[blind-chess] Annotated Game #106: Alexander Alekhine - Aron Nimzowitsch, San Remo 1930
- From: "Roderick Macdonald" <rjmacdonald@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Blind-Chess Mailing List" <blind-chess@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 26 Aug 2012 19:34:00 -1000
Annotated Game #106:
Alexander Alekhine - Aron Nimzowitsch, San Remo 1930
Adapted and Condensed from
Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia
Contents:
++1. Alexander Alexandrovich Alekhine
++1.A Biography
++1.A1 Early life
++1.A2 Early chess career (1902-1914)
++1.A3 Top-level grandmaster (1914-1927)
++1.A3a World War I and post-revolutionary Russia
++1.A3b 1920-1927
++1.B World Chess Champion, first reign (1927-35)
++1.B1 1927 title match
++1.B2 Rematch offered, never finalized
++1.B3 Defeats Bogolyubov twice in title matches
++1.B4 Anti-Bolshevik statements, controversy
++1.B5 Dominates rivals
++1.C Loss of the World title (1935-1937)
++1.D World Chess Champion, second reign (1937-46)
++1.D1 1937-1939
++1.D2 World War II (1939-1945)
++1.D3 His final year
++1.E Assessment
++1.E1 Playing strength and style
++1.E2 Influence on the game
++1.E3 Accusations of "improving" games
++1.E4 Accusations of anti-Semitism
++1.F Notable chess games
++1.G Writings
++1.H Summary of results in competitions
++1.H1 Tournament results
++1.H2 Match results
++1.H3 Chess Olympiad results
++2. Aron Isaevich Nimzowitsch
++2.A Life
++2.B Chess career
++2.C Legacy
++2.D Personality
++2.E Notable chess games
++3. Alexander Alekhine - Aron Nimzowitsch, San Remo 1930
++1. Alexander Alexandrovich Alekhine
World Champion 1927-1935 & 1937-1946
Alexander Alexandrovich Alekhine (October 31, 1892 - March 24,
1946) was the fourth World Chess Champion. He is often considered
one of the greatest chess players ever.
By the age of twenty-two, he was already among the strongest chess
players in the world. During the 1920s, he won most of the
tournaments in which he played. In 1927, he became the fourth World
Chess Champion by defeating Capablanca, widely considered
invincible, in what would stand as the longest chess championship
match held until 1985.
In the early 1930s, Alekhine dominated tournament play and won two
top-class tournaments by large margins. He also played first board
for France in five Chess Olympiads, winning individual prizes in
each (four medals and a brillancy prize). His tournament record
became more erratic from the mid-1930s onwards, and alcoholism is
often blamed for his decline. Alekhine offered Capablanca a rematch
on the same demanding terms that Capablanca had set for him, and
negotiations dragged on for years without making much progress.
Meanwhile, Alekhine defended his title with ease against Bogoljubov
in 1929 and 1934. He was defeated by Euwe in 1935, but regained his
crown in the 1937 rematch. His tournament record, however, remained
uneven, and rising young stars like Keres, Fine, and Botvinnik
threatened his title. Negotiations for a title match with Keres or
Botvinnik were halted by the outbreak of World War II in Europe in
1939.
Alekhine stayed in Nazi-occupied Europe during the war, where he
played in tournaments which were organized by the Nazis. Anti-
Semitic articles appeared under his name, although he later claimed
they were forged by the Nazis. Alekhine had good relationships with
several Jewish chess players, and his fourth wife was Jewish. After
the war, Alekhine was ostracized by players and tournament
organizers because of the anti-Semitic articles. Negotiations with
Mikhail Botvinnik for a world title match were proceeding in 1946
when Alekhine died in Portugal, in unclear circumstances.
Alekhine is known for his fierce and imaginative attacking style,
combined with great positional and endgame skill. He produced
innovations in a wide range of chess openings. Statistical rating
systems differ about his strength relative to other players, giving
him rankings between fourth and eighteenth in their "all-time"
lists. Although Alekhine was declared an "enemy of the Soviet
Union" after making anti-Bolshevik statements in 1927, in the 1950s
he was posthumously rehabilitated and acclaimed as one of the
founders of the "Soviet School of Chess", which dominated the game
after World War II. He is highly regarded as a chess writer and
theoretician, giving his name to Alekhine's Defense and several
other opening variations, and also composed a few endgame studies.
There is strong evidense that Alekhine "improved" the published
scores of some of his games, although in one case he may not have
been responsible for the misrepresentation.
++1.A Biography
++1.A1 Early life
Alekhine was born into a wealthy family in Moscow, Russia on
October 31, 1892. His father Alexander Ivanovich Alekhine was a
landowner and Privy Councilor to the conservative legislative
Fourth Duma. His mother, Anisya Ivanovna Alekhina (born
Prokhorova), was the daughter of a rich industrialist. Alekhine was
first introduced to chess by his mother, an older brother, Alexei,
and an older sister, Varvara
(Barbara).
++1.A2 Early chess career (1902-1914)
The tables at the end of this article give details of Alekhine's
results.
Alekhine in 1909
Alekhine's first known game was from a correspondense chess
tournament that began on December 3, 1902, when he was ten years
old. He participated in several correspondense tournaments,
sponsored by the chess magazine Shakhmatnoe Obozrenie, in
1902-1911. In 1907, Alexander played his first over-the-board
tournament, the Moscow chess club's Spring Tournament. Later that
year, Alexander tied for 11th-13th in the club's Autumn Tournament;
his older brother, Alexei, tied for 4th-6th place. In 1908,
Alexander won the club's Spring Tournament, at the age of fifteen.
In 1909, he won All-Russian Amateur Tournament in Saint Petersburg.
For the next few years, he played in increasingly stronger
tournaments, some of them outside Russia. At first he had mixed
results, but by the age of sixteen he had established himself as
one of Russia's top players. He played first board in two friendly
team matches: St. Petersburg Chess Club vs. Moscow Chess Club in
1911 and Moscow vs. St. Petersburg in 1912 (both drew with Eugene
Znosko-Borovsky). By the end of 1911, Alekhine moved to St.
Petersburg, where he entered the Imperial Law School for Nobles. By
1912, he was the strongest chess player in the St. Petersburg Chess
Society. In March 1912, he won the St. Petersburg Chess Club Winter
Tournament. In April 1912, he won the 1st Category Tournament of
the St. Petersburg Chess Club. In January 1914, Alekhine won his
first major Russian tournament, when he tied for first place with
Aron Nimzowitsch in the All-Russian Masters Tournament at St.
Petersburg. Afterwards, they drew in a mini-match for first prize
(they both won a game). Alekhine also played several matches in
this period, and his results showed the same pattern: mixed at
first but later consistently good.
++1.A3 Top-level grandmaster (1914-1927)
In April-May 1914, another major St. Petersburg 1914 chess
tournament was held in the capital of the Russian Empire, in which
Alekhine took third place behind Emanuel Lasker and Jose Raul
Capablanca. By some accounts, Tsar Nicholas II conferred the title
of "Grandmaster of Chess" on each of the five finalists (Lasker,
Capablanca, Alekhine, Tarrasch, and Marshall). Chess historian
Edward Winter has questioned this, stating that the earliest known
sources that support this story are an article by Robert Lewis
Taylor in the June 15, 1940 issue of The New Yorker and Marshall's
autobiography My 50 Years of Chess
(1942). Alekhine's surprising success made him a serious contender
for the World Chess
Championship. Whether or not the title was formally awarded to him,
"Thanks to this performance, Alekhine became a grandmaster in his
own right and in the eyes of the audiense." In July 1914, Alekhine
tied for first with Marshall in Paris.
++1.A3a World War I and post-revolutionary Russia
In July-August 1914, Alekhine was leading an international Mannheim
tournament, the 19th DSB Congress (German Chess Federation
Congress) in Mannheim, Germany, with nine wins, one draw and one
loss, when World War I broke out. Alekhine's prize was 1,100 marks
(worth about 11,000 euros in terms of purchasing power today).
After the declaration of war against Russia, eleven "Russian"
players (Alekhine, Bogoljubov, Bogatyrchuk, Flamberg, Koppelman,
Maliutin, Rabinovich, Romanovsky, Saburov, Selezniev, Weinstein)
were interned in Rastatt, Germany. In September 14, 17, and 29,
1914, four of them (Alekhine, Bogatyrchuk, Saburov, and Koppelman)
were freed and allowed to return home. Alekhine made his way back
to Russia (via Switzerland, Italy, London, Stockholm, and Finland)
by the end of October 1914. A fifth player, Peter Romanovsky, was
released in 1915, and a sixth, Flamberg, was allowed to return to
Warsaw in 1916.
When Alekhine returned to Russia, he helped raise money to aid the
Russian chess players who remained interned in Germany by giving
simultaneous exhibitions. In December 1915, he won the Moscow Chess
Club Championship. In April 1916 Alekhine won a mini-match against
Alexander Evensohn with two wins and one loss at Kiev, and in
summer he served in the Union of Cities (Red Cross) on the Austrian
front. In September, he played five people in a blindfold display
at a Russian military hospital at Tarnopol. In 1918, Alekhine won
a "Triangular tournament" in Moscow. In June of the following year,
Alekhine was briefly imprisoned in Odessa's death cell by the
Odessa Cheka, suspected of being a spy. He was charged with links
with White counter-intelligense, after the Russians liberated the
Ukraine from German occupation. Rumors appeared in the West that
Alekhine had been killed by the Bolsheviks.
++1.A3b 1920-1927
The table at the foot of this article gives details of Alekhine's
results.
When conditions in Russia became more settled, Alekhine proved he
was among Russia's strongest players. For example, in January 1920,
he swept the Moscow City Chess Championship (11/11), but was not
declared Moscow Champion because he was not a resident of the city.
Also in October 1920, he won the All-Russian Championship in Moscow
(+9 -0 =6); this tournament was retroactively defined as the first
USSR Championship. His brother Alexei took third place in the
tournament for amateurs.
In March 1920, Alekhine married Alexandra Batayeva. They divorced
the next year. For a short time in 1920-1921, he worked as an
interpreter for the Communist International (Comintern) and was
appointed secretary to the Education Department. In this capacity,
he met a Swiss journalist and Comintern delegate, Anneliese Rueegg
(Annalisa Ruegg), who was thirteen years older than him, and they
married on March 15, 1921. Shortly after, Alekhine was given
permission to leave Russia for a visit to the West with his wife,
from which he never returned. In June 1921, Alekhine abandoned his
second wife in Paris and went to Berlin.
In 1921-1923 Alekhine played seven mini-matches. In 1921, he won
against Nikolay Grigoriev (+2 -0 =5) in Moscow, drew with Richard
Teichmann (+2 -2 =2) and won against Friedrich Saemisch (+2 -0 =0),
both in Berlin. In 1922, he won against Ossip Bernstein (+1 -0 =1)
and Arnold Aurbach (+1 -0 =1), both in Paris, and Manuel Golmayo
(+1 -0 =1) in Madrid. In 1923, he won against Andri Muffang (+2 -0
=0) in Paris.
From 1921 to 1927, Alekhine won or shared first prize in about two-
thirds of the many tournaments in which he played. His least
successful efforts were: a tie for third place at Vienna 1922
behind Akiba Rubinstein and Richard Reti; and third place at the
New York 1924 chess tournament behind ex-champion Emanuel Lasker
and world champion Jose Raul Capablanca (but ahead of Frank James
Marshall, Richard Reti, Giza Marsczy, Efim Bogoljubov, Savielly
Tartakower, Frederick Yates, Edward Lasker and Dawid Janowski).
Technically, Alekhine's play was mostly better than his
competitors', even Capablanca's, but he lacked confidense when
playing his major rivals.
Alekhine's major goal throughout this period was to arrange a match
with Capablanca. He thought the greatest obstacle was not
Capablanca's play, but the requirement under the 1922 "London
rules" (at Capablanca's insistense) that the challenger raise a
purse of US $10,000, of which the defending champion would receive
over half even if defeated (US $10,000 in 1927 would be worth about
$391,000 in 2006 Alekhine in November 1921 and Rubinstein and Aaron
Nimzowitsch in 1923 challenged Capablanca, but were unable to raise
the $10,000. Raising the money was Alekhine's preliminary
objective; he even went on tour, playing simultaneous exhibitions
for modest fees day after day. In New York on April 27, 1924,
Alekhine broke the world record for blindfold play when he played
twenty-six opponents (the previous record was twenty-five, set by
Gyula Breyer), winning sixteen games, losing five, and drawing five
after twelve hours of play. He broke his own world record on
February 1, 1925 by playing twenty-eight games blindfold
simultaneously in Paris, winning twenty-two, drawing three, and
losing three.
In 1925, he became a French citizen and entered the Sorbonne
Faculty of law. Although sources differ about whether he completed
his studies there, he was known as "Dr. Alekhine" in the 1930s. His
thesis was on the Chinese prison system. "He received a degree in
law in Saint Petersburg in 1914 but never practiced."
In October 1926, he won in Buenos Aires. From December 1926 to
January 1927, Alekhine beat Max Euwe 5.5-4.5 in a match. In 1927,
he married his third wife, Nadiezda Vasiliev (nee Fabritzky)
(Nadejda Fabritzky, Nadezhda Vasilieff), another older woman, the
widow of the Russian general V. Vasiliev (Vassilieff).
++1.B World Chess Champion, first reign (1927-35)
++1.B1 1927 title match
Capablanca, from whom Alekhine won the World Chess Championship in
1927. Prolonged negotiations for a return match came to nothing.
In 1927, Alekhine's challenge to Capablanca was backed by a group
of Argentinian businessmen and the president of Argentina, who
guaranteed the funds, and organized by the Club Argentino de
Ajedrez (Argentine Chess Club) in Buenos Aires. In the World Chess
Championship match played from September to November 1927 at Buenos
Aires, Alekhine won the title, scoring +6 -3 =25. This was the
longest formal World Championship match until the contest in 1984
between Anatoly Karpov and Garry Kasparov. Alekhine's victory
surprised almost the entire chess world, since he had never
previously won a single game from Capablanca. After Capablanca's
death Alekhine expressed surprise at his own victory, since in 1927
he did not think he was superior to Capablanca, and he suggested
that Capablanca had been over-confident. Capablanca entered the
match with no technical or physical preparation, while Alekhine got
himself into good physical condition, and had thoroughly studied
Capablanca's play. According to Kasparov, Alekhine's research
uncovered many small inaccuracies, which occurred because
Capablanca was unwilling to concentrate intensely. Vladimir Kramnik
commented that this was the first contest in which Capablanca had
no easy wins.
++1.B2 Rematch offered, never finalized
Immediately after winning the match, Alekhine announced that he was
willing to give Capablanca a return match, on the same terms that
Capablanca had required as champion -- the challenger must provide
a stake of US $10,000, of which more than half would go to the
defending champion even if he was defeated. After Capablanca's
death, Alekhine wrote that Capablanca's demand for a $10,000 stake
was an attempt to avoid challenges. Negotiations dragged on for
several years, often breaking down when agreement seemed in sight.
Their relationship became bitter, and Alekhine demanded much higher
appearance fees for tournaments in which Capablanca also played.
Grandmaster Robert Byrne wrote that Alekhine consciously sought
lesser opponents for his subsequent championship matches, rather
than giving Capablanca another chance.
++1.B3 Defeats Bogolyubov twice in title matches
Although he never agreed terms for a rematch against Capablanca,
Alekhine played two world title matches with Bogoljubow, an
official "Challenger of FIDE", in 1929 and 1934, winning handily
both times. The first was held at Wiesbaden, Heidelberg, Berlin,
The Hague, and Amsterdam from September through November 1929.
Alekhine retained his title, scoring +11 -5 =9. From April to June
1934, Alekhine faced Bogoljubow again in a title match held in
twelve German cities, defeating him by five games (+8 -3 =15). In
1929, Bogoljubow was forty years old and perhaps already past his
peak.
++1.B4 Anti-Bolshevik statements, controversy
After the world championship match, Alekhine returned to Paris and
spoke against Bolshevism. Afterwards, Nikolai Krylenko, president
of the Soviet Chess Federation, published an official memorandum
stating that Alekhine should be regarded as an enemy of the
Soviets. The Soviet Chess Federation broke all contact with
Alexander Alekhine until the end of the 1930s. His older brother
Alexei, with whom Alexander Alekhine had had a very close
relationship, publicly repudiated him and his anti-Soviet
utterances shortly after, but Alexei may have had little choice
about this decision. In August 1939, Alexei Alekhine was murdered
in Russia.
++1.B5 Dominates rivals
Alexander Alekhine dominated chess into the mid-1930s. His most
famous tournament victories were at the San Remo 1930 chess
tournament (+13 =2, 3= points ahead of Nimzowitsch) and the Bled
1931 chess tournament (+15 =11, 5= points ahead of Bogoljubov). He
won most of his other tournaments outright, shared first place in
two, and the first tournament in which he placed lower was Hastings
1933-34 (shared second place, .5 point behind Salo Flohr). In 1933,
Alekhine also swept an exhibition match against Rafael Cintron in
San Juan (+4 -0 =0), but only managed to draw another match with
Ossip Bernstein in Paris (+1 -1 =2).
From 1930 to 1935, Alekhine played on board one for France at four
Chess Olympiads, winning: the first brilliancy prize at Hamburg in
1930; gold medals for board one at Prague in 1931 and Folkestone in
1933; and the silver medal for board one at Warsaw in 1935. His
loss to Latvian master Hermanis Matisons at Prague in 1931 was his
first loss in a serious chess event since winning the world
championship.
In the early 1930s, Alekhine travelled the world giving
simultaneous exhibitions, including Hawaii, Tokyo, Manila,
Singapore, Shanghai, Hong Kong, and the Dutch East Indies. In July
1933, Alekhine played thirty-two people blindfold simultaneously (a
new world record) in Chicago, winning nineteen, drawing nine and
losing four games.
In 1934 Alekhine married his fourth wife, Grace Freeman (nie
Wishard), sixteen years his senior. She was the American-born widow
of a British tea-planter in Ceylon, who retained her British
citizenship to the end of her life and remained Alekhine's wife
until his death.
++1.C Loss of the World title (1935-1937)
Max Euwe took Alekhine's world title in 1935 but lost it in their
1937 return match.
In 1933, Alekhine challenged Max Euwe to a championship match.
Euwe, in the early 1930s, was regarded as one of three credible
challengers (the others were Capablanca and Salo Flohr). On October
3, 1935 the world championship match began in Zandvoort, the
Netherlands. Although Alekhine took an early lead, from game
thirteen onwards Euwe won twice as many games as Alekhine. The
challenger became the new champion on December 15, 1935 with nine
wins, thirteen draws, and eight losses. This was the first world
championship match that officially had seconds: Alekhine had the
services of Salo Landau, and Euwe had Giza Maroczy. Euwe's win was
a major upset and is sometimes attributed to Alekhine's alcoholism.
Flohr, who also assisted Euwe during the match, thought
overconfidense caused more problems than alcohol for Alekhine in
this match, and Alekhine himself had previously said he would win
easily. Later World Champions Vasily Smyslov, Boris Spassky,
Anatoly Karpov and Garry Kasparov analyzed the match for their own
benefit and concluded that Euwe deserved to win and that the
standard of play was worthy of a world championship.
In the eighteen months after losing the title, Alekhine played in
ten tournaments, with uneven results: tied for first with Paul
Keres at Bad Nauheim in May 1936; first place at Dresden in June
1936; second to Flohr at Podebrady in July 1936; sixth, behind
Capablanca, Mikhail Botvinnik, Reuben Fine, Samuel Reshevsky, and
Euwe at Nottingham in August 1936; third, behind Euwe and Fine, at
Amsterdam in October 1936; tied for first with Salo Landau at
Amsterdam (Quadrangular), also in October 1936; in 1936/37 he won
at the Hastings New Year tournament, ahead of Fine and Erich
Eliskases; first place at Nice (Quadrangular) in March 1937; third,
behind Keres and Fine, at Margate in April 1937; tied for fourth
with Keres, behind Flohr, Reshevsky and Vladimir Petrov, at Kemeri
in June-July 1937; tied for second with Bogoljubow, behind Euwe, at
Bad Nauheim (Quadrangular) in July 1937.
++1.D World Chess Champion, second reign (1937-46)
Alekhine around 1945
++1.D1 1937-1939
Max Euwe was quick to arrange a return match with Alekhine,
something Jose Raul Capablanca had been unable to obtain after
Alekhine won the world title in 1927. Alekhine regained the title
from Euwe in December 1937 by a large margin (+10 -4 =11). In this
match, held in the Netherlands, Euwe was seconded by Reuben Fine,
and Alekhine by Erich Eliskases. The match was a real contest
initially, but Euwe collapsed near the end, losing four of the last
five games. Fine attributed the collapse to nervous tension,
possibly aggravated by Euwe's attempts to maintain a calm
appearance. Alekhine played no more title matches, and thus held
the title until his death.
1938 began well for Alekhine, who won the Montevideo 1938 chess
tournament at Carrasco (in March) and at Margate (in April), and
tied for first with Sir George Alan Thomas at Plymouth (in
September). In November, however, he only tied for 4th-6th with
Euwe and Samuel Reshevsky, behind Paul Keres, Reuben Fine, and
Mikhail Botvinnik, ahead of Capablanca and Flohr, at the AVRO
tournament in the Netherlands. This tournament was played in each
of several Dutch cities for a few days at a time; it was therefore
perhaps not surprising that rising stars took the first three
places, as the older players found the travel very tiring.
Immediately after the AVRO tournament, Botvinnik, who had finished
in third place, challenged Alekhine to a match for the world
championship. They agreed on a prize fund of US $10,000 with two-
thirds going to the winner, and that if the match were to take
place in Moscow, Alekhine would be invited at least three months in
advance so that he could play in a tournament to get ready for the
match. Other details had not been agreed when World War II
interrupted negotiations, which the two players resumed after the
war.
Keres, who had won the AVRO tournament on tiebreak over Fine, also
challenged Alekhine to a world championship match. Negotiations
were proceeding in 1939 when they were disrupted by World War II.
During the war Keres' home country, Estonia, was invaded first by
the USSR, then by Germany, then again by the USSR. At the end of
the war, the Soviet government prevented Keres from continuing the
negotiations, on the grounds that he had collaborated with the
Germans during their occupation of Estonia.
Alekhine was representing France at first board in the 8th Chess
Olympiad at Buenos Aires 1939 when World War II broke out in
Europe. The assembly of all team captains, with leading roles
played by Alekhine (France), Savielly Tartakower (Poland), and
Albert Becker (Germany), plus the president of the Argentine Chess
Federation, Augusto de Muro, decided to go on with the Olympiad.
Alekhine won the individual silver medal (nine wins, no losses,
seven draws), behind Capablanca (only results from finals A and B -
separately for both sections - counted for best individual
scores). Shortly after the Olympiad, Alekhine swept tournaments in
Montevideo (7/7) and Caracas (10/10).
At the end of August 1939, both Alekhine and Capablanca wrote to
Augusto de Muro regarding a possible world championship rematch.
Whereas the former spoke of a rematch as a virtual certainty, even
stating that the Cuban was remaining in Buenos Aires until it came
about, the latter referred at length to the financial burden in the
aftermath of the Olympiad. Supported by Latin-American financial
pledges, Jose R. Capablanca challenged Alexander Alekhine to a
world title match in November. Tentative plans not, however,
actually backed by a deposit of the required purse ($10,000 in
gold), led to a virtual agreement to play at Buenos Aires,
Argentina beginning April 14, 1940.
++1.D2 World War II (1939-1945)
Unlike many participants in the 1939 Chess Olympiad, Alekhine
returned to Europe in January 1940. After a short stay in Portugal
, he enlisted in the French army as a sanitation officer.
After the fall of France (June 1940), he fled to Marseille.
Alekhine tried to go to America by traveling to Lisbon and applying
for an American visa. In October 1940, he sought permission to
enter Cuba, promising to play a match with Capablanca. This request
was denied. To protect his wife, Grace Alekhine, an American Jew,
and her French assets (a castle at Saint Aubin-le-Cauf, near
Dieppe, which the Nazis looted), he agreed to cooperate with the
Nazis. Alekhine took part in chess tournaments in Munich, Salzburg,
Krakow/Warsaw, and Prague, organized by Ehrhardt Post, the Chief
Executive of the Nazi-controlled Grossdeutscher Schachbund
("Greater Germany Chess Federation") - Keres, Bogoljubov, Gosta
Stoltz, and several other strong masters in Nazi-occupied Europe
also played in such events. In 1941, he tied for second-third with
Erik Lundin in the Munich 1941 chess tournament (Europaturnier in
September, won by Stoltz), shared first with Paul Felix Schmidt at
Krakow/Warsaw (the 2nd General Government-ch, in
October) and won in Madrid (in December). The following year he won
in the Salzburg 1942 chess tournament (June 1942) and in Munich
(September 1942; the Nazis named this the
Europameisterschaft, which means "European
Championship"). Later in 1942 he won at Warsaw/Lublin/Krakow (the
3rd GG-ch; October 1942) and tied for first with Klaus Junge in
Prague (Duras Jubilei; December 1942). In 1943, he drew a mini-
match (+1 -1) with Bogoljubov in Warsaw (March 1943), he won in
Prague (April 1943) and tied for first with Keres in Salzburg (June
1943).
By late 1943, Alekhine was spending all his time in Spain and
Portugal, as the German representative to chess events. This also
allowed him to get away from the onrushing Soviet invasion into
eastern Europe. In 1944, he narrowly won a match against Ramon Rey
Ardid in Zaragoza (+1 -0 =3; April 1944) and won in Gijon (July
1944). The following year, he won at Madrid (March 1945), tied for
second place with Antonio Medina at Gijon (July 1945; the event was
won by Antonio Rico), won at Sabadell (August 1945), he tied for
first with F. Lspez Nzqez in Almeria (August 1945), won in Melilla
(September 1945) and took second in Caceres, behind Francisco Lupe
(Autumn 1945). Alekhine's last match was with Lupe at Estoril near
Lisbon, Portugal, in January 1946. Alekhine won two games, lost
one, and drew one.
Alekhine took an interest in the development of the chess prodigy
Arturo Pomar and devoted a section of his last book (!Legado! 1946)
to him. They played at Gijon 1944, when Pomar, aged twelve,
achieved a creditable draw with the champion.
++1.D3 His final year
Grave of Alexander Alekhine in Paris, France
After World War II, Alekhine was not invited to chess tournaments
outside the Iberian Peninsula, because of his alleged Nazi
affiliation. His original invitation to the London 1946 tournament
was withdrawn when the other competitors protested. While planning
for a World championship match against Botvinnik, he died in his
hotel room in Estoril, Portugal on March 24, 1946. The
circumstances of his death are still a matter of debate. It is
usually attributed to a heart attack, but a letter in Chess Life
magazine from a witness to the autopsy stated that choking on meat
was the actual cause of death. Some have speculated that he was
murdered by a French "Death Squad". A few years later, Alekhine's
son, Alexander Alekhine Junior, said that "the hand of Moscow
reached his father". Canadian Grandmaster Kevin Spraggett, who has
lived in Portugal since the late 1980s, and who has thoroughly
investigated Alekhine's death, favors this possibility. Spraggett
makes a case for the manipulation of the crime scene and the
autopsy by the Portuguese secret police PIDE. He believes that
Alekhine was murdered outside his hotel room, probably by the
Soviets.
Alekhine's burial was sponsored by FIDE, and the remains were
transferred to the Cimetihre du Montparnasse, Paris, France in
1956.
++1.E Assessment
++1.E1 Playing strength and style
Statistical ranking systems differ sharply in their views of
Alekhine. "Warriors of the Mind" rates him only the 18th strongest
player of all time and comments that victories over players such as
Bogoljubov and Euwe are not a strong basis for an "all time"
ranking. But the website "Chessmetrics" ranks him between the
fourth and eighth best of all time, depending on the lengths of the
peak periods being compared, and concludes that at his absolute
peak he was a little stronger than Emanuel Lasker and Capablanca,
although a little weaker than Botvinnik. Jeff Sonas, the author of
the website "Chessmetrics", rates Alekhine as the sixth best player
of all-time on the basis of comparable ratings. He also assesses
Alekhine's victory at the tournament of San Remo in 1930 as the
sixth best performance ever in tournaments. In his 1978 book The
Rating of Chessplayers, Past and Present, Arpad Elo gave
retrospective ratings to players based on their performance over
the best five-year span of their career. He concluded that Alekhine
was the joint fifth strongest player of those surveyed (tied with
Paul Morphy and Vasily Smyslov), behind Capablanca, Botvinnik,
Emanuel Lasker and Mikhail Tal.
Alekhine's peak period was in the early 1930s, when he won almost
every tournament he played, sometimes by huge margins. Afterward,
his play declined, and he never won a top-class tournament after
1934. After Alekhine regained his world title in 1937, there were
several new contenders, all of whom would have been serious
challengers.
Diagram #1.E1:
White: King at h2, Rooks at c1 and d2, Bishop at h1, Knights at b7
and f3, Pawns at f2 and g3.
Black: King at h8, Rooks at a8 and e3, Bishop at g4, Knights at f6
and e2, Pawns at f7 and g7.
Reti-Alekine, Baden-Baden 1925 is one of Alekhine's most famous and
complicated wins - 31. ... Ne4 forces the win of White's Knight at
b7 in 12 moves.
Alekhine was one of the greatest attacking players and could
apparently produce combinations at will. What set him apart from
most other attacking players was his ability to see the potential
for an attack and prepare for it in positions where others saw
nothing. Rudolf Spielmann, a master tactician who produced many
brilliancies, said, "I can see the combinations as well as
Alekhine, but I cannot get to the same positions." Dr. Max Euwe
said, "Alekhine is a poet who creates a work of art out of
something that would hardly inspire another man to send home a
picture post-card." An explanation offered by Reti was, "he beats
his opponents by analysing simple and apparently harmless sequenses
of moves in order to see whether at some time or another at the end
of it an original possibility, and therefore one difficult to see,
might be hidden." John Nunn commented that "Alekhine had a special
ability to provoke complications without taking excessive risks",
and Edward Winter called him "the supreme genius of the complicated
position." Some of Alekhine's combinations are so complex that even
modern champions and contenders disagree in their analyses of them.
Nevertheless, Garry Kasparov said that Alekhine's attacking play
was based on solid positional foundations, and Harry Golombek went
further, saying that "Alekhine was the most versatile of all chess
geniuses, being equally at home in every style of play and in all
phases of the game." Fine, a serious contender for the world
championship in the late 1930s, wrote in the 1950s that Alekhine's
collection of best games was one of the three most beautiful that
he knew, and Golombek was equally impressed.
Alekhine's games have a higher percentage of wins than those of any
other World Champion, and his drawn games are on average among the
longest of all champions'. His desire to win extended beyond formal
chess competition. When Fine beat him in some casual games in 1933,
Alekhine demanded a match for a small stake. And in table tennis,
which Alekhine played enthusiastically but badly, he would often
crush the ball when he lost.
Bobby Fischer, in a 1964 article, ranked Alekhine as one of the ten
greatest players in history. Fischer, who was famous for the
clarity of his play, wrote of Alekhine, "Alekhine has never been a
hero of mine, and I've never cared for his style of play. There's
nothing light or breezy about it; it worked for him, but it could
scarcely work for anyone else. He played gigantic conceptions, full
of outrageous and unprecedented ideas. ... He had great
imagination; he could see more deeply into a situation than any
other player in chess history. ... It was in the most complicated
positions that Alekhine found his grandest concepts."
Alekhine's style had a profound influence on Kasparov, who said:
"Alexander Alekhine is the first luminary among the others who are
still having the greatest influence on me. I like his universality,
his approach to the game, his chess ideas. I am sure that the
future belongs to Alekhine chess."
++1.E2 Influence on the game
Several openings and opening variations are named after Alekhine.
In addition to the well-known Alekhine's Defense (1.e4 Nf6) and the
Albin-Chatard-Alekhine Attack in the "orthodox" Paulsen variation
of the French Defense, there are Alekhine Variations in: the
Budapest Gambit, the Vienna Game, the Exchange Variation of the Ruy
Lopez, the Winawer Variation of the French Defense; the Dragon
Variation of the Sicilian Defense, the Queen's Gambit Accepted, the
Slav Defense, the Queen's Pawn Game, the Catalan Opening and the
Dutch Defense (where three different lines bear his name). Irving
Chernev commented, "The openings consist of Alekhine's games, with
a few variations."
Composition by Alekhine
Diagram #++1.E2
White: King at d4, Pawns at d6, g4.
Black: King at b7, Pawns at f7, g6, h7.
White to move and win.
1. g5! Kc6
2. Ke5 Kd7
3. Kd5!
(3. Kf6? Kxd6 4. Kxf7 Ke5)
3. ... Kd8
4. Kc6
And White wins.
Alekhine also composed a few endgame studies, one of which is shown
on the right, a miniature (a study with a maximum of seven pieces).
Alekhine wrote over twenty books on chess, mostly annotated
editions of the games in a major match or tournament, plus
collections of his best games between 1908 and 1937. Unlike Wilhelm
Steinitz, Emanuel Lasker, Capablanca and Euwe, he wrote no books
that explained his ideas about the game or showed beginners how to
improve their play. His books appeal to expert players rather than
beginners: they contain many long analyses of variations in
critical positions, and "singularities and exceptions were his
forte, not rules and simplifications".
Although Alekhine was declared an enemy of the Soviet Union after
his anti-Bolshevik statement in 1928, he was gradually
rehabilitated by the Soviet chess elite following his death in
1946. Alexander Kotov's research on Alekhine's games and career,
culminating in a biography, led to a Soviet series of Alekhine
Memorial tournaments. The first of these, at Moscow 1956, was won
jointly by Botvinnik and Vasily Smyslov. In their book The Soviet
School of Chess Kotov and Yudovich devoted a chapter to Alekhine,
called him "Russia's greatest player" and praised his capacity for
seizing the initiative by concrete tactical play in the opening.
Botvinnik wrote that the Soviet School of chess learned from
Alekhine's fighting qualities, capacity for self-criticism and
combinative vision. Alekhine had written that success in chess
required "Firstly, self-knowledge; secondly, a firm comprehension
of my opponent's strength and weakness; thirdly, a higher aim - ...
artistic and scientific accomplishments which accord our chess
equal rank with other arts."
++1.E3 Accusations of "improving" games
Diagram #1.E3
White: King at f3, Queens at e3, f4 and g8, Rook at h1, Bishop at
f1, Knight at g1, Pawn at f2.
Black: King at b6, Queens at b1 and c2, Rook at a8, Bishops at c5
and c8, Pawns at a7, b7, d5
Famous and much-analyzed position from the "5 Queens" game
Samuel Reshevsky wrote that Alekhine "allegedly made up games
against fictitious opponents in which he came out the victor and
had these games published in various chess magazines." In a recent
book Andy Soltis lists "Alekhine's 15
Improvements". The most famous example is his game with five queens
in Moscow in 1915. In the actual game, Alekhine, playing as Black,
beat Grigoriev in the Moscow 1915 tournament; but in one of his
books he presented the "five Queens" variation (starting with a
move he rejected as Black in the original game) as an actual game
won by the White player in Moscow in 1915 (he did not say in who
was who in this version, nor that it was in the tournament).
In the position of the diagram at right, which never arose in real
play, Alekhine claimed that White wins by 24.Rh6, as after some
complicated play Black is mated or goes into an endgame a Queen
down. Some recent analyses suggest that this is not the case: if
White plays 24.Rh6, black can play 24...Bg4+! and White has no
mating attack. A later computer-assisted analysis concludes that
White can force a win, but only by diverging from Alekhine's move
sequense at move 20, while there are only three Queens.
Chess historian Edward Winter investigated a game Alekhine
allegedly won in fifteen moves via a Queen sacrifice at Sabadell in
1945. Some photos of the game in progress were discovered that
showed the players during the game and their chessboard. Based on
the position that the chess pieces had taken on the chessboard in
this photo, the game could never have taken the course that was
stated in the published version. This raised suspicions that the
published version was made up. Even if the published version is a
fake, however, there is no doubt that Alekhine did defeat his
opponent in the actual game, and there is no evidense that Alekhine
was the source of the spectacular fifteen-move win whose
authenticity is doubted.
++1.E4 Accusations of anti-Semitism
During World War II, Alekhine played in several tournaments held in
Germany or German-occupied territory, as did many strong players in
occupied and neutral countries. In March 1941, a series of articles
appeared under Alekhine's name in the Pariser Zeitung, a German-
language newspaper published in Paris by the occupying German
forces. Among other things, these articles said that Jews had a
great talent for exploiting chess but showed no signs of chess
artistry; described the hypermodern theories of Nimzowitsch and
Reti as "this cheap bluff, this shameless self-publicity", hyped by
"the majority of Anglo-Jewish pseudo-intellectuals"; and described
his 1937 match with Euwe as "a triumph against the Jewish
conspiracy". Alekhine was reported as making further anti-Semitic
statements in interviews for two Spanish newspapers in September
1941; in one of these it was said that "Aryan chess was aggressive
chess ... on the other hand, the Semitic concept admitted the idea
of pure defense."
Almost immediately after the liberation of Paris, Alekhine publicly
stated that "he had to write two chess articles for the Pariser
Zeitung before the Germans granted him his exit visa ... Articles
which Alekhine claims were purely scientific were rewritten by the
Germans, published and made to treat chess from a racial
viewpoint." He wrote at least two further disavowals, in an open
letter to the organizer of the 1946 London tournament (W. Hatton-
Ward) and in his posthumous book !Legado!. These three denials are
phrased differently.
Extensive investigations by Ken Whyld have not yielded conclusive
evidense of the authenticity of the articles. Chess writer Jacques
Le Monnier claimed in a 1986 issue of Europe Ichecs that in 1958 he
saw some of Alekhine's notebooks and found, in Alekhine's own
handwriting, the exact text of the first anti-Semitic article,
which appeared in Pariser Zeitung on March 18, 1941. In his 1973
book 75 parties d'Alekhine ("75 of Alekhine's games"), however, Le
Monnier had written "It will never be known whether Alekhine was
behind these articles or whether they were manipulated by the
editor of the Pariser Zeitung."
British chess historian Edward G. Winter notes that the articles in
the Pariser Zeitung mis-spelled the names of several famous chess
masters, which could be interpreted as evidense of forgery or as
attempts by Alekhine to signal that he was being forced to write
things that he did not believe; but these could simply have been
typesetting errors, as Alekhine's handwriting was not easy to read.
The articles contained (probably) incorrect claims that Lionel
Kieseritzky (Kieseritsky in English, Kizierycki in Polish) was a
Polish Jew, although (probably) Kieseritzky was neither Polish nor
Jewish. Winter concludes: "Although, as things stand, it is
difficult to construct much of a defense for Alekhine, only the
discovery of the articles in his own handwriting will settle the
matter beyond all doubt." Under current French copyright law,
Alekhine's notebooks will not enter the public domain until January
1, 2017.
There is evidense that Alekhine was not anti-Semitic in his
personal or chess relationships with Jews. In June 1919, he was
arrested by the Cheka, imprisoned in Odessa and sentensed to death.
Yakov Vilner, a Jewish master, saved him by sending a telegram to
the chairman of the Ukrainian Council of People's Commissars, who
knew of Alekhine and ordered his release. Alekhine accepted and
apparently used chess analysis from Charles Jaffe in his World
Championship match against Capablanca. Jaffe was a Jewish master
who lived in New York, where Alekhine often visited, and upon his
return to New York after defeating Capablanca, Alekhine played a
short match as a favor to Jaffe, without financial remuneration.
Alekhine's second for the 1935 match with Max Euwe was the master
Salo Landau, a Dutch Jew. The American Jewish grandmaster Arnold
Denker wrote that he found Alekhine very friendly in chess
settings, taking part in consultation games and productive analysis
sessions. Denker also wrote that Alekhine treated the younger and
(at that time) virtually unproven Denker to dinner on many
occasions in New York during the 1930s, when the economy was very
weak because of the Great Depression. Denker added that Alekhine,
during the early 1930s, opined that the American Jewish grandmaster
Isaac Kashdan might be his next challenger (this did not in fact
occur). He gave chess lessons to 14-year-old prodigy Gerardo
Budowski, a German Jew, in Paris in Spring 1940. Alekhine also
married an American Jew, Grace Wishard, as his fourth wife. Mrs.
Grace Alekhine was the women's champion of Paris in 1944.
++1.F Notable chess games
Diagram #1.F
White: King at f4, Rooks at c7 and f7, Knight at f6, Pawns at a3,
b2, d4, e3, f3, g3, h5
Black: King at h8, Rooks at a8 and f8, Bishop at a6, Pawns at a4,
b3, d5, e6, f5, g7, h6
"Alekhine-Yates
London 1922".
1. Rxg7 Rxf6
2. Ke5
And Yates resigned: if either Black Rook moves to f8, White
checkmates by 3. Rh7+ Kg8 4. Rcg7#
* Alekhine-Yates, London 1922, Queen's Gambit Declined:
Orthodox Defense. Main Line (D64) 1-0 Alekhine conjures up
an attack in the endgame, and his King joins the fray.
* Efim Bogolyubov vs Alexander Alekhine, Hastings 1922, Dutch
Defense, Classical Variation (A91), 0-1 This has been
called one of the greatest games ever played, with some
incredibly deep variations as Black prepares to queen a
pawn.
* Ernst Gruenfeld vs Alexander Alekhine, Karlsbad 1923,
Queen's Gambit Declined: Orthodox Defense. Rubinstein
Attack (D64), 0-1 Gruenfeld makes no obvious mistakes but
his slow build-up lets Alekhine take the initiative and
start squeezing him off the board. Gruenfeld desperately
tries to free his position and is crushed by a series of
sacrifices that forces the win of a piece or checkmate.
* Richard Reti vs Alexander Alekhine, Baden Baden 1925,
Hungarian Opening: Reversed Alekhine (A00), 0-1 A
tactically complex game in which Alekhine unleashes a 12-
move combination that wins a Knight.
* Jose Raul Capablanca vs Alexander Alekhine, World
Championship match, Buenos Aires 1927, Queen's Gambit
Declined (D52), 0-1 The game ends in an interesting
position with four queens on the board.
* Alexander Alekhine vs Aron Nimzowitsch, San Remo 1930,
French Defense, Winawer Variation (C17), 1-0 One of the
shortest games ending in a zugzwang -- by the 26th move,
Black is already strategically lost and has no good moves.
This game also spawned the term 'Alekhine's gun' for the
formation where the queen lines up behind the two rooks.
* Gideon Stahlberg vs Alexander Alekhine, Hamburg 1930, 3rd
Olympiad, Nimzo-Indian Defense, Spielmann Variation (E23),
0-1 1st best game prize.
* Alexander Alekhine vs Emanuel Lasker, Zurich 1934, Queen's
Gambit Declined, Orthodox Defense, Bd3 line (D67), 1-0 A
short game ending with a queen sacrifice. After the
tournament Lasker said: "Alekhine's attacking genius has no
equal in the history of the game".
* Max Euwe vs Alexander Alekhine, World Championship Match,
game 4, The Hague 1935, Grunfeld Defense, Russian Variation
(D81), 0-1 Alekhine sacrifices two rooks, but traps Euwe's
King in the centre, wins the queen, then finishes
elegantly.
++1.G Writings
Alekine wrote over twenty books on chess. Some of the best-known
are:
* Alekhine, Alexander (1985). My Best Games of Chess
1908-1937. Dover. ISBN 0-486-24941-7. Originally published
in two volumes as My Best Games of Chess 1908-1923 and My
Best Games of Chess 1924-1937
* Alekhine, Alexander (1968). The Book of the Hastings
International Masters' Chess Tournament 1922. Dover. ISBN
0-486-21960-7.
* Alekhine, Alexander (1961). The Book of the New York
International Chess Tournament 1924. Dover. ISBN
0-486-20752-8.
* Alekhine, Alexander (1962). The Book of the Nottingham
International Chess Tournament. Dover. ISBN 0-486-20189-9.
* Alekhine, Alexander (1973). The World's Chess Championship,
1937. Dover. ISBN 0-486-20455-3.
Games analysis published after 1938 were edited by Edward Winter
and published in 1980 in the book :
* Alekhine, Alexander & Edward Winter (1992). 107 Great Chess
Battles 1939-1945. Dover. ISBN 0-486-27104-8.
++1.H Summary of results in competitions
++1.H1 Tournament results
Here are Alekhine's placings and scores in tournaments:
1907 Moscow
11-13 5.5/15 +5 =1 -9 his brother Alexei Alekhine tied for
4-6th
1908 Moscow
1st Moscow Chess Club Spring Tournament.
1908 Duesseldorf
3-4 9/13 +8 =2 -3 16th DSB Congress, A Tournament
1908/09 Moscow
1st 6.5/9 +5 =3 -1 Moscow Chess Club Autumn Tournament
1909 Saint Petersburg
1st 13/16 +12 =2 -2 All-Russian Amateur Tournament
1910 Hamburg
7-8 8.5/16 +5 =7 -4 17th DSB Congress, Schlechter won
1911 Cologne
1st 3/3 +3 =0 -0 Quadrangular
1911 Carlsbad
8-9 13.5/25 +11 =5 -9 Teichmann won
1912 Saint Petersburg
1-2 8/9 +8 =0 -1 First Winter Tournament, lost a game to
Vasily Osipovich Smyslov
1912 Saint Petersburg
1st 7/9 +6 =2 -1 Second Winter Tournament, lost a game to
Boris Koyalovich
1912 Stockholm
1st 8.5/10 +8 =1 -1 8th Nordic Championship, ahead of
Spielmann
1912 Vilnius
6-7 8.5/18 +7 =3 -8 7th Russian Championship (All-Russian
Masters' Tournament), Rubinstein won
1913 Saint Petersburg
1-2 2/3 +2 =0 -1 Quadrangular, tied with Levenfish
1913 Scheveningen
1st 11.5/13 +11 =1 -1 ahead of Janowski
1913/14 Saint Petersburg
1-2 13.5/17 +13 =1 -3 8th Russian Championship (All-Russian
Masters' Tournament), tied with Nimzowitsch
1914 Saint Petersburg
3rd 10/18 +6 =8 -4 Lasker 13.5, Capablanca 13, Alekhine 10,
Tarrasch 8.5, Marshall 8
1914 Paris
1-2 2.5/3 +2 =1 -0 Cafe Continental Quadrangular, tied with
Marshall, third Muffang, fourth Hallegua
1914 Mannheim
leading 9.5/11 +9 =1 -1 19th DSB Congress, interrupted by
the start of World War I
1915 Moscow
1st 10.5/11 +10 =1 -0 Moscow Chess Club Championship
1919/20 Moscow
1st 11/11 +11 =0 -0 Moscow City Championship, not declared
Moscow Champion because he was not a resident of Moscow
1920 Moscow
1st 12/15 +9 =6 -0 later recognized as the 1st USSR
Championship
1921 Triberg
1st 7/8 +6 =2 -0 ahead of Bogoljubov
1921 Budapest
1st 8.5/11 +6 =5 -0 ahead of Gruenfeld
1921 The Hague
1st 8/9 +7 =2 -0 ahead of Tartakower
1922 Pistyan
2-3 14.5/18 +12 =5 -1 tied with Spielmann, behind
Bogoljubov
1922 London
2nd 11.5/15 +8 =7 -0 Capablanca 13, Alekhine 11.5, Vidmar
11, Rubinstein 10.5
1922 Hastings
1st 7.5/10 +6 =3 -1 Rubinstein 7, Bogoljubov and Thomas
4.5, Tarrasch 4, Yates 2.5
1922 Vienna
3-6 9/14 +7 =4 -3 Rubinstein won
1923 Margate
2-5 4.5/7 +3 =3 -1 Gruenfeld won
1923 Carlsbad
1-3 11.5/17 +9 =5 -3 tied with Bogoljubov and Marsczy
1923 Portsmouth
1st 11.5/12 +11 =1 -0 ahead of Vajda
1924 New York
3rd 12/20 +6 =12 -2 Lasker 16, Capablanca 14.5, Alekhine
12, Marshall 11, Reti 10.5. Marsczy 10, Bogoljubov 9.5
1925 Paris
1st 6.5/8 +5 =3 -0 ahead of Tartakower
1925 Bern
1st 4/6 +3 =2 -1 Quadrangular
1925 Baden-Baden
1st 16/20 +12 =8 -0 ahead of Rubinstein
1925/26 Hastings
1-2 8.5/9 +8 =1 -0 tied with Vidmar
1926 Semmering
2nd 12.5/17 +11 =3 -3 Spielmann won
1926 Dresden
2nd 7/9 +5 =4 -0 Nimzowitsch won
1926 Scarborough
1st 5.5/6 +5 =1 -0 Alekhine won a play-off match against
Colle 2-0
1926 Birmingham
1st 5/5 +5 =0 -0 ahead of Znosko-Borovsky
1926 Buenos Aires
1st 10/10 +10 =0 -0 ahead of Villegas and Illa
1927 New York
2nd 11.5/20 +5 =13 -2 Capablanca 14, Alekhine 11.5,
Nimzowitsch 10.5, Vidmar 10, Spielmann 8, Marshall 6
1927 Kecskemit
1st 12/16 +8 =8 -0 ahead of Nimzowitsch and Steiner
1929 Bradley Beach
1st 8.5/9 +8 =1 -0 ahead of Lajos Steiner
1930 San Remo
1st 14/15 +13 =2 -0 Nimzowitsch 10.5; Rubinstein 10;
Bogoljubov 9.5; Yates 9
1931 Nice
1st 6/8 +4 =4 -0 consultation tournament
1931 Bled
1st 20.5/26 +15 =11 -0 Bogoljubov 15; Nimzowitsch 14;
Flohr, Kashdan, Stoltz and Vidmar 13.5
1932 Bern
1-3 2/3 +2 =0 -1 Quadrangular, tied with Voellmy and
Naegeli
1932 Bern
1st 12.5/15 +11 =3 -1 Swiss Championship (title awarded to
Hans Johner and Paul Johner)
1932 London
1st 9/11 +7 =4 -0 ahead of Flohr
1932 Pasadena
1st 8.5/11 +7 =3 -1 ahead of Kashdan
1932 Mexico City
1-2 8.5/9 +8 =1 -0 tied with Kashdan
1933 Paris
1st 8/9 +7 =2 -0 ahead of Tartakower
1933/34 Hastings
2nd 6.5/9 +4 =5 -0 Flohr 7, Alekhine and Andor Lilienthal
6.5, C.H.O'D. Alexander and Eliskases 5
1934 Rotterdam
1st 3/3 +3 =0 -0 Quadrangular
1934 Zurich
1st 13/15 +12 =2 -1 Swiss Championship (title awarded to
Hans Johner)
1935 Vrebro
1st 8.5/9 +8 =1 -0 ahead of Lundin
1936 Bad Nauheim
1-2 6.5/9 +4 =5 -0 tied with Keres
1936 Dresden
1st 6.5/9 +5 =3 -1 ahead of Engels
1936 Podebrady
2nd 12.5/17 +8 =9 -0 Flohr won
1936 Nottingham
6th 9/14 +6 =6 -2 Botvinnik and Capablanca 10; Euwe, Fine
and Reshevsky 9.5
1936 Amsterdam
3rd 4.5/7 +3 =3 -1 Euwe and Fine won
1936 Amsterdam
1-2 2.5/3 +2 =1 -0 Quadrangular, tied with Landau
1936/37 Hastings
1st 8/9 +7 =2 -0 Fine 7.5, Eliskases 5.5, Vidmar and
Feigins 4.5
1937 Margate
3rd 6/9 +6 =0 -3 tied for 1-2 were Keres and Fine
1937 Kemeri
4-5 11.5/17 +7 =9 -1 tied for 1-3 were Flohr, Petrov and
Reshevsky
1937 Bad Nauheim
2-3 3.5/6 +3 =1 -2 Quadrangular, Euwe won, the other
players were Bogoljubov and Saemisch
1937 Nice
1st 2.5/3 +2 =1 -0 Quadrangular
1938 Montevideo
1st 13/15 +11 =4 -0 ahead of Guimard
1938 Margate
1st 7/9 +6 =2 -1 ahead of Spielmann
1938 Netherlands (ten cities)
4-6 7/14 +3 =8 -3 AVRO tournament, Keres and Fine 8.5;
Botvinnik 7.5; Alekhine, Euwe and Reshevsky 7; Capablanca
6
1939 Montevideo
1st 7/7 +7 =0 -0 ahead of Golombek
1939 Caracas
1st 10/10 +10 =0 -0
1941 Munich
2-3 10.5/15 +8 =5 -2 tied with Lundin, behind Stoltz
1941 Krakow, Warsaw
1-2 8.5/11 +6 =5 -0 tied with Schmidt
1941 Madrid
1st 5/5 +5 =0 -0
1942 Salzburg
1st 7./10 +7 =1 -2 ahead of Keres
1942 Munich
1st 8.5/11 +7 =3 -1 1st European Championship, ahead of
Keres
1942 Warsaw, Lublin, Krakow
1st 7.5/11 +6 =3 -1 ahead of Junge
1942 Prague
1-2 8.5/11 +6 =5 -0 tied with Junge
1943 Prague
1st 17/19 +15 =4 -0 ahead of Keres
1943 Salzburg
1-2 7.5/10 +5 =5 -0 tied with Keres
1944 Gijon
1st 7.5/8 +7 =1 -0
1945 Madrid
1st 8.5/9 +8 =1 -0
1945 Gijon
2-3 6.5/9 +6 =1 -2 tied with Medina, behind Rico
1945 Sabadell
1st 7.5/9 +6 =3 -0
1945 Almeria
1-2 5.5/8 +4 =3 -1 tied with Lopez Nunez
1945 Melilla
1st 6.5/7 +6 =1 -0
1945 Caceres
2nd 3.5/5 +3 =1 -1 Lupe won
++1.H2 Match results
Here are Alekhine's results in matches:
1908 Curt von Bardeleben
Won Duesseldorf 4.5/5 +4 =1 -0
1908 Hans Fahrni
Drew Munich 1.5/3 +1 =1 -1
1908 Benjamin Blumenfeld
Won Moscow 4.5/5 +4 =1 -0
1908 Vladimir Nenarokov
Lost Moscow 0/3 +0 =0 -3
1913 Stepan Levitsky
Won Saint Petersburg 7/10 +7 =0 -3
1913 Edward Lasker
Won Paris, London 3/3 +3 =0 -0
1913 Jose Raul Capablanca
Lost Saint Petersburg 0/2 +0 =0 -2 exhibition match
1914 Aron Nimzowitsch
Drew Saint Petersburg 1/2 +1 =1 -0 play-off match
1916 Alexander Evensohn
Won Kiev 2/3 +2 =0 -1
1918 Abram Rabinovich
Won Moscow 3.5/4 +3 =1 -0
1918 Boris Verlinsky
Won Odessa 6/6 +6 =0 -0
1920 Nikolay Pavlov-Pianov
Drew Moscow 1/2 +1 =0 -1
1921 Nikolay Grigoriev
Won Moscow 4.5/7 +2 =5 -0
1921 Efim Bogoljubow
Drew Triberg 2/4 +1 =2 -1 "secret match"
1921 Richard Teichmann
Drew Berlin 3/6 +2 =2 -2
1921 Friedrich Saemisch
Won Berlin 2/2 +2 =0 -0
1922 Ossip Bernstein
Won Paris 1.5/2 +1 =1 -0
1922 Arnold Aurbach
Won Paris 1.5/2 +1 =1 -0
1922 Manuel Golmayo
Won Madrid 1.5/2 +1 =1 -0
1923 Andri Muffang
Won Paris 2/2 +2 =0 -0
1926 Edgar Colle
Won Scarborough 2/2 +2 =0 -0 play-off match
1926/7 Max Euwe
Won Amsterdam 5.5/10 +3 =5 -2
1927 Jose Raul Capablanca
Won Buenos Aires 18.5/34 +6 =25 -3 Alekhine became world
champion
1927 Charles Jaffe
Won New York 2/2 +2 =0 -0 exhibition match
1929 Efim Bogoljubow
Won Wiesbaden, Berlin, Amsterdam 15.5/25 +11 =9 -5 retained
world championship
1933 Rafael Cintron
Won San Juan 4/4 +4 =0 -0 exhibition match
1933 Ossip Bernstein
Drew Paris 2/4 +1 =2 -1
1934 Efim Bogoljubow
Won Baden-Baden, Villingen, Pforzheim, Bayreuth, Kissingen,
Berlin 15.5/25 +8 =15 -3 retained world championship
1935 Max Euwe
Lost Amsterdam, The Hague, Utrecht 14.5/30 +8 =13 -9 lost
world championship
1937 Max Euwe
Won Rotterdam, Haarlem, Leiden, Zwolle, Amsterdam, Delft,
The Hague 15.5/25 +10 =11 -4 regained world championship
1937 Max Euwe
Lost The Hague 2/5 +1 =2 -2 exhibition match
1941 Lopez Esnaola
Won Vitoria 2/2 +2 =0 -0
1943 Efim Bogoljubow
Drew Warsaw 1/2 +1 =0 -1
1944 Ramon Rey Ardid
Won Zaragoza 2.5/4 +1 =3 -0
1946 Francisco Lupe
Won Estoril 2.5/4 +2 =1 -1
++1.H3 Chess Olympiad results
Here are Alekhine's results in Chess Olympiads. He played top board
for France in all these events:
1930 Hamburg
3 9/9 +9 =0 -0 Alekhine won the brilliancy prize for his
game against Gideon Stehlberg (Sweden). He did not win a
medal because the medallists played 17 games each.
1931 Prague
4 13.5/18 +10 =7 -1 Alekhine won the gold medal for 1st
board. His loss to Hermanis Matisons (Latvia) was his first
loss in a serious chess event since winning the world
championship.
1933 Folkestone
5 9.5/12 +8 =3 -1 Alekhine won the gold medal for 1st
board. His loss to Savielly Tartakower (Poland) was his
second and last loss in chess olympiads.
1935 Warsaw
6 12/17 +7 =10 -0 Alekhine won the silver medal for 1st
board (Salo Flohr of Czechoslovakia took the gold by
scoring 13/17).
1939 Buenos Aires
8 7.5/10 (12.5/16) +9 =7 -0 Alekhine won the silver medal
for 1st board (Jose Raul Capablanca of Cuba took the gold
by scoring 8.5/11). Only games in the final stage were
counted for awarding the medals. The first score is for the
final stage, the one in parentheses is Alekhine's total
score.
++2. Aron Isaevich Nimzowitsch
Aron Isaevich Nimzowitsch (born Aron Niemzowitsch and also known as
Aaron Nimzovich) (November 7, 1886 - March 16, 1935) was a Latvian-
born Danish unofficial chess grandmaster and a very influential
chess writer. He was the foremost figure amongst the hypermoderns.
++2.A Life
Born in Riga in Livonia, then part of the Russian empire, the
Jewish German-speaking Nimzowitsch came from a wealthy family,
where he learned chess from his father, who was a merchant. In
1904, he traveled to Berlin to study philosophy, but set aside his
studies soon and began a career as a professional chess player that
same year. He won his first international tournament at Munich
1906. Then, he tied for first with Alexander Alekhine at St.
Petersburg 1913/14 (the eighth All-Russian Masters' Tournament).
During the 1917 Russian Revolution, Nimzowitsch was in the Baltic
war zone. He escaped being drafted into one of the armies by
feigning madness, insisting that a fly was on his head. He then
escaped to Berlin, and gave his first name as Arnold, possibly to
avoid anti-Semitic persecution.
Nimzowitsch eventually moved to Copenhagen in 1922, which coincided
with his rise to the world chess elite, where he lived for the rest
of his life in one small rented room. In Copenhagen, he won twice
Nordic Chess Championship in 1924 and 1934. He obtained Danish
citizenship and lived in Denmark, until his death in 1935. Although
he had long suffered from heart trouble, his early death was
unexpected, taken ill suddenly at the end of 1934, he lay bedridden
for three months before dying of pneumonia. He is buried in
Bispebjerg Cemetery in Copenhagen.
++2.B Chess career
The height of Nimzowitsch's career was the late 1920s and early
1930s. Chessmetrics places him as the third best player in the
world, behind Alexander Alekhine and Jose Capablanca, from 1927 to
1931. His most notable successes were first-place finishes at
Copenhagen 1923, Marienbad 1925, Dresden 1926, Hannover 1926, and
the Carlsbad 1929 chess tournament, and second place behind
Alekhine at the San Remo 1930 chess tournament. Nimzowitsch never
developed a knack for match play, though; his best match success
was a draw with Alekhine, but the match was only two games long and
was in 1914, thirteen years before Alekhine became world champion.
Nimzowitsch never won against Capablanca, but fared better against
Alekhine. He even beat Alekhine with the black pieces, in their
short 1914 match at St. Petersburg. One of Nimzowitsch's most
famous games is his celebrated immortal zugzwang game against
Saemisch at Copenhagen 1923. Another game on this theme is his win
over Paul Johner at Dresden 1926. When in form, Nimzowitsch was
very dangerous with the black pieces, scoring many fine wins over
top players.
++2.C Legacy
Nimzowitsch is considered one of the most important players and
writers in chess history. His works influenced numerous other
players, including Savielly Tartakower, Milan Vidmar, Richard Reti,
Akiba Rubinstein, Bent Larsen, and Tigran Petrosian, and his
influence is still felt today.
He wrote three books on chess strategy: Mein System (My System),
1925, Die Praxis meines Systems (The Practice of My System), 1929,
commonly known as Chess Praxis, and Die Blockade (The Blockade),
1925. The last of these has just been reissued in a volume
containing both the German original and the English translation
published by Hardinge Simpole. However, much that is in it is
covered again in Mein System. It is said that 99 out of 100 chess
masters have read Mein System; consequently, most consider it to be
Nimzowitsch's greatest contribution to chess. It sets out
Nimzowitsch's most important ideas, while his second most
influential work, Chess Praxis, elaborates upon these ideas, adds
a few new ones, and has immense value as a stimulating collection
of Nimzowitsch's own games, even when these games are more
entertaining than instructive.
Nimzowitsch's chess theories flew in the face of convention. While
there were those like Alekhine, Emanuel Lasker, and even Capablanca
who did not live by Tarrasch's rigid teachings, the acceptance of
Tarrasch's ideas, all simplifications of the more profound work of
Wilhelm Steinitz, was nearly universal. That the center had to be
controlled by pawns and that development had to happen in support
of this control -- the core ideas of Tarrasch's chess philosophy --
were things every beginner thought to be irrefutable laws of
nature, like gravity.
Nimzowitsch shattered these assumptions. He discovered such
concepts as overprotection (the least important of his ideas from
a modern standpoint though still interesting and sometimes
applicable), control of the center by pieces instead of pawns,
blockade, and prophylaxis -- playing to prevent the opponent's
plans. He was also a leading advocate and exponent of the
fianchetto development of the bishops. Nimzowitsch also formalised
strategies using open files, outposts and invasion of the seventh
rank, all of which are widely accepted today. Others had utilized
such ideas in previous years, but he was the first to knit them
together into a cohesive whole.
Grandmaster (GM) Raymond Keene writes that Nimzowitsch "was one of
the world's leading Grandmasters for a period extending over a
quarter of a century, and for some of that time he was the obvious
challenger for the world championship. ... (He was also) a great
and profound chess thinker, second only to Steinitz, and his works-
Die Blockade, My System and Chess Praxis-established his reputation
as one of the father figures of modern chess." GM Robert Byrne
called him "perhaps the most brilliant theoretician and teacher in
the history of the game." GM Jan Hein Donner called Nimzowitsch "a
man who was too much of an artist to be able to prove he was right
and who was regarded as something of a madman in his time. He would
be understood only long after his death."
Many chess openings and variations are named after Nimzowitsch, the
most famous being the Nimzo-Indian Defence (1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3.
Nc3 Bb4) and the less often played Nimzowitsch Defence (1. e4 Nc6).
Nimzowitsch biographer Grandmaster Raymond Keene and others have
referred to 1. f4 followed by 2. b3 as the Nimzowitsch-Larsen
Attack. Keene wrote a book about the opening with that title. All
of these openings exemplify Nimzowitsch's ideas about controlling
the center with pieces instead of pawns. Nimzowitsch was also vital
in the development of two important systems in the French Defence,
the Winawer Variation (in some places called the Nimzowitsch
Variation; its moves are 1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. Nc3 Bb4) and the
Advance Variation (1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. e5). He also pioneered two
provocative variations of the Sicilian Defence, both regarded as
dubious today: the Nimzowitsch Variation, 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 Nf6,
which invites 3. e5 Nd5, similarly to Alekhine's Defence, and 1. e4
c5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 d5?!
++2.D Personality
There are many entertaining anecdotes regarding Nimzowitsch--some
less savory than others. For example, he once missed the first
prize of a great rapid transit tournament in Berlin by losing to
Sdmisch; immediately upon learning this, Nimzowitsch got up on a
table and shouted "Gegen diesen Idioten muss ich verlieren!" ("That
I should lose to this idiot!").
Nimzowitsch was annoyed by his opponents' smoking. A popular, but
probably apocryphal, story is that once when an opponent laid a
cigar on the table, he complained to the tournament arbiters, "he
is threatening to smoke, and as an old player you must know that
the threat is stronger than the execution".
Nimzowitsch had lengthy and somewhat bitter dogmatic conflicts with
Tarrasch over whose ideas constituted 'proper' chess.
Nimzowitsch's vanity and faith in his ideas of overprotection
provoked Hans Kmoch to write a parody about him in February 1928 in
the Wiener Schachzeitung. This consisted of a mock game against the
fictional player "Systemsson", supposedly played and annotated by
Nimzowitsch himself. The annotations gleefully exaggerate the idea
of overprotection, as well as asserting the true genius of the
wondrous idea. Kmoch was in fact a great admirer of Nimzowitsch,
and the subject of the parody himself was amused at the effort.
Kmoch also wrote an article about his nine years with
Nimzowitsch:
Nimzovich suffered from the delusion that he was unappreciated and
that the reason was malice. All it took to make him blossom, as I
later learned, was a little praise. His paranoia was most evident
when he dined in company. He always thought he was served much
smaller portions than everyone else. He didn't care about the
actual amount but only about the imagined affront. I once suggested
that he and I order what the other actually wanted and, when the
food was served, exchange plates. After we had done so, he shook
his head in disbelief, still thinking that he had received the
smaller portion.
Nimzovitsch's colleague Tartakower observed of him, "He pretends to
be crazy in order to drive us all crazy."
++2.E Notable chess games
* Friedrich Saemisch vs Aron Nimzowitsch, Copenhagen 1923,
Queen's Indian Defence (E18), 0-1 The "Immortal Zugzwang
Game" sees Saemisch get tied up in knots.
* Paul Johner vs Aron Nimzowitsch, Dresden 1926, NimzoIndian
Defence, Rubinstein Variation (E47), 0-1 One of
Nimzowitsch's most famous games sees White fall deep into
passivity and get squeezed.
* Milan Vidmar vs Aron Nimzowitsch, New York 1927, Bogo-
Indian Defence (E11), 0-1 A crafty blending of strategy and
tactics.
* Richard Reti vs Aron Nimzowitsch, Berlin 1928, Nimzo-Indian
Defence (E38), 0-1 Two of the top hypermoderns cross swords
to showcase their latest ideas.
* Efim Bogoljubov vs Aron Nimzowitsch, San Remo 1930,
NimzoIndian Defence, Bogoljubov Variation (E23), 0-1
Another encounter of hypermodern heavyweights sees
Nimzowitsch with two knights in the endgame, and he handles
them perfectly.
++3. Alexander Alekhine - Aron Nimzowitsch, San Remo 1930
San Remo 1930
White: Alexander Alekhine
Black: Aron Nimzowitsch
Result: 1-0
ECO: C17 - French Defense, Paulsen Variation, Winawer Variation, Advance
Variation, Bogoljubow Variation
Notes by R.J. Macdonald
1. e4 e6
(The French Defense.)
2. d4 d5
3. Nc3
(This is the Paulsen Variation. The main alternative is 3. Nd2, the Tarrasch
Variation.)
3. ... Bb4
(The Winawer Variation.)
4. e5
(The Advance Variation.)
4. ... c5
5. Bd2
(The Bogoljubow Variation.)
5. ... Ne7
(5. ... Nc6 6. Nb5 Bxd2+ 7. Qxd2 Nxd4 8. Nxd4 cxd4 9. Nf3 Ne7 10. Nxd4 0-0 11.
0-0-0 Nc6 12. Qe3 Bd7 13. Be2 Qb6 gives white a slight advantage.)
6. Nb5 Bxd2+
7. Qxd2 0-0
8. c3
(8. dxc5 Nd7 9. Qc3 a6 10. Nd6 Qc7 11. Nf3 Qxc5 12. Qxc5 Nxc5 gives white a
slight advantage.)
8. ... b6
(Black tries to solve the problem of his "bad" Bishop at once, but better was
8. ... Nf5, preventing 9. Nd6+ and exerting pressure on the d4 pawn.)
9. f4 Ba6
(9. ... Bd7 10. Nf3 f6 11. Nd6 Nbc6 12. Bd3 Nc8 13. Nxc8 Rxc8 14. 0-0 Be8 15.
Rae1 f5 16. b4 Bh5 17. Ba6 Rc7 18. a3 Qe7 19. Be2 Rfc8 20. Ba6 Ra8 21. Be2 Bxf3
22. Rxf3 cxd4 23. cxd4 a5 24. b5 1/2-1/2 in 52 moves, as in the game C.
Claverie (2330) - M. Drasko (2537), France 2008.)
10. Nf3 Qd7
11. a4
(11. Nd6 Bxf1 12. Rxf1 Nbc6 13. Kf2 Nc8 14. dxc5 bxc5 15. Ne4 Qe7 16. Ng3 Nb6
17. b3 f5 18. h4 a5 19. Qe2 c4 20. Qe3 Rab8 21. Ne2 Rfc8 22. Ned4 Nxd4 23. Qxd4
Rc5 24. Rfb1 Rb5 25. g3 Na4 0-1 in 46 moves, as in the game E. Fragakis (2040)
- G. Kanakaris (2095), Kalamata 2008.)
11... Nbc6
12. b4
(White intends to play a5. 12. Qf2 cxd4 13. Nfxd4 f6 14. exf6 Rxf6 15. Nxc6
Nxc6 16. 0-0-0 Rc8 17. Kb1 Na5 18. Qd4 Nb3 19. Qb4 Nc5 20. Be2 Bxb5 21. Bxb5
Qf7 22. g3 Qg6+ 23. Ka2 a6 24. Be2 Qc2 25. Rhe1 a5 26. Qa3 Qxa4 0-1 in 70
moves, as in the game B. McLaren - R. Chow, Canada 1985.)
12. ... cxb4
(12. ... c4 13. Be2 gives white a slight edge.)
13. cxb4
(White has a slight advantage.)
13. ... Bb7
14. Nd6 f5
(14. ... a5 deserves consideration, though 15. Bb5 axb4 gives white a slight
advantage.)
15. a5 Nc8
(Better is 15. ... a6!?, which seems to give white a solid advantage.)
16. Nxb7
(White's position is very strong.)
16. ... Qxb7
17. a6 Qf7
18. Bb5 N8e7
19. 0-0 h6
(19. ... Qe8 20. Rac1 Rc8 21. Rc3 gives white a very strong advantage.)
20. Rfc1 Rfc8
21. Rc2
Key Move Diagram:
r1r3k1/
p3nqp1/
Ppn1p2p/
1B1pPp2/
1P1P1P2/
5N2/
2RQ2PP/
R5K1
Position after white's 21st move.
21. ... Qe8?
(21. ... Nd8 22. Rac1 Rxc2 23. Rxc2 Ng6 is very strong for white.)
22. Rac1 Rab8
23. Qe3
(23. Rc3 might be the shorter path: after 23. ... Rc7 white has a decisive
advantage.)
23. ... Rc7
24. Rc3 Qd7
(24. ... Kf8 does not solve anything after 25. R1c2, and white should win
easily.)
25. R1c2 Kf8
26. Qc1 Rbc8
27. Ba4 b5
(27. ... Kf7 hoping against hope.)
28. Bxb5 Ke8
(28. ... Qe8 cannot change what is in store for black: 29. Ba4 is very strong
for white.)
29. Ba4 Kd8
(29. ... Kf7 doesn't change anything: 30. Nd2 is just too strong for white.)
30. h4
(30. Qa3 seems even better: 30. ... Ke8 31. b5 is decisive for white.)
30. ... h5
(30. ... Ke8 praying for a miracle.)
31. Kh2 g6
32. g3
(Black resigned in view of 32. g3 Nxb4 33. Bxd7 Nxc2 34. Bxc8 Rxc3 35. Bxe6 and
white wins.)
1-0
Other related posts:
- » [blind-chess] Annotated Game #106: Alexander Alekhine - Aron Nimzowitsch, San Remo 1930 - Roderick Macdonald
