. Kxe1??
(Another bit of territory lost. Relatively better is 40. Rxe1 Bxa3 41. Kd3,
with a moderate advantage for black.)
40. ... Bxa3
(Black has a very strong advantage.)
41. Kd1 Bd6
42. Kc2
(42. h4 Bf4 is very strong for black.)
42. ... Bxh2
43. Rh1
(43. Kxc3 does not solve anything after 43. ... Be5+ 44. Kc2 Kf7 with a
decisive advantage for black.)
43. ... Be5
44. Rxh7
(44. Rh5 does not win a prize either: 44. ... Kf7 45. Rxf5+ Bf6 is decisive for
black.)
44. ... Kf7
45. Rh1
(45. Rh4 praying for a miracle, but black still has a decisive advantage.)
45. ... g5
46. Re1
(46. Rg1 is no salvation: 46. ... Kg6 47. Kb1 Bf6 is decisive for black.)
46. ... Kf6
47. Rg1 Kg6
48. Re1
(48. Kd3 g4! finishing the game: 49. Kc2 g3 and black should win easily.)
48. ... Bf6
49. Rg1
(49. Re6 cannot undo what has already been done: 49. ... g4 50. f4 Kf7 and
black should win easily.)
Key Move Diagram:
8/
8/
5bk1/
5pp1/
8/
2p2P2/
1pK5/
6R1
Position after white's 49th move.
49. ... g4!
(The logical end.)
50. fxg4
(50. f4 Bg7 51. Rb1 is decisive for black.)
50. ... f4
51. g5 Bd4
52. Rd1 Be3
53. Kxc3 Bc1
54. Rd6+
(54. Rg1 does not save the day: 54. ... b1=Q and black wins easily.)
54. ... Kxg5
55. Rb6
(55. Rd5+ doesn't get the cat off the tree either: 55. ... Kg4 56. Rb5 f3 57.
Rb4+ Kg3 58. Kd3 Kg2 59. Rg4+ Kf1 60. Kc2 f2 61. Rg6 Ke2 62. Re6+ Kf3 63. Rf6+
Bf4 64. Rb6 Be5 65. Rb7 Kg2 66. Rf7 f1=Q 67. Rxf1 Kxf1 68. Kb1 Ke2 69. Kc2 Bd4
70. Kb3 Kd3 71. Ka2 Kc2 72. Ka3 b1=Q 73. Ka4 Qb6 74. Ka3 Qa5#.)
55. ... f3
56. Kd3
(56. Rb5+ doesn't improve anything: 56. ... Kh4 57. Rb4+ Kg3 58. Kd3 Kg2 59.
Rg4+ Kf1 60. Kc2 f2 61. Rg6 Ke2 62. Re6+ Kf3 63. Rf6+ Bf4 64. Rb6 Be5 65. Rb3+
Ke4 66. Rb4+ Bd4 67. Rb8 f1=Q 68. Re8+ Be5 69. Rxe5+ Kxe5 70. Kxb2 Kd4 71. Kc2
Qb5 72. Kd1 Qb2 73. Ke1 Ke3 74. Kd1 Qb1#.)
56. ... Kf4
57. Rb8
(57. Rb7 cannot change what is in store for white: 57. ... Kg3 58. Rb6 Kg2 59.
Rg6+ Kf1 60. Kc2 f2 61. Re6 Kg2 62. Rg6+ Kf3 63. Rf6+ Bf4 64. Rb6 Be5 65. Rb7
Kg2 66. Rf7 f1=Q 67. Rxf1 Kxf1 68. Kb1 Ke2 69. Kc2 Bd4 70. Kb3 Kd3 71. Ka2 Kc2
72. Ka3 b1=Q 73. Ka4 Qb6 74. Ka3 Qa5#.)
57. ... Kg3
(White resigns in view of 57. ... Kg3 58. Rb6 Kf2 59. Kc2 Kf1 60. Kc3 f2 61.
Kc2 Ke2 62. Re6+ Kf3 63. Rf6+ Bf4 64. Rb6 Be5 65. Rb7 Kg2 66. Rf7 f1=Q 67. Rxf1
Kxf1 68. Kb1 Ke2 69. Kc2 Bd4 70. Kb3 Kd3 71. Ka2 Kc2 72. Ka3 b1=Q 73. Ka4 Qb6
74. Ka3 Qa5#.)
0-1
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- » [blind-chess] Annotated Game #139: Reuben Fine - Paul Keres, Amsterdam 1938 - Roderick Macdonald