Absurd. It would be in the U.S.S.R's best interest for Keres to finish ahead of Reshevsky. "Punishing" him by making him lose to Botvinnik would only hurt the Soviet image overall.

If that were the case, Smyslov and Botvinnik wouldn't have drawn so much. Smyslov would have taken more losses to ensure Botvinnik stayed on top. Botvinnik was at his peak in the 40's. Any Keres conspiracy theory necessarily discounts Botvinnik's ability.

<People only remember the winner.>

The biggest question is when exactly was the 1947 World Championship Tournament cancelled, and under what conditions? Correspondence between Paul Giers of USCF and Rueb at FIDE seem to talk as though the tournament is on for some time after Winterthur.

Giers argues strongly that Reshevsky and Fine should not be seeded, but the US should pick its reps "democratically" by taking the top two from the 1946 US Championship. There seems to have been a misunderstanding where Rueb thought he meant Reshevsky, Fine AND the two finishers. Winterthur had talked about seeding the winners of Groningen and Prague. Giers objected that this was unfair because US players had no advance notice that Prague might be a qualifier, and so none were playing there. Rueb said that the ratio of 2 Americans, three Soviets was fixed at Winterthur, based on the number of strong masters in each country. But they both talk as though the 1947 tournament is still on.

Somehow it falls through, Botvinnik storms out of the Soviet Championship in protest against his Federation's knuckle-headed maneuvers, everyone meets at the Hague in Summer 1947, and puts together pretty much the same sextangular tournament for 1948. Six players, but this time no seeds from Groningen or Prague, and a rule saying No Substitions. Fine drops out a month before the tournament, Euwe talks about hoping they can put Najdorf or Stahlberg in his place, but the No Substitions rule apparently stood, and they made it a pentangular tournament instead. The big question though is when the 1947 tournament fell through, and why.

Another question is what happened to Flohr, FIDE's pre-war "Official Challenger". Giers assumed that Flohr was one of the Candidates in the first piece of correspondence I found, but Rueb corrected him, that it was Smyslov. I haven't seen any explanation for this in US magazines, but am assuming it has to do with Smyslov's finish in the 1941 Soviet Absolute Championship. When the Soviets were granted three spots, they picked the top three players in this tournament. But that still doesn't explain how FIDE's "official challenger" was disposed of so easily. He did play in the Interzonal that year, so he wasn't out of the picture.

Probably a lot of this is explained in the minutes to the Winterthur meeting, but I haven't seen a copy yet. Giers hadn't either. Several of his letters in Chess Life from Fall 1946 mention that he still doesn't have a copy of them.

<Sgravenhage, October 12, 1946 Giers, 2304 South Avenue.
Syracuse, N.Y.

Impossible reconcile USCF and USSR claims with Winterthur resolutions W C Tournament FIDE management stopped.

Rueb, Pres.>

Strangely, Kasparov doesn't seem to dig deep into these matters in his Predecessor-series, where he - IMO - doesn't give Keres the credit he deserves. I don't know what reasons K. might have for his degrading of Keres, but it is noticable that a player like Geller, who IMO never had Keres' level is highly praised and presented with several winning games, whereas Keres's many star games are omitted and replaced with his sequal defeats against Botvinnik. Maybe K. still has an unconscious sympathy for his former teacher, maybe he didn't like Keres, whose popularity and personal calibre is a somewhat contradiction to the person K.

But all this adds up to a highly needed research on the matter. As rightfully said here, Keres' results against for instance Smyslov show a totally different player than the one who lost so ridiculously against B. It's simply not the same player. Through the 50s Smyslov was probably the strongest player in the world, but he was never superior than Keres - I'd regard them as equals. Look at the 1959 candidates, for instance, when Keres was only second to Tal whom he beat clearly.

I didn't get that impression while I was reading volume II, but it's been a while. However just browsing it now I noticed

<The fact that Keres did not play a match for the world championship was undoubtedly a grievous thing for chess, a king of evil mockery of fate. Who else for so many years- effectively a quarter of a century, beginning with the AVRO tournament- was so close to the throne? But all the time he lacked a bit of luck.>

And from an online interview in 1998:

<Naisortep: Who was the strongest player not to become world champ?

Kasparov: Obviously Keres, but Anand also has a chance to join his company.>

Pretty much nobody believes Korchnoi threw games today. Even Fischer himself more or less abandoned the charge a couple of years later. He was on good terms with Korchnoi for years, until he became persona non grata again for daring to play for the world title.

Without the charges against Korchnoi, all we have left is a tournament where the leaders drew with each other and beat up on the weakies, same as happens in most GM tournaments, (same as happened in the previous candidates between Petrosian and Tal without a peep of protest from Fischer, in fact) and a strong desire to believe that it was pre-arranged, so as to be able to feel that Fischer lost because of collusion, rather than because he was unable to climb above a +1 score at any time in 28 rounds.

Yeah, but that would happen even without Curacao. I like him, but honestly, he had a very oblique, hard-to-understand style, that just isn't very accessible to the lower rungs. Part of the genius of someone like a Fischer or Capablanca is that someone of any skill level from beginner to master can look at their games and learn things from them. Petrosian, like Tal, is hard to understand and harder to emulate. But Tal at least is exciting even when you don't understand him. Petrosian was effective, like a boa constrictor, but not exciting, therefore not all that popular outside of Armenia.

He was unpopular inside the Soviet Union too. A magazine that did a writeup on the 1956 Candidates did detailed analyses of all the players except him. Panov and Romanovsky wrote about him as antithetical to the Soviet School of Chess, which was supposed to be more like Fischer; the bold Soviet Man going in for sharp infighting. But that's one of the things that makes him interesting. In an odd way he was a rebel. Not like Korchnoi, not someone who openly defied his superiors and got in trouble for it. Politically, he was pretty dependable. But over the board, he pretty much thumbed his nose at everyone who told him how he should be playing, came up with his own way of playing, and managed to become champion with it. It was an infuriating way of playing sometimes. He was often far too willing to split the point, especially with Black, and like Fischer, didn't achieve as much as he could have. But he made it to the top.

Anyway, clarifying light has never been cast upon the tournament in Curacao, and as said neither Korchnoi nor Fischer are reliable sources. The sad reality is the fact that Keres never made the last mile to the match of the World C., albeit he had a strength equal to those who succeeded (Bronstein, Smyslov, Tal, Petrosian).

"Since Keres lost his first four games against Botvinnik in the 1948 tournament, suspicions are sometimes raised that Keres was forced to "throw" games to allow Botvinnik to win the championship. Chess historian Taylor Kingston investigated all the available evidence and arguments, and concluded that: Soviet chess officials gave Keres strong hints that he should not hinder Botvinnik's attempt to win the World Championship; Botvinnik only discovered this about half-way though the tournament and protested so strongly that he angered Soviet officials; Keres probably did not deliberately lose games to Botvinnik or anyone else in the tournament."

The key notion is "probably not", where it is hard to tell, whether the oppression by the regime frightened Keres or not. Considering the fact that Keres at some point was in real trouble with the regime, and in real danger of being deported or the liking, I find it hard to believe that such a "guideline" from the regime wouldn't have any effect on Keres's play.

I do too, but win or lose, it's a darn shame that he never got the chance.

Or maybe it isn't. If he'd played and lost, say, in 1954, his kitsch would be far less than it is today. He was one of the world's top players for 30 years, but chessmetrics never shows him as #1. Most of his lustre comes from one single shared super-tournament victory in 1938. It was great, but doesn't signify "this guy will definitely be champion some day".

I think he was stronger than World Champion Euwe. His narrow victory over Euwe in their 1940 match is still a victory. Euwe at that time was probably still in his prime.

I do not think he would have won against Alekhine, who even in his decline totally dominated Keres. The young Keres seemed to have had a similar aggressive style as AAA, except that AAA (when not drunk or troubled) was simply better than him at it.

Alekhine vs Keres, 1935

Keres vs Alekhine, 1936

Keres vs Alekhine, 1937

Keres vs Alekhine, 1942

Alekhine vs Keres, 1942

Alekhine vs Keres, 1942

These often overlooked decisive games between the two chess giants are all fascinating slugfests. AAA clearly was outplaying Keres most of the time.

I am one of the few who believe that a healthy Alekhine, even on his declining years but abstaining from the bottle, would have come in fanatically prepped and motivated as usual to any World Championship match in the years 1939 to 1942, and would have beaten all Challengers including Botvinnik.

Keres may have had his best chance at around 1945. AAA was probably quite sick with what I suspect is liver cirrhosis from too much drinking; and at that time, Botvinnik still did not have his jinx over him.

Keres vs Botvinnik, 1938

Botvinnik vs Keres, 1938

Botvinnik vs Keres, 1940

Keres vs Botvinnik, 1941

Keres vs Botvinnik, 1941

Botvinnik vs Keres, 1941

Botvinnik vs Keres, 1941

Of the 7 games they played before 1947, Keres lost just one game to Botvinnik, and drew 6; an indication that they were battling it out in about even terms for the most part. If there had been a Keres vs. Botvinnik 'Candidates' match in 1945 right after the end of the war in Europe, and assuming that the Soviet authorities would not have pressured Keres, he could have reasonable chances to beat Botvinnik, and then proceed to beat an ill Alekhine in a Title match.

The main reason why Keres (without his Botvinniik jinx and without Soviet pressure) in 1945 would have fair chances to beat Botvinnik in a match is that Botvinnik, for some strange reason, was not a particularly good match player. We all know that he just about drew even with his Challengers for his Title in their World Championship Matches; and without the re-match clause, there are reasons to believe that he would not have made it back to to the Title. What is less known is that in previous one-on-one matches with Flohr in 1933 and Levenfish in 1937, Botvinnik could only tie. Keres dominated both Flohr and Levenfish. (For that matter so did Alekhine; which is one more reason I believe that a serious non-drinking healthy AAA would have beaten Botvinnik in a World Championship Match in 1939.) Botvinnik was a much better tournament player than he was a match player.

(And this is true even for non-Title mini-matches he played during his reign. Botvinnik lost a mini-match to Reshevsky in 1955 and could only tie Korchnoi in a mini-match in 1960.)

And don't forget the drawn matches against Flohr and Levenfish in the 30's. The one against Flohr was an achievement, Flohr was very good in those days. But the Levenfish match was embarrassing. It had been meant to transfer the Soviet title to Botvinnik before AVRO, but it didn't work out that way. As a result, Bottvinnik was at AVRO, but the Soviet Champion wasn't, which led to talk of inviting Levenfish to AVRO too, which never came to anything, but still was a conversation they'd probably have rather avoided.

That, as much as any single thing probably led to the 1941 Soviet Absolute Championship, which was supposed to decide once and for all, which Soviet player had the right to challenge Alekhine, regardless of who happened to have the regular Soviet title in whatever year Alekhine happened to be available.