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| Mar-12-08 | | slomarko: this was not a "rematch" |
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| Mar-12-08 | | Petrosianic: <And if after 30 games, neither player had the requisite victories, what would happen?> They'd have kept playing until someone won 6.
Which makes the draw odds question very unusual. The champion DID have Draw odds if the match finished in 30 games or less, but DIDN'T have them if it went longer. |
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| Mar-12-08 | | Petrosianic: I have Reinfeld and Fine's book on this match, the most pointless of all world championship matches. Really, the only interesting point about it is that it's the only World Championship match played in Nazi Germany. Nimzovich was there in the press room, smarting off, and making the others think he was going to get them all arrested. In the end, they all had lunch at Hans Frank's villa.
And that stuff is more interesting than anything that happened in the match itself. http://www.chesscafe.com/text/kmoch...
<Nimzovich caused several incidents during that 1934 match, all of them harmless except one. And for a moment, that one was hair-raisingly serious. One day when a high officer in a Nazi uniform entered the press room, Nimzovich brusquely demanded to see his credentials. When the perplexed officer didn't answer at once, Nimzovich asked him to leave. The other reporters, including myself, were horrified, expecting the Nazi to react violently after receiving such an order from a Jew. But, amazingly, nothing happened. The officer simply left.> http://www.chesscafe.com/text/kmoch...
<Nimzovich considered himself protected by three consulates: the Latvian because of his birthplace, the Danish because of his residence, and the Dutch because some of his reports were going to a newspaper in Holland. He boasted of this protection even to Reichsminister Hans Frank, who at that time was in charge of the "protection" of art and later became the governor of Nazi- occupied Poland. Frank followed a few games of the match and sometimes chatted with the masters and reporters, including Nimzovich. He even invited the whole chess troupe to his villa for lunch. The Jews Mieses and Nimzovich were included in the invitation, but only Nimzovich showed up. At the luncheon he demonstrated his usual persecution mania by complaining first about a dirty plate and then about a dirty knife. The Reichsminister, seated directly opposite him, pretended not to hear.> http://www.chesscafe.com/text/kmoch...
<After his return to Paris and his debut as an anti-Semitic author, Alekhine went to Germany and then to occupied Poland, where he lived most of the time. There he was an esteemed guest of Governor Hans Frank, who became known as the "Butcher of the Poles" and was hanged as such at Nuremberg. I had met Reichminister Frank several times during the 1934 match. He displayed a genuine interest in chess and showed no hostility toward the Jews Mieses and Nimzovich, who were there as reporters. I never quite understood how Frank could have become such a monster in Poland.> |
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| Mar-12-08 | | MichAdams: <The other reporters, including myself, were horrified, expecting the Nazi to react violently after receiving such an order from a Jew.> So was Nimzo wearing a yellow star in addition to his press pass? Anyway, maybe the incident happened, maybe it didn't... Still, as they say, it makes a nice story. |
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| Mar-12-08 | | MichAdams: <They'd have kept playing until someone won 6. Which makes the draw odds question very unusual. The champion DID have Draw odds if the match finished in 30 games or less, but DIDN'T have them if it went longer.> Me no understand. How could the match finish as a draw in less than 30 games? |
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Mar-12-08
 | | keypusher: <<The World Championship match with the least kibitzing> Deservedly so! Useless WCs: 1) this one 2) Steinitz-Lasker 1896> To be fair about Steinitz-Lasker II, Steinitz was certainly entitled to a rematch. I think I would agree with <percy blakeney> that Lasker-Janowski was the most useless match, with this one duking it out for second place with Lasker-Marshall. My main criteria are (i) that it be a match that the challenger isn't entitled to, and (ii) a match that people know in advance is a mismatch. Alekhine had already clobbered Bogo, Lasker had already clobbered Janowski. Lasker hadn't played a match with Marshall, but Tarrasch had beaten him 8:1. |
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| Mar-12-08 | | Petrosianic: <So was Nimzo wearing a yellow star in addition to his press pass? Anyway, maybe the incident happened, maybe it didn't... Still, as they say, it makes a nice story.> Kmoch was a highly respected chess personality for decades. If he says he was there and it happened, I see no reason to doubt it. <Me no understand. How could the match finish as a draw in less than 30 games?> It couldn't <finish> in less than 30, but the champion would still know that he had draw odds to fall back on in all the games before that point. Or at least he would once he got that 6th win. |
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| Mar-12-08 | | Petrosianic: <To be fair about Steinitz-Lasker II, Steinitz was certainly entitled to a rematch.> Certainly. In hindsight the match may have been a blowout, but there's nothing pointless about giving a title shot to a guy who went undefeated in match play for almost 30 years. <I think I would agree with <percy blakeney> that Lasker-Janowski was the most useless match, with this one duking it out for second place with Lasker-Marshall.> I considered both of those, especially Lasker-Janowski, but rejected them because they only got one title shot each. Granted, Janowski got slaughtered in a non-title match the year before, but at least he only got one title shot in toto, and the 1910 match may have been agreed to before the result of the 1909 one was in. But for anyone to get bombed as bad as Bogo did in a title match, and then be gifted another title shot is just absurd. In <My Best Games of Chess>, Alekhine even excuses one of his own blunders by saying he wasn't at his sharpest because he knew Bogo was no threat. |
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| Mar-12-08 | | MichAdams: <Kmoch was a highly respected chess personality for decades.> Listen, when people write their memoirs, everybody, and I mean everybody, fabricates and embroiders stuff. If GM Keene, that highly respected chess personality, ever writes his autobiography.... <The champion DID have Draw odds if the match finished in 30 games or less, but DIDN'T have them if it went longer.> According to Skinner & Verhoeven - which isn't, as we've seen, an impeccable source - the 1935 WC match conditions were: <The principle details were published in the Times on the 3 and 4 October 1935 where it was stated that the match would consist of 30 games and the title would go to the player who first scores 15.5 points, with at least six won games. If after 30 games Alekhine has a majority of points, but not necessarily six won games, the match is to be given up as a draw and Alekhine retains the championship. If Euwe is ahead after 30 games have been played but without six wins, the match will be continued until either Euwe wins six games or Alekhine equals his score. In the latter case Alekhine retains the title and the match is drawn.> Presumably, if the match was tied after 30 games, it would also be declared drawn. These conditions seem also to have applied to the 1937 match, but they may well have differed as regards the draw odds from the Bogoljubow matches. |
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| Mar-12-08 | | Petrosianic: OK, then if that's true, the champion always had draw odds. As for Kmoch, the story is really about Nimzovich rather than being Kmoch's memoirs. Of course it's possible he made it up, but it seems more likely to me that either a) the officer didn't realize Nimzovich was Jewish, b) He was more or less good natured, c) He had been ordered not to antagonize any of the visiting mucky-mucks, and so just ate the insult, d) The officer was really Colonel Hogan on one of his undercover missions. Oh, wait, this was before the war. Scratch that last one. |
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| Mar-12-08 | | MichAdams: < OK, then if that's true, the champion always had draw odds.> And that after game 30, the challenger would have to win by at least two points. <As for Kmoch, the story is really about Nimzovich rather than being Kmoch's memoirs.> But Kmoch's memoirs were all about the famous players he knew. Otherwise, no-one would want to read about Kmoch even if he was a decades-long respected chess personality. <seems more likely to me that either a) the officer didn't realize Nimzovich was Jewish, b) He was more or less good natured, c) He had been ordered not to antagonize any of the visiting mucky-mucks, and so just ate the insult, d) The officer was really Colonel Hogan on one of his undercover missions.> Or e) like most Nazi officers, he was just good at following orders. Cue an old Bernard Manning joke: "My grandfather died at Auschwitz. Very sad, very sad. He fell out of the machine gun tower." |
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Mar-12-08
| | keypusher: It's unlikely that Nimzowitsch was wearing a badge, since it wasn't mandatory until after the war started, apparently. http://history1900s.about.com/od/ho... |
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| Mar-12-08 | | Petrosianic: And he wasn't a German citizen, so really unlikely that he wore one. If the guy had been from the Gestapo or something, he'd probably have known the backgrounds of all the visiting journalists. But it may have just been some grunt from the Paper Clip Department, who didn't know didddly and didn't want to risk getting in trouble with his superiors. You know, it just occurred to me, it must have been a real bummer to be a Nazi, but not have enough authority to get anybody shot. What's the point of joining the Party AT ALL, then?? |
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| Mar-12-08 | | slomarko: <You know, it just occurred to me, it must have been a real bummer to be a Nazi, but not have enough authority to get anybody shot. What's the point of joining the Party AT ALL, then??> what the @#$% are you talking about? |
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| Mar-12-08 | | MichAdams: The guy could have been Hans Frank's 2IC wanting to let him know that his order of Brylcreem had just arrived from England. |
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Mar-12-08
 | | whiteshark: This story is often narrated. In contrast it's largely unknown that Nimzowitsch had an extra 'attendant' aside. His task was to minimise such antics. |
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Mar-27-08
 | | Caissanist: By the time of this match Nimzowitsch had less than a year to live, and it seems to have been obvious that he was dying (he was suffering some kind of lung ailment). Maybe he preferred martyrdom to anonymous death in a flophouse. |
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| Mar-27-08 | | James Demery: Hey MichAdams were you WMD in another life? |
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Apr-08-08
 | | RookFile: It's pretty amazing that the chess world allowed Alekhine to play another match against Bogo. In no particular order, I believe that: Keres, Botvinnik, Reshevsky, Fine, Kashdan, Euwe, Flohr, and of course Capablanca would have defeated Bogo in a match play. Arguably, you can throw the meteor known as Sultan Khan onto this list as well. Even an old Lasker would have beaten Bogo in a match, if special considerations involving extra rest for the players were factored in. So, instead of a worthy championship match, we sent the clown in again. |
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Apr-08-08
| | percyblakeney: <I believe that: Keres, Botvinnik, Reshevsky, Fine, Kashdan, Euwe, Flohr, and of course Capablanca would have defeated Bogo in a match play. Arguably, you can throw the meteor known as Sultan Khan onto this list as well. Even an old Lasker would have beaten Bogo in a match> Don't forget Spielmann, he won a ten game match against Bogo in 1932. :-) |
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Apr-08-08
| | keypusher: <It's pretty amazing that the chess world allowed Alekhine to play another match against Bogo. In no particular order, I believe that: Keres, Botvinnik, Reshevsky, Fine, Kashdan, Euwe, Flohr, and of course Capablanca would have defeated Bogo in a match play. Arguably, you can throw the meteor known as Sultan Khan onto this list as well.> Well, the chess world had no say in the matter in those pre-FIDE days. Leaving aside the merits of your match predictions, I think Fine and Reshevsky were not yet well-known outside of America (of course Reshevsky had been a famous child prodigy, but hadn't done much yet as an adult), and Keres wasn't known at all. Botvinnik had done well in Soviet events and drawn a match with Flohr, but had done relatively poorly at Hastings, his one exposure to the West at that point. I don't think Kashdan or Sultan Khan were ever considered world championship timber, and Lasker was inactive and not really a WC candidate anyway. So the world wasn't awash in qualified challengers. Not that any of this excuses this match. |
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Apr-08-08
| | keypusher: <percy blakeney><Don't forget Spielmann, he won a ten game match against Bogo in 1932. :-)> That brings up a question. One of my favorite measures for how good a chess master is from after 1900 through the early 30s is how well he did against the big three: Lasker, Capablanca and Alekhine. It's a tough test. Bogoljubov had horrible scores against all three. Nimzowitsch had terrible scores against Alekhine and Capablanca. Rubinstein did OK against Capablanca and Lasker, but not Alekhine. Maroczy did badly against all three. Vidmar had negative scores against all three, though not dreadful ones. But Spielmann all but held his own: +2-4=11 against Alekhine, +2-2=8 against Capablanca, +0-1=4 against Lasker. But as far as I can tell, Spielmann was never seriously considered as a challenger for the world title. Does anyone know why? |
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| Apr-08-08 | | Petrosianic: I don't know why specifically, but I'd guess that (for whatever reason) he never seriously pursued it. Either he didn't think enough of his chances to try to get the necessary funding (I've never heard any stories of his trying and failing), or he didn't want the aggravation of the whole process.
When he beat Bogo in 1932, chessmetrics shows him as the world #11. Plus, he was 48 years old at the time. Maybe the odds just weren't worth the effort. |
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| Apr-08-08 | | Petrosianic: <Leaving aside the merits of your match predictions, I think Fine and Reshevsky were not yet well-known outside of America (of course Reshevsky had been a famous child prodigy, but hadn't done much yet as an adult), and Keres wasn't known at all.> Yeah, the "New Generation" wasn't quite there yet in 1934. By 1938 they were, in force. But in 1934, Fine was only 19 years old. Keres and Reshevsky weren't even close. Botvinnik was fairly good by then, but not quite Top 10 material, and only 22 years old. Kashdan might have made a good challenger. He was at his peak in the early 30's. This was Flohr's best time, too. |
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Apr-08-08
| | RookFile: Yes, I'm not saying that some of these guys should have played Alekhine. I'm just saying they would have beaten Bogo. |
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< Earlier Kibitzing · PAGE 2 OF 3 ·
Later Kibitzing> |
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In the years since the 1929 World Championship Match a new generation of strong players had
just begun to arrive on the scene, including Sammy Reshevsky and Reuben Fine of the US, Paul
Keres of Estonia, Mikhail Botvinnik of the USSR, and Salo Flohr of Czechoslovakia, as well
as Jose Capablanca, who was still trying unsuccessfully to arrange a return match for the
title. Under the circumstances, the chess world reacted with something less than jubiliation
when it was announced that 
