The Soviet slots were filled by the 1941 Absolute Championship.

The USCF picked the two American representatives. Fine and Reshevsky were top choices. However, there were some rumblings in Chess Life about how it would be more "democratic" to let the US Championship serve as a qualifier for those two spots. It didn't happen, but that's why Reshevsky made darn sure to play in (and win) that tournament, after missing it in 1944, just in case.

The Soviet slots were filled by the 1941 Absolute Championship>

I like to imagine that that tournament took its name from its corporate sponsor, Absolut Vodka, and that it was called "Absolute" due to a typo.

Odd because I don't think Gata retired but he didn't become world champ either.

Maybe I'm butchering the quote or taking it out of context. But I can believe it. When you are young you think everything's peachy, talent and hard work solves any goal.

When you get older you see the amount of control and manipulation people in power exert to stay there. I'm guessing the world chess championship was no different.

Rustam Kamsky complaining about the chess mafia is like Dutch Schultz complaining about the real thing.

Are you saying Rustam is a gangster in on corruption? As Dutch Shultz was a gangster in bootlegging, racketeering etc.

"Chess Life" November 2001, Volume 56, Number 10, Page 635 (7):

"Larry Evans' competence and honesty as a journalist have come increasingly under fire recently. Now with the 9/2001 'Chess Life' he compounds his sins. I refer to his comments about me on page 14 - crude attempts to mislead CL readers. A full rebuttal to his falsehoods and distortions could take several pages; I reply here to his worst offenses."

"The dispute between Evans and myself stems from my article 'The Keres-Botvinnik Case' (CL, 5/1998), which was in part a critique of his 'Tragedy of Paul Keres' (CL, 10/1996). Now in the 9/2001 CL Evans writes: 'But [Kingston] devotes six pages to the topic without reaching any conclusion despite what Keres told Whyld and Botvinnik's startling admission in a 1991 interview that Stalin did intervene.'"

"Shameless deception! By saying 'despite' Evans implies that I ignored important evidence in 1998. What he does not say is that these things were then unknown to both him and me. The Botvinnik interview lay buried in a non-chess Dutch magazine, virtually unknown to the wider world, until it was translated into English and posted on Tim Krabbe's website on 10 December, 1999. This is verified by Krabbe himself (e-mail to me, 12/12/99). Whyld's conversation with Keres was in 1962, but was not made public until 11 June, 2000 (again by Krabbe), as Whyld himself told me (e-mail, 8/11/01)."

"Evans further states: 'In a letter to the editor of 'Kingpin' (Spring 2000) Taylor Kingston claimed I misrepresented his views about the Keres-Botvinnik controversy.' Again, false and misleading. Evans misrepresented my opinion of his article, knowing since 1998 that I no longer endorse it. His spokesman Larry Parr has finally admitted that Evans' 'Kingpin' note was morally wrong (rgcp newsgroup, 8/25/2001)."

"In passing, I note Evans' claim (CL 10/2001, p. 7) that Parr has 'refuted' Winter on rgcp. Nonsense - delegating Parr to defend Evans against Winter has proven to be like delegating Al Capone to defend against charges of bootlegging."

"Evans has the right to disagree with me, but no right to misrepresent me, especially to the entire USCF membership. His column is becoming an embarrassment to USCF."

<A curious incident, not mentioned in this book but later described by Euwe, happened at the Polish-Russian border, when the players and their entourage were on their way to Moscow for the second part of the tournament. Soviet custom officials were intrigued by the strange hieroglyphic-looking notes in Euwe’s luggage that in fact constituted his opening repertoire. What should they do?

Making a phone call to Moscow, obviously, where it was decided that Euwe’s notes should be confiscated, checked at leisure in Moscow, and eventually given back. It was a scenario for one of Reuben Fine’s nightmares. Perhaps the safety of the foreign players would be assured, but not that of their notes.

But Botvinnik intervened and phoned Moscow himself. After many hours of waiting it was decided that Euwe could keep his notes, provided that he signed a declaration that nothing in it would be detrimental to the Soviet state. To Botvinnik, Euwe joked that in any event, his analyses were either aimed at Reshevsky, or bad and useless. All is well that ends well. >

https://www.amazon.com/Hague-Moscow...

So it looks as if the authorities were in possession of the notes for several notes before returning them at Botvinnik's request.

Keres wrote "Maailmameistri-turnir Haag-Moskva 1948" (Tallinn, 1949).

Okay, there is an Russiian edition, too: Матч-турнир на первенство мира по шахматам, Гаага-Москва, 1948 (Таллин 1950).

I was hoping to find the 1950 edition with Keres' pure notes.

I also found that link you cite, and indeed, it is very useful.

(One has to be extra careful with some of those "other" Russian chess - that seem to bait their hooks with chess books a lot.)

For the record:

<Матч-турнир на первенство мира по шахматам, Гаага-Москва, 1948 (Таллин 1950) >

google translates into:

<Match-tournament for the World Chess Championship, The Hague-Moscow, 1948 (Tallinn, 1950)>

I'm still looking for it, and will report back if I find anything.

BTW- The Russian wiki page has more stamps than the English version:

My Russian needs some work.>

"Botvinnik reportedly announced that he would not play in the Netherlands. He was angry about a Dutch news report that suggested his fellow Russians might collude to help him win the title."

However in CHESS November 1946.(page 63 - cover story).

It reads that the original claim which upset Botvinnik came from a Dutch newspaper about possible fellow Russians collaborating prior to and regarding the Groningen (1946) tournament and not the 1948 World Championship event.

I should have thought harder about the copyright issue, I guess, crazy as current copyright law is (Keres has been dead for more than 40 years). Obviously when I did the Tarrasch book it wasn't an issue -- I got that book off the internet, since it had entered the public domain long ago.

This, of course, is an absurd thing to say. Copyright law <is> crazy, but there is nothing crazy about wanting copyright protection on a translation you just published, especially if it is the first edition in English. Lord knows I couldn't have done much with the Estonian or Russian versions, even if I could have found them.