Alexander Aleksandrovich Alekhine[a][b] (October 31 [O.S. October 19] 1892 – March 24, 1946) was a Russian and French chess player and the fourthWorld Chess Champion, a title he held for two reigns.
By the age of 22, Alekhine was already among the strongest chess players in the world. During the 1920s, he won most of thetournaments in which he played. In 1921, Alekhine left Soviet Russia and emigrated to France, which he represented after 1925. In 1927, he became the fourth World Chess Champion by defeatingJosé Raúl Capablanca.
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 fiveChess Olympiads, winning individual prizes in each (four medals and a brilliancy prize). 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 againstEfim Bogoljubov in 1929 and 1934. He was defeated byMax Euwe in 1935, but regained his crown in the 1937 rematch. His tournament record, however, was uneven, and rising young stars likePaul Keres,Reuben Fine, andMikhail 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. Negotiations with Botvinnik for a world title match were proceeding in 1946 when Alekhine died in Portugal, in unclear circumstances. Alekhine is the only World Chess Champion to have died while holding the title.
Alekhine is known for his fierce and imaginative attacking style, combined with great positional andendgame skill. He is highly regarded as a chess writer andtheoretician, having produced innovations in a wide range ofchess openings and having given his name toAlekhine's Defence and several otheropening variations. He also composed someendgame studies.
Alekhine was born into a wealthyRussian family in Moscow, Russia, on October 31, 1892.[4][5][6] His father, Alexander Ivanovich Alekhin, was a landowner and Privy Councilor to the conservative legislative FourthDuma.[7] His mother, Anisya Ivanovna Alekhina (born Prokhorova), was the daughter of a rich industrialist. Alekhine was introduced to chess by his mother, his older brotherAlexei, and his older sister Varvara.[8]
Alekhine's first known game was from acorrespondence chess tournament that began on December 3, 1902, when he was ten years old. He participated in several correspondence tournaments, sponsored by the chess magazineShakhmatnoe Obozrenie ("Chess Review"), between 1902 and 1911. In 1907, he played his firstover-the-board tournament, the Moscow chess club's Spring Tournament. Later that year, he tied for 11th–13th in the club's Autumn Tournament; his elder brother,Alexei, tied for 4th–6th place. In 1908, Alexander won the club's Spring Tournament, at the age of 15.[9] In 1909, he won the All-Russian Amateur Tournament inSaint Petersburg.[10] 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 16 he had established himself as one of Russia's top players.[11] 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 withYevgeny Znosko-Borovsky).[12] 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.[13] In January 1914, Alekhine won his first major Russian tournament, when he tied for first place withAron Nimzowitsch in theAll-Russian Masters Tournament at St. Petersburg.[14] Afterwards, theydrew in a mini-match for first prize (each won a game).[15] Alekhine also played several matches in this period, and his results showed the same pattern: mixed at first but later consistently good.
In April–May 1914, another majorSt. Petersburg 1914 chess tournament was held in the capital of the Russian Empire, in which Alekhine took third place behindEmanuel Lasker andJosé Raúl Capablanca. By some accounts,TsarNicholas II conferred the title of "Grandmaster of Chess" on each of the five finalists (Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine,Siegbert Tarrasch, andFrank Marshall). (Chess historianEdward Winter has questioned this, stating that the earliest known sources supporting this story are an article by Robert Lewis Taylor in the June 15, 1940, issue ofThe New Yorker and Marshall's autobiographyMy 50 Years of Chess (1942).)[16][17][18] Alekhine's surprising success made him a serious contender for theWorld Chess Championship.[11] 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 audience."[19] In July 1914, Alekhine tied for first with Marshall in Paris.[20]
In July–August 1914, Alekhine was leading an internationalMannheim tournament, the 19thDSB Congress (German Chess Federation Congress) inMannheim, Germany, with nine wins, one draw and one loss, when World War I broke out. Alekhine's prize was 1,100 marks (worth about 11,000euros in terms of purchasing power today).[21] After the declaration of war against Russia, eleven "Russian" players (Alekhine,Efim Bogoljubov,Fedor Bogatyrchuk,Alexander Flamberg,N. Koppelman,Boris Maliutin,Ilya Rabinovich,Peter Romanovsky,Pyotr Saburov,Alexey Selezniev, andSamuil Weinstein) were interned in Rastatt, Germany. On September 14, 17, and 29 of 1914, four of them (Alekhine, Bogatyrchuk, Saburov, and Koppelman) were freed and allowed to return home.[22] Alekhine made his way back to Russia (via Switzerland, Italy, London, Sweden, and Finland) by the end of October 1914. A fifth player, Romanovsky, was released in 1915,[23] and a sixth, Flamberg, was allowed to return to Warsaw in 1916.[24]
When Alekhine returned to Russia, he helped raise money by giving simultaneous exhibitions to aid the Russian chess players who remained interned in Germany. In December 1915, he won the Moscow Chess Club Championship. In April 1916, he won a mini-match againstAlexander Evensohn with two wins and one loss atKiev, 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 atTarnopol. In 1918, he won a "triangular tournament" in Moscow. In June of the following year, after the Russians forced the German army to retreat fromUkraine, Alekhine was charged with links withWhite movement counter-intelligence and was briefly imprisoned inOdessa's death cell by the OdessaCheka. Rumors appeared in the West that he had been killed by theBolsheviks.[8]
When conditions in Russia became more settled, Alekhine proved he was among Russia's strongest players. In January 1920, he swept thechampionship of Moscow (11/11), but was not declared champion because he was not a resident of the city. In October 1920 he won the All-Russian Chess Olympiad in Moscow (+9−0=6); the tournament was retroactively called thefirst USSR Championship. His brother Alexei took third place in the tournament for amateurs.[25][26]
In March 1920, Alekhine married Alexandra Batayeva. They divorced the next year.[27] For a short time in 1920–21, 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,Annelise Rüegg, who was thirteen years his senior, and they married on March 15, 1921. Shortly after getting married, Alekhine was given permission to leave Russia for a visit to the West with his wife, from whom he separated in June 1921. He would never return to Russia, and made France his base for much of the following twenty years.
Alekhine's main goal throughout this period was to arrange a match with Capablanca.[11] He thought the greatest obstacle was not Capablanca's play but the requirement under the 1922 "London rules" (at Capablanca's insistence) that the challenger raise a purse of US$10,000 (~$162,000 in 2022 terms[30]), of which the defending champion would receive over half even if defeated.[31] Alekhine in November 1921, and Rubinstein and Nimzowitsch in 1923, challenged Capablanca but were unable to raise the $10,000.[32][better source needed] Raising the money was Alekhine's preliminary objective; he even went on tour, playing simultaneous exhibitions for modest fees day after day.[33] In New York on April 27, 1924, he broke the world record for simultaneous blindfold play when he played twenty-six opponents (the previous record was twenty-five, set byGyula 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.[34][unreliable source]
In 1924, he applied for the first time for a residence privilege in France and for French citizenship while pursuing his studies in theSorbonne Faculty of Law to obtain aPhD. There is no record that he completed his studies there, but he was known as "Dr. Alekhine" in the 1930s.[35]
His French citizenship application was postponed because of his frequent travels abroad to play chess and because he was reported once in April 1922, shortly after his arrival in France, as a "bolshevist charged by the Soviets of a special mission in France". Later in 1927, theFrench Chess Federation asked the Ministry of Justice to intervene in Alekhine's favor to have him lead the French team in the first Nation tournament to be held in London in July 1927. Nevertheless, Alekhine had to wait for a new law on naturalization which was published on 10 August 1927. The decree granting himFrench nationality (among hundreds of other applicants) was signed on 5 November 1927 and published in theOfficial Gazette of the French Republic on 14–15 November 1927, while Alekhine was playing Capablanca for the World title in Buenos Aires.[36][37]
In October 1926, Alekhine won inBuenos Aires. In December 1926 / January 1927, he defeatedMax Euwe 5½–4½ in a training match in the Netherlands.[38] In 1927, he married his third wife, Nadiezda Vasiliev (née Fabritzky), another older woman, the widow of the Russian general V. Vasiliev.[8]
In 1927, Alekhine's challenge toCapablanca was backed by a group of Argentine businessmen and the president of Argentina, who guaranteed the funds,[39] and organized by the Club Argentino de Ajedrez (Argentine Chess Club) inBuenos Aires.[31] In theWorld Chess Championship match played from September 16 to November 29, 1927 at Buenos Aires, Alekhine won the title, scoring +6−3=25.[40] This was the longest formal World Championship match until thecontest in 1984 betweenAnatoly Karpov andGarry Kasparov.[41] Alekhine's victory surprised almost the entire chess world, since he had never previously won a single game from Capablanca.[40] 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 overconfident.[42] Capablanca entered the match with no technical or physical preparation,[43][44] while Alekhine got himself into good physical condition[11] and had thoroughly studied Capablanca's play.[45] According to Kasparov, Alekhine's research uncovered many small inaccuracies, which occurred because Capablanca was unwilling to concentrate intensely.[46]Vladimir Kramnik has commented that this was the first contest in which Capablanca had no easy wins.[47]
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.[31] 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.[11] The rematch never took place. After Capablanca's death in 1942, Alekhine wrote that Capablanca's demand for a $10,000 stake had been an attempt to avoid challenges.[42]
Although he never agreed terms for a rematch against Capablanca, Alekhine played two world title matches withEfim Bogoljubov, in 1929 and 1934, winning handily both times.[48][49] The first was held atWiesbaden,Heidelberg,Berlin,The Hague, andAmsterdam from September through November 1929. Alekhine retained his title, scoring +11−5=9.[29] From April to June 1934, Alekhine faced Bogoljubov again in a title match held in twelve German cities, defeating him by five games (+8−3=15).[29] In 1929, Bogoljubov was forty years old and perhaps already past his peak.[50]
After the world championship match, Alekhine returned to Paris and spoke againstBolshevism. 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 Alekhine until the end of the 1930s. His elder brother Alexei, with whom Alexander Alekhine had a very close relationship, publicly repudiated him and his anti-Soviet utterances shortly afterward, but Alexei may have had little choice about this decision.[25][51]
According toReuben Fine, Alekhine dominated chess into the mid-1930s.[11] His most famous tournament victories were at theSan Remo 1930 chess tournament (+13=2, 3½ points ahead of Nimzowitsch) and theBled 1931 chess tournament (+15=11, 5½ 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 than first wasHastings 1933–34 (shared second place, ½ point behindSalo Flohr). In 1933, Alekhine also swept an exhibition match against Rafael Cintron inSan Juan (+4−0=0), but only managed to draw another match withOssip Bernstein in Paris (+1−1=2).[52]
In 1934 Alekhine married his fourth wife,Grace Freeman (née Wishaar), sixteen years his senior. She was the American-born widow of a British tea-planter inCeylon, who retained her British citizenship to the end of her life and remained Alekhine's wife until his death.[34][unreliable source][1]
In the early 1930s, around 1933 according to Reuben Fine, it was noticed that Alekhine was drinking increasing amounts ofalcohol.[11]Hans Kmoch wrote that Alekhine first drank heavily during the tournament at Bled in 1931, and drank heavily through the 1934 match with Bogoljubov.[1]
In 1933, Alekhine challengedMax Euwe to a championship match.[59] Euwe, in the early 1930s, was regarded as one of three credible challengers (the others were José Raúl Capablanca andSalo Flohr).[11] Euwe accepted the challenge for October 1935. Earlier that year, Dutch radio sports journalistHan Hollander asked Capablanca for his views on the forthcoming match. In the rare archival film footage, in which Capablanca and Euwe both speak, Capablanca replies: "Dr. Alekhine's game is 20% bluff. Dr. Euwe's game is clear and straightforward. Dr. Euwe's game—not so strong as Alekhine's in some respects—is more evenly balanced." Then Euwe gives his assessment in Dutch, explaining that his feelings alternated from optimism to pessimism, but in the previous ten years, their score had been evenly matched at 7–7.[60]
On October 3, 1935, the world championship match began inZandvoort, 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 16, 1935, with nine wins, thirteen draws, and eight losses.[61] This was the first world championship match in which seconds were officially employed: Alekhine had the services ofSalo Landau, and Euwe hadGéza Maróczy.[62] Euwe's win was a major upset.[11] Kmoch wrote that Alekhine drank no alcohol for the first half of the match, but later took a glass before most games.[1]However, Salo Flohr, who also assisted Euwe, thought overconfidence caused more problems than alcohol did for Alekhine in this match, and Alekhine himself had previously said he would win easily.[63][64] Later World ChampionsVasily Smyslov,Boris Spassky,Anatoly Karpov andGarry 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.[63]
According to Kmoch, Alekhine abstained from alcohol altogether for five years after the 1935 match.[1] In the eighteen months after losing the title, Alekhine played in ten tournaments, with uneven results: tied for first withPaul Keres atBad Nauheim in May 1936; first place atDresden in June 1936; second to Flohr atPoděbrady in July 1936; sixth, behind Capablanca,Mikhail Botvinnik, Reuben Fine,Samuel Reshevsky, and Euwe atNottingham in August 1936; third, behind Euwe and Fine, atAmsterdam in October 1936; tied for first withSalo Landau atAmsterdam (Quadrangular), also in October 1936; in 1936/37 he won at theHastings New Year tournament, ahead of Fine andErich Eliskases; first place atNice (Quadrangular) in March 1937; third, behind Keres and Fine, atMargate in April 1937; tied for fourth with Keres, behind Flohr, Reshevsky andVladimirs Petrovs, at Kemeri in June–July 1937; tied for second with Bogoljubow, behind Euwe, atBad Nauheim (Quadrangular) in July 1937.[34][unreliable source]
Max Euwe was quick to arrange a return match with Alekhine, somethingJosé Raúl 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 Fine, and Alekhine byErich Eliskases. The match was a real contest initially, but Euwe collapsed near the end, losing four of the last five games.[47][65] 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.[11]
1938 began well for Alekhine, who won theMontevideo 1938 chess tournament at Carrasco (in March) and atMargate (in April), and tied for first with SirGeorge Alan Thomas atPlymouth (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 theAVRO 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, though Fine was dismissive of this explanation because the distances were short.[11]
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.[66]
Keres, who had won the AVRO tournament ontiebreak 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 theUSSR, 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 (by Soviet standards).[67]
Alekhine was representing France at first board in the8th Chess Olympiad atBuenos 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), andAlbert Becker (Germany), plus the president of the Argentine Chess Federation,Augusto de Muro, decided to go on with the Olympiad.[68]
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).[69] Shortly after the Olympiad, Alekhine swept tournaments inMontevideo (7/7) andCaracas (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.[70] Supported by Latin-American financial pledges, José R. Capablanca challenged Alexander Alekhine to a world title match in November. Tentative plans—not, however, backed by a deposit of the required purse ($10,000 in gold)—led to a virtual agreement to play at Buenos Aires, Argentina, beginning on April 14, 1940.
Unlike many participants in the 1939 Chess Olympiad,[69] Alekhine returned to Europe in January 1940. After a short stay in Portugal,[71] he enlisted in the French army as a sanitation officer.[1]
After the fall of France (June 1940), he fled toMarseille. Alekhine tried to go to America by traveling toLisbon 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.[72][unreliable source]
Chess historians have had a significant interest in Alekhine's affiliation withNazi Germany. Of ongoing speculation among historians specialising in mid-20th century European chess is whether or not Alekhine was the author of numerous antisemitic pieces of propaganda published in relevant partisan materials at the time. While an analysis of writing styles is perceived to provide evidence supporting the theory Alekhine willingly worked as a propagandist in a non-coercive fashion, Alekhine himself denied this in written letters.[73][74][75]
By some accounts, to protect his wife, Grace, and her French assets (a castle at Saint Aubin-le-Cauf, nearDieppe, which the Nazis looted), he agreed to cooperate with the Nazis.[76] Alekhine took part in chess tournaments inMunich,Salzburg,Kraków/Warsaw, andPrague, organised byEhrhardt Post, the chief executive of the Nazi-controlledGrossdeutscher Schachbund ("Greater Germany Chess Federation")—Keres, Bogoljubov, and several other strong masters in Nazi-occupied Europe also played in such events.[77] In 1941, he tied for second-third withErik Lundin in theMunich 1941 chess tournament (Europaturnier in September, won byGösta Stoltz), shared first withPaul Felix Schmidt at Kraków/Warsaw (the 2ndGeneral Government chess tournament, in October)[78] and won inMadrid (in December). The following year he won in theSalzburg 1942 chess tournament (June 1942) and in Munich (September 1942; the Nazis named this theEuropameisterschaft, which means "European Championship").[79][80] Later in 1942 he won at Warsaw/Lublin/Kraków (the 3rd GG-ch; October 1942) and tied for first withKlaus Junge inPrague (Duras Jubileé; December 1942). In 1943, he drew a mini-match (+2−2) 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.[72][unreliable source][81] In 1944, he narrowly won a match againstRamón Rey Ardid inZaragoza (+1−0=3; April 1944) and won inGijón[82] (July 1944). The following year, he won atMadrid (March 1945), tied for second place withAntonio Medina at Gijón (July 1945; the event was won byAntonio Rico), won atSabadell (August 1945), he tied for first with F. López Núñez inAlmeria (August 1945), won inMelilla (September 1945) and took second inCaceres, behindFrancisco Lupi (Autumn 1945). Alekhine's last match was with Lupi atEstoril nearLisbon, Portugal, in January 1946. Alekhine won two games, lost one, and drew one.[15]
Alekhine took an interest in the development of the chessprodigyArturo Pomar and devoted a section of his last book (¡Legado! 1946) to him. They played at Gijon 1944, when Pomar, aged 12, achieved a creditable draw with the champion.[83]
Grave of Alexander Alekhine in Paris, France (reconstruction of the original which was destroyed in 1999)
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.[7]
While planning for a World Championship match against Botvinnik,[66] Alekhine died aged 53 in his hotel room in Estoril, Portugal, on March 24, 1946.[84] The circumstances of his death are still a matter of debate. It is usually attributed to a heart attack, but a letter inChess Life magazine from a witness to the autopsy stated that choking on meat was the actual cause of death. At autopsy, a three-inch-long piece of unchewed meat was discovered blocking his windpipe.[85] Some[who?] have speculated that he was murdered by a French "death squad". A few years later, Alekhine's son, Alexander Alekhine Jr., said that "the hand of Moscow reached his father."[86]Kevin Spraggett, a CanadianGrandmaster who has lived in Portugal since the late 1980s and 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 policePIDE. He believes that Alekhine was murdered outside his hotel room, probably by Soviet agents.[87]
Alekhine's burial was sponsored byFIDE, and the remains were transferred to theCimetière du Montparnasse, Paris, France, in 1956.
His gravestone suffered heavy damage bya cyclone on 26 December 1999. The headstone monument was blown over, shattered and fell on the main gravestone. It was later restored.[88][89]
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.[11]
One of Alekhine's most famous and complicated wins. 31...Ne4 forces the win of White's knight at b7 in twelve moves.[11]
Alekhine was one of the greatest attacking players and could apparently producecombinations 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."[11] 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."[90] An explanation offered by Réti was, "he beats his opponents by analysing simple and apparently harmless sequences 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."[91]John Nunn commented that "Alekhine had a special ability to provoke complicationswithout taking excessive risks",[92] andEdward Winter called him "the supreme genius of the complicated position".[93]
Nevertheless,Garry Kasparov said that Alekhine's attacking play was based on solid positional foundations,[94] andHarry 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."[95]Reuben 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,[11] and Golombek was equally impressed.[95]
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'.[96] 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 intable tennis, which Alekhine played enthusiastically but badly, he would often crush the ball when he lost.[11]
Bobby Fischer, in a 1964 article, ranked Alekhine as one of the ten greatest players in history.[97] 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. ... [H]e 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.[97]
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."[98] In 2012,Levon Aronian said that he considers Alekhine the greatest chess player of all time.[99]
Alekhine also composed a fewendgame studies, one of which is shown in the diagram, a miniature (a study with a maximum of seven pieces).[100]
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.[106][unreliable source] UnlikeWilhelm 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.[93] His books appeal to expert players rather than beginners:[11] they contain many long analyses of variations in critical positions, and "singularities and exceptions were his forte, not rules and simplifications".[93]
Although Alekhine was declared an enemy of the Soviet Union after his anti-Bolshevik statement in 1928,[25][51] 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,Alexander Alekhine, led to a Soviet series of Alekhine Memorial tournaments. The first of these, at Moscow 1956, was won jointly by Botvinnik andVasily Smyslov.[107] In their bookThe Soviet School of Chess Kotov andYudovich 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.[108] Botvinnik wrote that the Soviet School of chess learned from Alekhine's fighting qualities, capacity for self-criticism and combinative vision.[109] 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."[110]
Famous and much-analysed position from the "Five 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."[111] In a recent bookAndy Soltis lists "Alekhine's 15 Improvements".[112] The most famous example is his game withfivequeens 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 the book who was who in this version, nor that it was in the tournament.)[113]
In the position shown in the diagram, 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 anendgame a queen down. A later computer-assisted analysis concludes that White can force a win, but only by diverging from Alekhine's move sequence at move 20, while there are only three queens.[114]
Chess historianEdward Winter investigated a game Alekhine allegedly won in fifteen moves via a queensacrifice atSabadell in 1945.[115] 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 evidence that Alekhine was the source of the famous fifteen-move win whose authenticity is doubted.[116]
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.[77][117] In March 1941, a series of articles appeared under Alekhine's name in thePariser 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 thehypermodern theories of Nimzowitsch and Réti 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".[118][119]
During interviews with two Spanish newspapers in September 1941, Alekhine criticised Jewish chess strategy. In one of these, he said that Aryan chess was aggressive but "the Semitic concept admitted the idea of pure defence", thus the "Jewish" style was supposed to focus merely on exploiting the opponents' mistakes. He also praised rival chessplayer Capablanca for taking the world title from "the Jew Lasker".[118] He is reported to have expressed similar views in an interview to the Czech media Svět in 1942.[120]
Almost immediately after the liberation of Paris (and before World War II ended), Alekhine publicly stated that "he had to write two chess articles for thePariser 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!.[118]
Extensive investigations byKen Whyld have not yielded conclusive evidence of the authenticity of the articles. Chess writer Jacques Le Monnier claimed in a 1986 issue ofEurope Échecs that in 1958 he saw some of Alekhine's notebooks and found, in Alekhine's own handwriting, the exact text of the first antisemitic article, which appeared inPariser Zeitung on March 18, 1941. In his 1973 book75 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 thePariser Zeitung."[118]
British chess historianEdward G. Winter notes that the articles in thePariser Zeitung misspelled the names of several famous chess masters, which could be interpreted as evidence 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 beentypesetting errors, as Alekhine's handwriting was not easy to read. The articles contained (probably) incorrect claims thatLionel Kieseritzky (Kieseritsky in English,Kizierycki in Polish) was a Polish Jew, although Kieseritzky was neither Polish nor Jewish.[121] Winter concludes: "Although, as things stand, it is difficult to construct much of a defence for Alekhine, only the discovery of the articles in his own handwriting will settle the matter beyond all doubt." Under Frenchcopyright law, Alekhine's notebooks did not enter thepublic domain until January 1, 2017.[118]
There is evidence that Alekhine was not antisemitic in his personal or chess relationships with Jews. In June 1919, he was arrested by theCheka, imprisoned inOdessa and sentenced to death.Yakov Vilner, a Jewish master, saved him by sending a telegram to the chairman of theUkrainian Council of People's Commissars, who knew of Alekhine and ordered his release.[122][unreliable source] Alekhine accepted and apparently used chess analysis fromCharles Jaffe in his World Championship match against Capablanca. Jaffe was a Jewish master who lived in New York City, which Alekhine often visited, and upon his return to New York after defeating Capablanca, Alekhine played a short match as a favour to Jaffe, without financial remuneration.[123] Alekhine's second for the 1935 match withMax Euwe was the masterSalo Landau, a Dutch Jew. The American Jewish grandmasterArnold 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 theGreat Depression. Denker added that Alekhine, during the early 1930s, opined that the American Jewish grandmasterIsaac Kashdan might be his next challenger (this did not in fact take place).[7] He gave chess lessons to 14-year-old prodigyGerardo Budowski, a German Jew, in Paris in spring 1940.[124] Alekhine also married an American woman who may or may not have had Jewish ancestry, Grace Wishaar, as his fourth wife. Grace Alekhine was the women's champion of Paris in 1944.[125]
Alekhine wrote over twenty books on chess.[126] Some of the best-known are:
Alekhine, Alexander (1985).My Best Games of Chess 1908–1937. Dover.ISBN0-486-24941-7. Originally published in two volumes asMy Best Games of Chess 1908–1923 (published in 1929) andMy Best Games of Chess 1924–1937 (published in 1939)
Alekhine, Alexander (1968).The Book of the Hastings International Masters' Chess Tournament 1922. Dover.ISBN0-486-21960-7.
Alekhine, Alexander (1961).The Book of the New York International Chess Tournament 1924. Dover.ISBN0-486-20752-8.{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
Alekhine, Alexander (1962).The Book of the Nottingham International Chess Tournament. Dover.ISBN0-486-20189-9.{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
Alekhine, Alexander (1973).The World's Chess Championship, 1937. Dover.ISBN0-486-20455-3.
Games analysis published after 1938 were edited byEdward Winter and published in 1980 in the book:
Alekhine, Alexander; Edward Winter (1992).107 Great Chess Battles 1939–1945. Dover.ISBN0-486-27104-8.
Alekhine won the brilliancy prize for hisgame againstGideon Ståhlberg (Sweden). He did not win a medal because the medallists played 17 games each.[53]
Alekhine won thegold medal for 1st board. His loss toHermanis Matisons (Latvia) was his first loss in a serious chess event since winning the world championship.[54]
Alekhine won thesilver medal for 1st board (José Raúl Capablanca ofCuba took the gold by scoring 8½/11). 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.[69]
^Official name as a French citizen:Alexandre Alekhine.[2][3] In English his surname would normally be transliterated as "Alekhin", but when he became a French citizen, the standard French transliteration "Alekhine" became the usual way to spell his name in the Latin alphabet.
^abAlekhine, A., tribute to Capablanca, pp. 157–58, in: Alekhine, A.,107 Great Chess Battles, tr. E.G. Winter, Oxford University Press, 1980.
^du Mont, J. (1959). "Memoir of Capablanca". In Golombek, H. (ed.).Capablanca's Hundred Best Games of Chess. G. Bell & Sons. pp. 1–18.
^Reinfeld, F. (1990) [1942]."Biography".The Immortal Games of Capablanca. Courier Dover Publications. pp. 1–13.ISBN0-486-26333-9.Archived from the original on 2021-10-29. Retrieved2009-06-01.
^Münninghoff, Alexander (2001) [1976].Max Euwe. The Biography. Translated by Piet Verhagen. New in Chess.ISBN9056910795.Inexplicably, one of these letters does not get an immediate reply. It is an invitation from no less a person than Alekhine: he wants to play a match against Euwe, similar to their 1927 encounter – but this time on a big passenger ship to the Dutch Indies and back, with a lot of pomp and circumstance. Five games on the way there, five during the return voyage. The stake: the world championship if need be. Alekhine was clearly in no doubt about his superiority.
^Chernev, I. (1995)."Alekhine".Twelve Great Chess Players and Their Best Games. Dover Publications. pp. 163–64.ISBN978-0-486-28674-7.Archived from the original on 2021-10-29. Retrieved2009-08-14.
^Sericano, Claudio."Mosca 1956 Aljechin Memorial".La grande storia degli scacchi (in Italian).Archived from the original on 2016-04-12. Retrieved2019-11-19.
^The original game, without the five queens, was Grigoriev vs. Alekhine, Moscow 1915, which Alekhine annotated for the February 1916 issue ofShakhmatny Vyestnik. But he presented the "Five Queens" version in a note to Tarrasch vs. Alekhine, St. Petersburg 1914, which is game 26 in Alekhine 1985. In the same book, Alekhine presented as a note to game 90 (Alekhine vs. Teichmann, Berlin 1921) a 15-move win against O. Tenner, which Tenner claimed was actually a variation that arose in their post-game analysis of their 23-move draw.
Alekhine, Alexander (1980).107 Great Chess Battles. Oxford University Press.ISBN978-0-19-217590-8.This is a collection of games annotated by Alekhine, published long after his death.
Münninghoff, Alexander (2001).Max Euwe: The Biography. New in Chess.ISBN978-1-58863-002-5.
Maurensig, Paolo: Theory of Shadows, 2015, Trans. 2018 by Anne Milano Appel. Novel dealing mainly with the days leading up to Alekhine's death in suspicious circumstances.
Réti, Richard (1923).Modern Ideas in Chess. G. Bell and Sons, Ltd.
Reinfeld, Fred (1942).The Immortal Games of Capablanca. Dover.
Reinfeld, Fred (1952).The Human Side of Chess. Pellegrini & Cudahy.
Rohrer, Christian (2021). World Chess Champion and Favourite of Hans Frank? Assessing Alexander Alekhine’s Closeness to the National Socialist Regime. Universitätsbibliothek der Universität Stuttgart (http://dx.doi.org/10.18419/opus-11559).
Rohrer, Christian (2022). Entangled: World Chess Champion Alexander Alekhine, Governor General Hans Frank, and the National Socialist Regime. Stadion 46 (2022), No. 1, p. 22–50 (http://dx.doi.org/10.5771/0172-4029-2022-1-22).
Soloviov, Sergei (2004).Bogoljubow, the Fate of a Chess Player. Chess Stars.ISBN978-954-8782-38-8.
Tkachenko, Sergei (2018).Alekhine's Odessa Secrets: Chess, War and Revolution. Translated by Ilan Rubin. Elk and Ruby Publishing House.ISBN978-5950043338.
