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| Jan-14-10 |
| nescio: <AnalyzeThis> The paradox is that Euwe wasn't an amateur in 1948. Two years before, after the Groningen tournament, he decided to become a professional, which proved to be a psychological mistake of the first order. After Botvinnik deservedly won the championship Euwe went back to teaching mathematics and you can see the quality of his games steadily improving until he reached a peak in his creativity again at Zurich/Neuhausen. |
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| Jan-14-10 |
| AnalyzeThis: Like a lot of things, it comes down to how you define terms. Bobby Fischer wouldn't have called Euwe a professional, at any point in his career. Like I said, this does not have to do with actual playing strength. Basically the difference between Fischer and Euwe was what chancho wrote - Euwe had a variety of interests, while Fischer lived chess. |
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| Jan-15-10 |
| nescio: <AnalyzeThis> For me it's simple: Euwe was a professional from 1946 to 1949 because he paid his bills from the revenues of his chess activities. That he also had other interests isn't important, because everyone had and has them, except perhaps Niemzowitsch and Fischer. |
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| Jan-15-10 |
| AnalyzeThis: He wrote some great books, of course. I enjoyed his Chess Master vs. Chess Amateur book. |
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Jan-15-10
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| whatthefat: <chancho>
Unfortunately from the angle given it's impossible to tell whether Black is giving pawn and move odds. |
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| Jan-15-10 |
| Petrosianic: <Euwe also won an amateur heavyweight title in Boxing if I remember correctly.> Denker had some skill as a boxer too. |
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| Jan-15-10 |
| nescio: <AnalyzeThis: He wrote some great books, of course. I enjoyed his Chess Master vs. Chess Amateur book.> I'm not going to contradict you every time, but I never heard of that book. If it's this one: http://store.doverpublications.com/... I can assure you that Euwe probably left the writing to mr. Walter Meiden. Euwe was sometimes too nice and lend his name to some dubious publications, but he is still responsible for its content of course. If I'm in Amsterdam and have the time I'll search the library of the Max Euwe Centrum for this one. |
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| Jan-15-10 |
| Petrosianic: I'm starting to piece this together a little better. The Winterthur accords in 1946 had planned to add the winners of both Groningen and Prague to the list of Candidates. It was never definite, since they didn't finalize anything at Winterthur. When they met at The Hague next year, they dropped this. The story we always hear is that they decided that Prague was "too weak", but it seems just as likely that they didn't want an odd number of players in the tournament (since Botvinnik had won Groningen). The real mistake seems to have been that they voted on this No Substitutions rule, which ended up giving them an odd number of players anyway. I also found an I.A. Horowitz editorial in which he comments that the USCF had told FIDE that they wanted to pick their two representatives from the 1946 US Championship, rather than just giving the spots to Reshevsky and Fine outright. Obviously this didn't happen, and maybe it should have (since Reshevsky won the tournament). Odd, that they knew that Fine was out of practice and having trouble finding time for chess that they flat out disallowed substitutions in the lineup. But it would have been a mess anyway, since Fine dropped out at the last minute. Even if substititions had been allowed, neither Najdorf nor anyone else had spent months preparing for the tournament. And the other players, Reshevsky included, had spent time preparing for Fine, not Najdorf. Maybe Fine is the goat here. |
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| Jan-15-10 |
| AnalyzeThis: Nescio. That is the book. Whoever wrote it, it's good. I've read it, you haven't. Enough said. |
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Jan-15-10
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| TheFocus: <nescio> <AnalyzeThis: He wrote some great books, of course. I enjoyed his Chess Master vs. Chess Amateur book.> <I'm not going to contradict you every time, but I never heard of that book. If it's this one: http://store.doverpublications.com/... I can assure you that Euwe probably left the writing to mr. Walter Meiden. Euwe was sometimes too nice and lend his name to some dubious publications, but he is still responsible for its content of course. If I'm in Amsterdam and have the time I'll search the library of the Max Euwe Centrum for this one.> <AnalyzeThis>< Nescio. That is the book. Whoever wrote it, it's good. I've read it, you haven't. Enough said.> Part of a series. The others that I know of are "Chess Master vs. Chess Master" and "Chess Master vs. Grandmaster."
<nesio> Are you trying to imply that Euwe lent his name to this series and did nothing in them? And, you haven't even read them? Euwe wrote many books, about 30 I believe. I don't think he had to lend his name out willy-nilly, but if you have some examples, please share them here. You might try reading a book before passing judgment on it. Nuff said. |
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| Jan-15-10 |
| Petrosianic: Fine's dropping out is reported in February 1947. The magazine came out in the middle of the month so the telegram must have been sent in late January or early February. The announcement makes no reference to the No Substitutions rule, but Euwe is quoted as saying that he hopes Najdorf or Stahlberg might replace Fine. Neither did, but both played in the Interzonal later that year. The March issue has a blurb saying that Bogoljubow objected that he should be included in the championship tournament, too. That would have been interesting, and not in a good way. Chessmetrics had him at #13 in June 1943 when he was last active, and no higher than #18 after the war. Still pretty good, but not good enough to have the slightest chance of winning the championship tournament. The chances of him being included were zero. The fact that he lived in Germany was, alone, enough to guarantee his absence. But even without that, the reasoning behind including him is fuzzy. "We're supposed to give you a title shot, because Alekhine gave you two?" Out of curiosity, I checked the database to see what Bogo's record against the other candidates was: Bogo vs. Botvinnik +0-1=0
Bogo vs. Smyslov +0-0=0
Bogo vs. Reshevsky +0-1=0
Bogo vs. Euwe +10-11=22
Bogo vs. Keres +0-4=5
Bogo vs. Fine +0-1=1
Without meaning to be unkind, if Bogo had been in the tournament, he would quite probably have finished last. |
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| Jan-15-10 |
| AnalyzeThis: I think that even Euwe would have slapped Bogo around in the 1948 tournament. It's just as well he stayed home. |
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Jan-15-10
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| chancho: This is what Bogo said regarding his play as the new generation came along: <"The young people have read my book, now I have no chance."> |
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| Jan-16-10 |
| Petrosianic: You know, I've heard that quote, and never stopped to ask, what was Bogo's book anyway? Nimzo had <My System>, of course, but what did Bogo write? I'd like to see it. You know, people like Bogo, Janowski, and Larsen get dissed a lot because they couldn't stand toe to toe with the absolute cream of the crop. But they were murder on lesser players, and their games are probably very entertaining and worthy of more study than I've given them. Lasker-Janowski was a blowout, of course, but Janowski and Marshall played several matches. I looked at them years back, and there was some good rock 'em sock 'em chess in there. |
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Jan-16-10
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| chancho: <Petrosianic> I'm not sure if there's a book out there written by Bogo.
Maybe something on the two Alekhine matches? Or his Moscow win from 1925?
Or perhaps he meant to say that the young players had his style of play figured out? Who knows? |
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| Jan-16-10 |
| nescio: <Petrosianic> <chancho> E. Bogoljubow: Schach-Schule, Konkordia Verlag Bühl-Baden, 1935 An instruction manual for German youth players.
http://cgi.ebay.nl/E-Bogoljubow-Sch... |
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Jan-16-10
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| chancho: <nescio> Thanks for that. |
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Jan-16-10
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| Stonehenge: My Father has quite a few opening books by Euwe from the thirties :) He also has the 1948 tournament book. |
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| Jan-16-10 |
| AnalyzeThis: <You know, people like Bogo, Janowski, and Larsen get dissed a lot because they couldn't stand toe to toe with the absolute cream of the crop.> Actually, it's usually in the context of a champion like Lasker or Alekhine playing a creampuff, rather than playing a stronger player, whether it be Pillsbury, Rubinstein, or Capablanca. I don't think that Larsen gets dissed on much. |
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Jan-16-10
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| chancho: <AnalyzeThis> Well, he did get annihilated 6-0... |
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| Jan-16-10 |
| AnalyzeThis: Sure. But don't know about anybody else, but when Fischer vs. Larsen comes up, for me it's always in the context of what a sensational victory that was for Fischer. I've never heard anybody around here saying that Larsen was a weak player going into that match. |
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Jan-16-10
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| chancho: <AnalyzeThis> Larsen is a great player, but that defeat in the candidates is what some people remember him for unfortunately. |
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Feb-02-10
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| jackpawn: Yes, it's unfortunate that Larsen is remembered for his Fischer match. Between 1964-roughly 1975 Larsen was just a ton as a tournament player. Really only Fischer was better as a tournament player. Of course in matches he was not as successful. |
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Feb-07-10
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| benjinathan: http://kevinspraggett.blogspot.com/... |
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Feb-07-10
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| Marmot PFL: Also for the time he lost to Spassky in 19 moves or so on board 1, although he won that match for the World team. |
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