Alexander Alexandrovich Alekhine

Alekhine 1923
Surname	Alexander Alexandrovich Alekhine
Association	Russia , France
Born	October 31, 1892 Moscow , Russian Empire
Died	March 24, 1946 Estoril , Portugal
World Champion	1927-1935 1937-1946
Best Elo rating	2860 (May 1931; historical)

Alexander Alekhine [ a'lʲɛxin ] ( Russian Александр Александрович Алехин , sometimes Russian Александр Александрович Алёхин (Alexander Alexandrovich Aljochin) written in French and English-speaking countries with the French transcription Alexandre Alekhine ; born 19 ^jul. / 31 October  1892 ^{greg .} in Moscow , Russian Empire ; † March 24, 1946 in Estoril , Portugal ) was a Russian- French chess player . He was the fourth world chess champion . The Alekhine Defense and the Alekhine Chatard Attack are chess openings named after him .

Life

Youth in Russia

Alexander Alekhine was born in 1892 as the son of a nobleman and guard officer. His family was very wealthy and owned large estates in the Voronezh area . Alekhin's mother came from the Prokhorov family, a well-known industrial family. In his youth he attended high school in Moscow. He came into contact with chess at an early age, initially playing against his father and his four years older brother Alexei, who was also to become a good chess player. Alekhine began soon after, correspondence chess playing, and joined the most important Moscow chess circle at the Moscow Chess Club .

He won his first tournament victory at the age of 16 at the autumn tournament of the chess society in 1908. His father's fortune allowed him to devote himself exclusively to chess and to develop his talent at a young age. As a 15-year-old (at that time an unusually young age for a chess master), he took part in the international tournament in Düsseldorf in 1908, where he finished fourth and fifth. Shortly afterwards, at the same place, he played a competition against the German master Curt von Bardeleben , whom he defeated with 4.5: 0.5. A match against Hans Fahrni in September this year in Munich was canceled as a draw after three games. During this time, the 1908 World Chess Championship was held in Düsseldorf and Munich .

In 1909 he earned the championship title when he won the All-Russian Championship in Saint Petersburg . Of course, there were still players in Russia from whom Alekhine could still learn: in the same year he was defeated 0: 3 by chess master Nenarokov in Moscow .

In 1912 Alekhine took up residence in St. Petersburg, where he studied law until 1914 . At the same time he took part in the capital's chess life. He became a member of the St. Petersburg Chess Society and took part in almost all chess events in this city.

By his shared victory with Aaron Nimzowitsch at the All-Russian Championship at the turn of the year 1913/14, he acquired the right to participate in the most important championship tournament held in Russia to date. In the great tournament in St. Petersburg in 1914 , apart from the world champion Emanuel Lasker and the future world champion José Raúl Capablanca, only outstanding chess masters took part. Alekhine was sensationally third behind Lasker and Capablanca.

First World War and October Revolution

Colored black and white photo of Alekhine (date unknown, possibly around 1924)

Alekhine was leading the championship tournament in Mannheim when the First World War broke out in August 1914 ; the tournament was abandoned and the leading Alekhine was proclaimed the tournament winner. All participants from the enemy states, including all Russian participants, were interned. Alekhine as well as Efim Bogoljubow , Alexei Selesnjow , Ilja Rabinowitsch and others were detained in Triberg .

Alekhine was released in September 1914 and went home via Switzerland , where he was involved with the Red Cross . He married the Russian artist Anna von Severgin , with whom he had had a daughter since 1913. The daughter lived in Vienna until her death in the mid-1980s.

In August 1916 he took part in the Brusilov offensive of the Russian army as a Red Cross helper . He received two St. George's Medals and the Order of St. Stanislaus for his bravery in rescuing the wounded. In the end he was wounded himself and suffered such severe bruises that he had to spend several months in a hospital in Tarnopol .

During the civil war , Alekhine was arrested in Odessa in 1919 and sentenced to death for the White Guards on suspicion of espionage . Rumor has it that Trotsky visited him in prison and played chess with him, after which he was released. What is certain is that he was recognized as a popular chess master and released soon after. Alekhine, who spoke fluent German, French and English in addition to his mother tongue and had a legal education, returned to Moscow and accepted a position as examining magistrate at the headquarters of the militia . He worked there from May 1920 until his emigration in February 1921.

Alekhine's son Alex with his wife, Dortmund Chess Days 2003

In November 1920 Alekhine began working as an interpreter for the Comintern . On this occasion he met Anneliese Rüegg , a functionary of the Swiss Social Democratic Party , who became his second wife and with whom he later had a son: Alexander Alekhine jr. (* November 2, 1921 in Winterthur in Switzerland (Canton of Zurich); † 2009).

In 1920 he won the first national championship of Soviet Russia . At the beginning of the 1920s, chess did not yet have the status it should have had in the USSR from the 1930s onwards. For Alekhine, an expropriated nobleman who was now forced to live an unfamiliar, namely materially deprived way of life, no chess perspectives initially opened up. He followed the path of many other Russians who saw no future for themselves in Soviet Russia: in the spring of 1921 he emigrated to the West.

In emigration

As for most of the emigrants from Russia (cf. for example Vladimir Nabokow ), Berlin was the first stop in foreign countries, where the emigrants also had their own circles, e.g. B. for emigrant literature in cafes. But Alekhine stayed only briefly in the German capital and soon moved to Paris ; he was never to visit his native Russia again.

Alekhine set himself the goal of becoming world champion. In the following six years he worked on his chess development. Alekhine was very successful in international tournaments. His income, he improved both with simultaneous exhibitions and with the blind game on.

Alekhine claimed to have submitted a doctoral thesis entitled "Prisons in China" to the Law Faculty of the Sorbonne University in Paris in 1925 . The Viennese chess newspaper announced in 1926 that Alekhine had “got the doctoral hat”. From 1926 on, Alekhine provided his name with a "Dr.". Intensive attempts by chess historians to locate this work in the university's archives failed; there is no other indication of a doctorate being conferred on Alekhine either.

Photomontage. Alekhine (1926). Capablanca (before 1926).

Negotiations with Capablanca over a world championship match proved difficult. But in 1927 the competition finally took place in Buenos Aires . Capablanca was a clear favorite. But Alekhine amazed all the experts and proved to be significantly better prepared, both theoretically and psychologically . Alekhine won the competition set for 6 wins after 34 games 6: 3 in 25 draws that were not counted according to the regulations.

In an interview with the newspaper La Prensa, the new world chess champion promised a fight for revenge on equal terms for 1929 if Capablanca officially challenged him. However, there was no such match. The relationship between the two players deteriorated so much in the following years that Alekhine even avoided playing in the same tournament with his predecessor. They were to meet again on the chessboard for the first time at the 1936 Nottingham tournament .

Alekhine playing simultaneous chess in Berlin in 1930

Instead, Alekhine defended his title against supposedly weaker opponents. In 1929 and 1934 he played for the title with the then FIDE champion Efim Bogolyubov. It was out of the question for Alekhine to relinquish his title to the newly founded FIDE . Bogoljubow played two official FIDE championships against Max Euwe in 1928 and 1929 , both of which he won. After Alekhine defeated Bogolyubov twice, in 1929 (with 15.5: 9.5) and in 1934 (15.5: 10.5), FIDE made no further attempt to officially award world championship titles. It was not until the late 1940s, after Alekhine's death and the subsequent interregnum , that FIDE succeeded in gaining sufficient legitimacy to award the official title.

Alekhine's second wife died in 1934. His third wife was the American Grace Wishar (1876-1956), a wealthy widow general who owned a country estate in France. She played correspondence chess herself and took part in blitz tournaments when she accompanied Alekhine to tournaments.

All three of Alekhine's wives were significantly older than him. The American grandmaster and psychoanalyst Reuben Fine thought about it from a psychoanalytic point of view ( Oedipus complex ) in his book The Psychology of the Chess Player (1956) (Eng. " The Psychology of the Chess Player ", 1982 ).

Alekhine lost his title in 1935 to the Dutchman Max Euwe (14.5: 15.5). Euwe, however, granted a rematch in 1937. In it he was defeated by Alekhine with 15.5: 9.5. Max Euwe's willingness to defend the world title against the strongest opponent, which was not taken for granted, cemented his reputation as an impeccable sportsman.

In the 1930s, some excellent young chess masters appeared who became serious competitors for the world title. In addition to Salo Flohr , Reuben Fine, Samuel Reshevsky and Paul Keres , this was above all the Russian Michail Botwinnik .

Alekhine, who followed the chess life in his old homeland Russia very closely, was definitely interested in a world championship match with this excellent representative of the young Soviet chess school . However, the outbreak of World War II ruined the preparations for a competition that were already advanced.

Chess Olympiads

Alekhine competed with the French team at the Chess Olympiads in 1930 , 1931 , 1933 , 1935 and 1939 , on the top board he achieved the best individual result in 1931 and 1933, and the second-best individual result in 1935 and 1939.

Second World War and collaboration with the National Socialists

Alekhine, a French citizen for two decades, showed his anti-German stance when the war broke out, during the Chess Olympiad in Buenos Aires in 1939. As soon as he returned to Europe , he worked as a translator for the French Resistance . But he changed his views fundamentally after the German Reich attacked the Soviet Union in 1941 ( German-Soviet War ).

He suddenly became susceptible to German propaganda and was ready to promote the Nazi ideology that opposed Bolshevism . Alekhine, the reigning world chess champion, was welcome in the Third Reich. In order to be able to practice his chess profession, he was ready to play tournaments in Germany and to use his name in the service of Nazi propaganda. He played two tournaments in the General Government and many other tournaments in German-occupied Europe. He won the international tournament in Prague in 1943 ahead of Paul Keres. He was particularly encouraged by the chess enthusiast Hans Frank , the governor general of occupied Poland.

In 1941 anti-Semitic articles appeared under Alekhine's name in two German occupation newspapers ( Pariser Zeitung and Deutsche Zeitung in the Netherlands ), then again in the Deutsche Schachzeitung . These articles, which were probably less inspired by the racial ideology of the National Socialists, than by Alekhin's conventional Russian-Christian hatred of Jews (Alekhine insisted all his life that his name Al-JE-chin, after the Russian name 'Alytscha' [Russian Алыча] was pronounced for the cherry plum that grew in the gardens of the Alekhines, but not Al-JO-chin, after the name Alexej / Aljoscha, because in his opinion the latter pronunciation represents a Jewish distortion), and in which he is the extremely clumsy Attempted to prove the superiority of the " Aryan " chess players over the Jewish ones, completely discredited him in the chess world.

Death in Portugal

Alekhine, who lost his belief in the victory of the National Socialists and Fascists after the advance of the Soviet troops, looked around for a new residence. Prague, the city in which he had lived since 1942, had become too dangerous for him due to the advancing Red Army , and he sought contact with fascist Franco Spain, which welcomed him hospitably.

Alekhine saw the end of the war in the far west of southern Europe. Nazi Germany was defeated, and Alekhine was faced with attacks on its ideological support for the Nazi campaign.

Alekhine's tomb, Paris

Alekhine declared that he had only done what chess professionals would always have done in wartime, namely, practicing his beloved profession. He claimed that after protests against tournament invitations to him, he had not written the serious anti-Jewish articles himself, but had been forced to give up his name for it. All of this is controversial. It is not entirely certain that Alekhine wrote these articles, but it is very likely.

Alekhine, who re-established contact with the Soviet chess federation after the end of the war and was planning a world championship match with Mikhail Botvinnik in London, spoke more and more of alcohol. He choked to death in a Portuguese hotel on a piece of meat from his dinner that blocked his upper respiratory tract and was found dead on Sunday morning, March 24, 1946. The death certificate was issued by Asdrúbal d'Aguiar , Portugal's leading forensic pathologist. The exact circumstances of death are still a topic of conversation today; Theories about a suicide or even a murder by the French Resistance circulate again and again, but have not yet been conclusively proven.

Alekhine was finally buried in Paris in 1956 on the Cimetière du Montparnasse . FIDE erected a gravestone of honor.

Correspondence chess

From 1902 to 1910 Alekhine took part in several distance tournaments of the magazine Shachmatnoje Obosrenije . At the 6th, 7th and 9th tournament of this magazine he played together with his brother Alexei. At the 16th tournament from 1905 to 1906 he played independently under the name "T. Alekhine ”so as not to be confused with his brother. T stands for the nickname Tischa, as it was sometimes called at home. Alekhine won this tournament with 11 out of 14 points.

As a result, Alekhine played in 1906/07 in the 1st remote tournament of Prince Schachowski and then in the 17th tournament of Schachmatnoye Obosrenije . From 1912 to 1914 he played for Moscow in a long-distance battle against Kazan.

Blind chess

Alekhine was one of the strongest blind chess players of his time. In blind simultaneous chess , he set a world record twice. In 1924 Alekhine played 26 blind chess games simultaneously in New York and achieved a result of (+16 = 5 −5). After Réti and Koltanowski improved this record further, Alekhine was able to recapture the record for simultaneously played blind games in Chicago in 1933. He played 32 games in parallel and scored 19 wins, 4 losses and 9 draws.

Well-known games

• Bogolyubov - Alekhine, Hastings 1922
• Réti - Alekhine, Baden-Baden 1925
• Euwe - Alekhine, Zandvoort 1935

successes

• World chess champion from 1927 to 1935.
• World chess champion from 1937 to 1946.
• World record in blind simultaneous chess.
• He took part in 87 tournaments, of which he won 62.
• Alekhine played 1264 tournament and competitive games, of which he won 735 games, he lost 127 and 402 were drawn .
• Alekhine's highest historical rating : 2860 (May 1931)
• At the chess tournament in Dresden in 1926, Alekhine and Nimzowitsch received 5000 cigarettes as a beauty prize for their game.

List of tournament and competition results

competition	place	Result / score	rank
1907
Autumn tournament of the Moscow Chess Society	Moscow	4.5 / 14 (+4 = 1 −9)	11-13 space
1908
Main tournament during the 16th Congress of the German Chess Federation (DSB)	Dusseldorf	9/13 (+8 = 2 −3)	4th to 5th space
Competition with Curt von Bardeleben	Dusseldorf	4.5 / 5 (+4 = 1 −0)	Alekhine won with 4.5-0.5
Competition with Hans Fahrni	Munich	1.5 / 3 (+1 = 1 −1)	Draw (1.5-1.5)
Competition with Benjamin Markowitsch Blumenfeld	Moscow	4.5 / 5 (+4 = 1 −0)	Alekhine won with 4.5-0.5
Competition with Vladimir Ivanovich Nenarokow	Moscow	0/3 (+0 = 0 −3)	Nenarokow won 3-0
Autumn tournament of the Moscow Chess Society	Moscow	6.5 / 9 (+5 = 3 −1)	1st place
1909
6th All-Russian Chess Congress	St. Petersburg	15/18 (+14 = 2 −2)	1st place
Spring tournament of the Moscow Chess Society	Moscow	6.5 / 10 (+6 = 1 −3)	5th place
1909/1910
Winter tournament of the Moscow Chess Society	Moscow	8/8 (+8 = 0 −0)	1st place
1910
17th Congress of the German Chess Federation (DSB)	Hamburg	8.5 / 16 (+5 = 7 −4)	7th-8th space
1911
International tournament	Carlsbad	13.5 / 25 (+11 = 5 −9)	8th-9th space
1912
1st winter tournament of the St. Petersburg Chess Society	St. Petersburg	unknown	1st – 2nd space
2nd winter tournament of the St. Petersburg Chess Society	St. Petersburg	7/9 (+6 = 2 −1)	1st place
International tournament	Stockholm	8.5 / 10 (+8 = 1 −1)	1st place
All-Russian championship tournament	Vilnius	8.5 / 18 (+7 = 3 −8)	6-7 space
1913
Competition with Stepan Levizki	St. Petersburg	7/10 (+7 = 0 −3)	Alekhine won 7-3
Four-master tournament	St. Petersburg	2/3 (+0 = 0 −1)	1st – 2nd Place (shared with Grigori Jakowlewitsch Löwenfisch )
International tournament	Scheveningen	11.5 / 13 (+11 = 1 −1)	1st place
Competition with Edward Lasker	Paris	3/3 (+3 = 0 −0)	Alekhine won 3-0
1914
All-Russian championship tournament	St. Petersburg	13.5 / 17 (+13 = 1 −3)	1st – 2nd Place (shared with Aaron Nimzowitsch)
Play-off fight for the All-Russian Championship against Aaron Nimzowitsch	St. Petersburg	1/2 (+1 = 0 −1)	Draw 1-1
International grandmaster tournament	St. Petersburg	10/18 (+6 = 8 −4)	3rd place
Four-master tournament	Paris	2.5 / 3 (+0 = 0 −1)	1st – 2nd Place (shared with Frank James Marshall )
19th Congress of the German Chess Federation (DSB)	Mannheim	9.5 / 11 (+9 = 1 −1)	Canceled due to the outbreak of war. Alekhine led.
1915/1916
Championship tournament	Moscow	10.5 / 11 (+10 = 1 −0)	1st place
1918
Three-master tournament	Moscow	4.5 / 6 (+3 = 3 −0)	1st place
1919/1920
Championship of Moscow	Moscow	11/11 (+11 = 0 −0)	1st place
1920
1st All-Russian Olympiad (later referred to as 1st USSR Championship)	Moscow	12/15 (+9 = 6 −0)	1st place
1921
Competition with Nikolai Dmitrievich Grigoryev	Moscow	4.5 / 7 (+2 = 5 −0)	Alekhine wins 4.5-2.5
Competition with Richard Teichmann	Berlin	3/6 (+2 = 2 −2)	Draw 3-3
Short competition against Friedrich Sämisch	Berlin	2/2 (+2 = 0 −0)	Alekhine wins 2-0
Secret competition with Efim Bogolyubov	Triberg	2/4 (+1 = 2 −1)	Tie 2-2 (The games were first published in 1996, in: Vlastimil Fiala / Jan Kalendovský: Complete Games of Alekhine, 2nd volume: 1921-1924 , Olomouc 1996)
International tournament	Triberg	7/8 (+6 = 2 −0)	1st place
International tournament	Budapest	8.5 / 11 (+6 = 5 −0)	1st place
International tournament	The hague	8/9 (+7 = 2 −0)	1st place
1922
Short competition with Ossip Bernstein	Paris	1.5 / 2 (+1 = 1 −0)	Alekhine wins 1.5-0.5
International tournament	Piešťany	14.5 / 18 (+12 = 5 −1)	2-3 Place (shared with Rudolf Spielmann )
Short competition with Manuel Golmayo Torriente	Madrid	1.5 / 2 (+1 = 1 −0)	Alekhine wins 1.5-0.5
International tournament	London	11.5 / 15 (+8 = 7 −0)	2nd place
International tournament	Hastings	7.5 / 10 (+6 = 3 −1)	1st place
International tournament	Vienna	9/14 (+7 = 4 −3)	3rd to 4th Place (shared with Heinrich Wolf )
1923
Short competition with Arnold Aurbach	Paris	1.5 / 3 (+1 = 1 −1)	Tie 1.5-1.5
Short competition with André Muffang	Paris	2/2 (+2 = 0 −0)	Alekhine won 2-0
International tournament	Margate	4.5 / 7 (+3 = 3 −1)	2-4 space
International tournament	Carlsbad	11.5 / 17 (+9 = 5 −3)	1st - 3rd space
International tournament	Portsmouth	1.5 / 11 (+10 = 1 −0)	1st place
1924
International grandmaster tournament	New York City	12/20 (+6 = 12 −2)	3rd place
1925
International tournament	Paris	6.5 / 8 (+5 = 3 −0)	1st place
International tournament	Bern	4/6 (+3 = 2 −1)	1st place
International tournament	Baden-Baden	16/20 (+12 = 8 −0)	1st place
1925/1926
International tournament	Hastings	16/20 (+12 = 8 −0)	1st – 2nd Place (shared with Milan Vidmar )
1926
International tournament	Semmering	12.5 / 17 (+11 = 3 −3)	2nd place
International tournament	Dresden	7/9 (+5 = 4 −0)	2nd place
International tournament	Scarborough	8.5 / 9 (+8 = 1 −0)	1st place
International tournament	Birmingham	5/5 (+5 = 0 −0)	1st place
1926/1927
Competition with Max Euwe	Amsterdam , Zutphen , The Hague and Rotterdam	5.5 / 10 (+3 = 5 −2)	Alekhine won with 5.5-4.5
1927
International tournament	New York City	11.5 / 20 (+5 = 13 −2)	2nd place
International tournament	Kecskemét	12/16 (+8 = 8 −0)	1st place
Competition for the world championship against José Raúl Capablanca	Buenos Aires	18.5 / 34 (+6 = 25 −3)	Alekhine won with 18.5-15.5 and is world champion
1929
International tournament	Bradley Beach	8.5 / 9 (+8 = 1 −0)	1st place
Competition for the world championship against Efim Bogolyubov	Wiesbaden , Heidelberg , Berlin, The Hague and Amsterdam	15.5 / 25 (+11 = 9 −5)	Alekhine won with 15.5-9.5
1930
International tournament	San Remo	14/15 (+13 = 2 −0)	1st place
Chess Olympiad	Hamburg	9/9 (+9 = 0 −0)	for France
1931
Chess Olympiad	Prague	13.5 / 18 (+10 = 7 −1)	on the 1st board for France
International tournament	Bled	20.5 / 26 (+15 = 11 −0)	1st place ahead of Efim Bogoljubow and Aaron Nimzowitsch.
1932
International tournament	London	9.5 / 11 (+7 = 4 −0)	1st place
Four-master tournament	Bern	2/3 (+2 = 0 −1)	1st - 3rd space
International tournament	Bern	12.5 / 15 (+11 = 3 −1)	1st place
International tournament	Pasadena	8.5 / 11 (+7 = 3 −1)	1st place
International tournament	Mexico city	8.5 / 9 (+8 = 1 −0)	1st – 2nd Place (with Isaac Kashdan )
1933
Chess Olympiad	Folkestone	9.5 / 12 (+8 = 3 −1)	on the 1st board for France
Competition with Rafael Cintron	San Juan	4/4 (+4 = 0 −0)	Alekhine won 4-0
International tournament	Paris	8/9 (+7 = 2 −0)	1st place
Competition with Ossip Bernstein	Paris	2/4 (+1 = 2 −1)	Tie 2-2
1933/1934
International tournament	Hastings	6.5 / 9 (+4 = 5 −0)	2-3 Place (shared with Andor Lilienthal )
1934
Four-master tournament	Rotterdam	3/3 (+3 = 0 −0)	1st place
World Chess Championship 1934 against Efim Bogolyubov	Baden-Baden, Villingen , Freiburg im Breisgau , Pforzheim , Stuttgart , Munich, Bayreuth , Bad Kissingen , Nuremberg , Karlsruhe , Mannheim and Berlin	15.5 / 26 (+8 = 15 −3)	Alekhine won with 15.5: 10.5
International tournament	Zurich	13/15 (+12 = 2 −1)	1st place
1935
International tournament	Örebro	8.5 / 9 (+8 = 1 −0)	1st place
Chess Olympiad	Warsaw	12/17 (+7 = 10 −0)	on the 1st board for France
Competition for the world championship against Max Euwe	Amsterdam, Delft , Rotterdam, Utrecht , Gouda , 's-Gravenhage, Groningen , Baarn , ' s-Hertogenbosch , Eindhoven , Zeist , Ermelo and Zandvoort	14.5 / 30 (+8 = 13 −9)	Euwe won with 15.5-14.5 and became the new world champion
1936
International tournament	Bad Nauheim	6.5 / 9 (+4 = 5 −0)	1st – 2nd Place (shared with Paul Keres)
International tournament	Dresden	6.5 / 8 (+5 = 3 −1)	1st place
International tournament	Poděbrady	12.5 / 17 (+8 = 9 −0)	2nd place
International tournament	Nottingham	9/14 (+6 = 6 −2)	6th place
International tournament	Amsterdam	4.5 / 7 (+3 = 3 −1)	3rd place
Four-master tournament	Amsterdam	4.5 / 7 (+3 = 3 −1)	1st – 2nd space
1936/1937
International tournament	Hastings	8/9 (+7 = 2 −0)	1st place
1937
International tournament	Margate	6/9 (+6 = 0 −3)	3rd place
International tournament	Kemeri	11.5 / 17 (+7 = 9 −1)	4th to 5th Place (shared with Paul Keres)
International tournament	Bad Nauheim / Garmisch / Stuttgart	3.5 / 6 (+3 = 1 −2)	2-3 Place (shared with Efim Bogolyubov)
Revenge competition for the world championship against Max Euwe	The Hague, Rotterdam, Haarlem , Leiden , Groningen, Zwolle , Amsterdam, Eindhoven and Delft	15.5 / 25 (+10 = 11 −4)	Alekhine won with 15.5-9.5 and became world champion again
Competition with Max Euwe (games scheduled for the World Cup 26-30, but without evaluation)	The Hague, Amsterdam and Rotterdam	2/5 (+1 = 2 −2)	Euwe won 3-2
1938
International tournament	Margate	7/9 (+6 = 2 −1)	1st place
International tournament	Montevideo	13/15 (+11 = 4 −0)	1st place
International tournament	Plymouth	6/7 (+5 = 2 −0)	1st – 2nd space
AVRO tournament	Amsterdam, The Hague, Rotterdam, Groningen, Zwolle, Haarlem, Utrecht, Arnhem , Breda and Leiden	7/14 (+3 = 8 −3)	4-6. space
1939
Chess Olympiad	Buenos Aires	12.5 / 16 (+9 = 7 −0)	on the 1st board for France
International tournament	Montevideo	7/7 (+7 = 0 −0)	1st place
International tournament	Caracas	10/10 (+10 = 0 −0)	1st place
1941
1st European tournament	Munich	10.5 / 15 (+8 = 5 −2)	2-3 Place (shared with Erik Lundin )
2. Masters tournament in the General Government for the occupied Polish territories	Krakow / Warsaw	8.5 / 11 (+6 = 5 −0)	1st – 2nd Place (shared with Paul Felix Schmidt )
Masters tournament	Madrid	5/5 (+5 = 0 −0)	1st place
1942
International tournament	Salzburg	7.5 / 10 (+7 = 1 −2)	1st place
2nd European tournament	Munich	8.5 / 11 (+7 = 3 −1)	1st place
3. Masters tournament in the General Government for the occupied Polish territories	Krakow / Lublin / Warsaw	7.5 / 10 (+6 = 3 −1)	1st place
International tournament	Prague	8.5 / 11 (+6 = 5 −0)	1st – 2nd Place (shared with Klaus Junge )
1943
Short competition with Efim Bogolyubov	Warsaw	2/4 (+2 = 0 −2)	draw
International tournament	Salzburg	7.5 / 10 (+5 = 5 −0)	1st – 2nd Place (shared with Paul Keres)
International tournament	Prague	17/19 (+15 = 4 −0)	1st place
1944
Masters tournament	Gijón	7.5 / 8 (+7 = 1 −0)	1st place
Competition with Ramón Rey Ardid	Zaragoza	2.5 / 4 (+1 = 3 −0)	Alekhine won with 2.5-1.5
1945
Masters tournament	Madrid	8.5 / 9 (+8 = 1 −0)	1st place
Masters tournament	Gijón	6.5 / 9 (+6 = 1 −2)	2-3 space
Masters tournament	Sabadell	7.5 / 9 (+6 = 3 −0)	1st place
Masters tournament	Almeria	5.5 / 8 (+4 = 3 −1)	1st – 2nd space
Masters tournament	Melilla	6.5 / 7 (+6 = 1 −0)	1st place
1946
Competition with Francesco Lupi	Estoril	2.5 / 4 (+2 = 1 −1)	Alekhine won with 2.5-1.5

Alekhine in fiction

Alekhine has been the subject of fiction literature, in anguish Alekhine's Charles D. Yaffe (1999), in the last game of Fabio Stassi (2008) and swimming with elephants of Yōko Ogawa . Further biographical novels about Alekhine were written by Gerhard Josten ( Alekhin's Gambit , Verlag Helmut Ladwig 2011) and Ulrich Geilmann ( Alekhine - Life and Death of a Grand Master and Alekhine's Ring: Operation Botwinnik , both published in 2017 by Joachim Beyer Verlag).

Mount Alekhine

In Queensland there is Mount Alekhine, 500 feet high . It's about 50 miles from Townsville . This name was given to him by the Irish gold digger Patrick Joseph Finnerty († 1936).

Publications (selection)

• Chess life in Soviet Russia , 1921
• The International Chess Masters Tournament Hastings 1922 , English 1922; German 1998
• The New York Grand Masters Tournament 1924 , 1925
• The New York Chess Tournament 1927 , 1928
• My best games 1908–1923 , 1929
• On the way to the World Championships 1923–1927 , 1932
• International and 37th Swiss chess tournament in Zurich 1934 , 1935
• The Nottingham International Chess Tournament 1936 , English 1937; German 1986
• My Best Games of Chess 1924–1937 , 1937 (a German edition is pending)

literature

• Alexander Alexandrowitsch Kotow : The Schacherbe Aljechins. 2 volumes. Sports publishing house, Berlin 1957–1961.
• Hans Müller , A. (dolf) Pawelczak: Chess genius Alekhine . 2nd Edition. Engelhardt-Verlag, Berlin 1962.
• Pablo Morán: Agonía de un genio. (Alekhine). Ricardo Aguilera, Madrid 1972 (Spanish, work covering the last three years of Alekhine's life).
• Rogelio Caparrós, Peter P. Lahde: The Games of Alexander Alekhine. Chess Scribe, Brentwood 1992, ISBN 0-939298-54-6 .
• John Donaldson, Nikolai Minev, Yasser Seirawan : Alekhine in the Americas. International Chess Enterprises, Seattle 1992, ISBN 1-879479-06-0 .
• Isaak Linder, Wladimir Linder: The chess genius Alekhine. Sportverlag, Berlin 1992, ISBN 3-328-00495-5 .
• John Donaldson, Nikolai Minev, Yasser Seirawan: Alekhine in Europe and Asia. International Chess Enterprises, Seattle 1993, ISBN 1-879479-12-5 .
• Egon Varnusz, Árpád Földeák: Alekhine , the greatest! Reinhardt Becker Verlag / Schachverlag Manfred Mädler, Velten / Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-925691-10-3 .
• Jan Kalendovský, Vlastimil Fiala: Complete Games of Alekhine. Moravian Chess, Olomouc
  • Vol. 1: 1892-1921. 1992, ISBN 80-85476-11-8 .
  • Vol. 2: 1921-1924. 1996, ISBN 80-7189-059-6 .
• Robert Huebner : The competition Capablanca - Alekhine, Buenos Aires 1927. In: Chess . 1998, Issue 5: pp. 5-22, Issue 6: pp. 52-71, Issue 8: pp. 55-69.
• Leonard M. Skinner, Robert GP Verhoeven: Alexander Alekhine's Chess Games, 1902–1946. McFarland, Jefferson 1998. ISBN 978-0-7864-0117-8 .
• Alexander Raetsky, Maxim Chetverik: Alexander Alekhine Master of Attack. Everyman Chess, London 2004. ISBN 1-85744-372-1 .
• Konrad Kelbratowski (Vienna): The slow death of Alexander Alekhine - the last years of the legendary world champion's (1st part), SchachReport, January 1982, pp. 7-11.
• Alexander Alekhine , 36th Swiss chess tournament in Bern In: SBB Revue, Vol. 6, 1932, p. 42.

Web links

Commons : Alexander Alexandrowitsch Alekhine  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Alexander Alexandrowitsch Alekhine in the catalog of the German National Library
• BBC interview with Alekhine - text and audio recording ( Memento from June 4, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) (English; PDF; 62 kB)
• Hans Kmoch on Alekhine ( Memento from June 4, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF file; 66.8 kB; English)
• Brilliant chess and human weaknesses: Alexander Alekhine
• 80 key positions of his games (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Georgi Rimski-Korsakow: Alekhine the Schoolboy , in: New in Chess 8/2012, p. 58 (from English).
2. ^ Edward Winter: Capablanca v Alekhine, 1927 , Chesshistory.com 2003
3. ↑ Alexander Alekhine's results at the Chess Olympiads on olimpbase.org (English)
4. ^ The international tournament Prague 1943 on TeleSchach (cross table and games)
5. ↑ Cf. on this topic in particular: Ralf Woelk: Schach unterm Hakenkreuz. Promos-Verlag, Pfullingen 1996. ISBN 3-88502-017-3 . Pages 101-107 as well as the articles Chess Notes No. 3605, 3606, 3617 Chess Notes by Edward Winter
6. ↑ Original text of the death certificate: Asfixia por obstrução dos vasos aéreos superiores produido por pedaço de carne , reprinted by: Edward Winter: Alekhine's Death , accessed on January 2, 2013.
7. ↑ Edward Winter: Alekhine's Death , accessed January 2, 2013.
8. ^ André Schulz : On the 125th birthday of Alekhine In: de.chessbase.com. October 31, 2017, accessed August 13, 2019.
9. ↑ Cf. Pablo Morán: A. Alekhine, agony of a chess genius. McFarland, Jefferson, NC 1989. ISBN 0-89950-440-X . Pages 277-280, and the article Alekhines Last Meal ( January 22, 2004 memento on the Internet Archive ) by Larry Evans
10. ↑ Salo Flohr : 50 years since Bled 1931! Schach-Echo 1981, issue 17, pages 266 to 268 (report, photo, cross table, games).
11. ↑ Schach 1998/4, p. 70 according to a communication by Finnerty in The Australian Chess Revue , February 1932

This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on May 18, 2005 .