AVRO 1938 chess tournament
The AVRO tournament was a famous chess tournament held in the Netherlands in 1938, sponsored by the Dutch broadcasting company AVRO. The event was a double round-robin tournament between the eight strongest players in the world.
Paul Keres and Reuben Fine tied for first place, with Keres winning on tiebreak by virtue of his 1½-½ score in their individual games.
The tournament was presented as one to provide a challenger to World Champion Alexander Alekhine, though it had no official status. In any event, World War II dashed any hopes of a championship match for years to come. However, when FIDE organised its 1948 match tournament for the world title after Alekhine's death in 1946, it invited the six surviving AVRO participants (Capablanca had also died), except Flohr who was replaced by Vasily Smyslov.
Schedule
The AVRO tournament was played from November 6 to November 27, 1938. The players travelled from one city to another in the following order:[1]
| Round | Place | Date |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Amsterdam | Nov. 6 |
| 2 | The Hague | Nov. 8 |
| 3 | Rotterdam | Nov. 10 |
| 4 | Groningen | Nov. 12 |
| 5 | Zwolle | Nov. 13 |
| 6 | Haarlem | Nov. 14 |
| 7 | Amsterdam | Nov. 15 |
| 8 | Utrecht | Nov. 17 |
| 9 | Arnhem | Nov. 19 |
| 10 | Breda | Nov. 20 |
| 11 | Rotterdam | Nov. 22 |
| 12 | The Hague | Nov. 24 |
| 13 | Leiden | Nov. 25 |
| 14 | Amsterdam | Nov. 27 |
Crosstable
| No. | Name | State | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Paul Keres |  Estonia | XX | 1= | == | == | 1= | == | 1= | == | 8½ |
| 2 | Reuben Fine |  United States | 0= | XX | 1= | 10 | 10 | 11 | == | 1= | 8½ |
| 3 | Mikhail Botvinnik |  Soviet Union | == | 0= | XX | =0 | 1= | 1= | =1 | == | 7½ |
| 4 | Max Euwe |  Netherlands | == | 01 | =1 | XX | 0= | 0= | 01 | 1= | 7 |
| 5 | Samuel Reshevsky | United States | 0= | 01 | 0= | 1= | XX | == | == | 1= | 7 |
| 6 | Alexander Alekhine |  France | == | 00 | 0= | 1= | == | XX | =1 | =1 | 7 |
| 7 | José Raúl Capablanca |  Cuba | 0= | == | =0 | 10 | == | =0 | XX | =1 | 6 |
| 8 | Salo Flohr |  Czechoslovakia | == | 0= | == | 0= | 0= | =0 | =0 | XX | 4½ |
The longest game was a 68-move win of Fine over Alekhine. The shortest game was a 19-move draw between Flohr and Fine. Of the 56 games played: White won seventeen, Black won seven, and thirty-two were drawn.
Capablanca's health
Capablanca's play was satisfactory in the first half of the event (50%), but collapsed in the second half, when he lost three games. He had only lost 26 tournament games in 29 years. Hooper and Whyld say "he suffered a slight stroke".[2] His wife Olga recalled that his high blood pressure nearly cost him his life: "A doctor screamed at me, 'How could you let him play?'" (at AVRO 1938).[3] In a 1939 interview Capablanca attributed his performance to "very high blood pressure and related circulatory disorders".[4] His doctor wrote that he had dangerously high blood pressure while he was treating him from 1940 until his death in 1942, and believed that it contributed to his death.[5]
See also
- Botvinnik versus Capablanca, AVRO 1938, A famous game from the 11th round.
- Nottingham 1936 chess tournament
- World chess championship
References
- AVRO tournament game collection on ChessGames.com.
- Hooper D. and Whyld K. 1992. The Oxford companion to chess. 2nd ed, Oxford University Press.
- Winter, Edward 1989. Capablanca. McFarland. p300/1.
- Capablanca Interviewed in 1939, Edward Winter, chesshistory.com
- Capablanca's Death, Edward Winter, chesshistory.com.
Sources
- АВРО-турнир: Состязание сильнейших гроссмейстеров мира. Голландия, 1938 год / [Авт.-сост. Г. Г. Торадзе]. Москва: Галерия, 2006. 295 с ISBN 5-8137-0159-1.