| Apr-23-05 | | micartouse: <chessgames> Reuben Fine says in Basic Chess Endings that the player with the Black pieces was Alekhine here ... I wonder which is right? Anyhow, White's defense here is amazing, and I wouldn't be surprised if it was Alekhine who was White. |
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Apr-23-05
 | | Calli: Alekhine had the White pieces. Fine is incorrect. |
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May-07-05
 | | chessgames.com: One user sent in the following: <The names of the players are transposed. Mikenas had White; Alekhine had Black. Many source materials (including the Reinfeld tournament book on Warsaw 1935, and various Alekhine collections) perpetuate the original error that you replicate here. But the Soviet collection of Mikenas's games, and the appendix to the recent Polish book of the 1935 Warsaw Olympiad both confirm the correct colors.> Until we learn otherwise, we'll have Alekhine as Black here. |
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May-07-05
| | Calli: I based my comment on Skinner and Verhoeven. They cite references for each game, listed in order of publication. There are three for this game. 1) Magyar Sakkvilag 1935 p261-2
2) Warsaw 1935 p25-27
3) Shakmaty v SSSR 1981, nl, p17-18
It appears, then, that the earliest publications of this game have Alekhine as White. If they are in error, then it could have been replicated. The question is what original sources do the new publications cite. |
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May-07-05
 | | Gypsy: Maybe the resolution of the chromatic problem here could be deduced from the pairings (this was board 1, I am sure) or from which country had two white on the other three boards of the match. |
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May-07-05
| | Calli: <gypsy> Good point! Olimpbase gives Mikėnas ½ - ½ Alekhine (b)
Machtas ½ - ½ Betbeder Matibet (w)
Vistaneckis 0 - 1 Muffang (b)
Vaitonis 1 - 0 Raizman (w)
Unfortunately, the scores for two of the games are missing. If the above board order is correct, then AA played the Black pieces. |
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May-09-05
 | | Resignation Trap: For those of us who are familiar with the games of both Mikenas and Alekhine, the opening reveals which player had White. Mikenas was in the habit of playing 1. d4 e6 2. Nd2, referring to this move as his "patent" in the current game.
Here are some other examples: V Mikenas vs A Thomas, 1937 , V Mikenas vs W Hazenfuss, 1939 , and V Mikenas vs Alekhine, 1939 . There are many examples of Alekhine entering the Dutch Defense with 1. d4 e6 and 2...f5. At the 1939 Olympiad the game Mikenas-Czerniak went 1. d4 e6 2.Nd2 c5 3. dxc5 Bxc5 4. Nxe4 d5 5. Nxc5 Qa5+ 6. c3 Qxc5 7. e4! and Black never equalized. Clearly, Mikenas had White in the present game. |
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May-09-05
| | Calli: <Resignation Trap> Very impressive! Mikėnas, indeed, had White. Thank you very much. |
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Sep-05-05
| | Gypsy: I just found the endgame from this game in Minev (Practical guide to rook endgames), given endeed as Mikenas - Alekhine, Warsaw (ol) 1935. (If there still is a lingering doubt.) It seems however, that Minev takes the position and analysis from the Levenfish/Smyslov book, and that in their analysis the order of moves and position had been somewhat altered (f5 before e4, rooks on different files), probably for a pedagogical reasons. |
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Feb-11-06
 | | Phony Benoni: I have a copy of the New York TImes report for this round. It doesn't state who was which color, but does say that Alekhine was a pawn up at adjournment. That would obviously mean he played Black. The New York Times report also gives the pairing numbers of the teams. If the usual Berger tables were followed, Lithuania (Mikenas) would have had White on board 1 against France (Alekhine). Future rounds confirm that the order of play in these tables was followed. There is another possibility. In 1935, Alekhine was not averse to taking a nip now and then. It's possible he may have done his celebrating before the game, came in, and sat down behind the White pieces by mistake. Who is going to tell the World Champion to move? That would also explain the eccentric opening. But humor aside (which is a good place for it), and given the other points made here, I think it's 100% definite that Alekhine was Black. |
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