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Feb-23-04
 | | tamar: The articles have the ring of authenticity to me. Alekhine had a mean streak, and may have enjoyed venting his aggression and feelings of helplessness writing these blatantly unfair articles. |
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| Feb-23-04 | | Calli: It turns out the pictures of AA dead sitting in front of the board were, in fact, staged. A reporter admitted that he rushed to the room and set up the chess board and took the pictures. Death for profit. |
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| Feb-23-04 | | Benjamin Lau: The French supposedly killed Alekhine secretly after the war for cooperating with the Germans. |
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| Feb-23-04 | | TrueFiendish: Calli, okay, so he died while eating his dinner alone--just as sad. The reporter mentioned was, I hope, ashamed.
How much of what we read is just plain BS? (Rhetorical question) Boy, is it frustrating! |
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| Feb-23-04 | | TrueFiendish: I have my doubts about the French killing him, though...
But, then, what would I know? Nothing, it appears. "Journalism" has let us down, perhaps. Perhaps I like to romanticise things. Perhaps he died happy. Perhaps not. |
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| Feb-23-04 | | Benjamin Lau: Uh oh, I smell an epistemology discussion coming. I'm outta here. ;-) |
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| Feb-23-04 | | TrueFiendish: Yes, I have a habit of driving people out of rooms... ;-) |
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| Feb-24-04 | | meloncio: OK, it's speculation to call him coward, but when you read what he wrote about his old dead comrades, Lasker, Nimzovich, Reti, ... can't you keep cool your head? I don't. |
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| Feb-24-04 | | Benjamin Lau: meloncio, you missed the point. No one at this forum disagrees that Nazism and insulting the dead are bad things; the question is whether Alekhine did these things of his own free will or whether he was forced by the Nazis. |
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| Feb-24-04 | | Lawrence: "...when I obtained knowledge of the perfectly stupid balderdash which emanated from a mind imbued with Nazi ideas..." is Alekhine's comment on the articles afterwards. (Doesn't mean he didn't write them, though.) Where are those manuscripts now? Are they really in his handwriting? |
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Feb-24-04
| | tamar: <Ben>Even if he were forced to, the anecdotes he chooses to relate show malice. I can only imagine he wrote them in a drunken haze. |
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| Feb-24-04 | | ughaibu: The passage quoted by WMD is very interesting. Consider this "In the games won by Alekhine,- wrote Reti- under the ice cold cover of modern chess technique there is a quest for new ways in chess, something which is alien to Capablanca. Well put! Alekhine in this match showed a perfect harmony of top class technique and imagination. This special feature of his style made this match a landmark in the history of chess and ushered in a new era in chess" from http://pkchess.bizland.com/articles... and it appears in the article that Alekhine is criticising Reti's praise of the approach that Reti had apotheosised Alekhine himself for. One almost suspects a joke over the heads of the Nazis. |
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| Feb-24-04 | | meloncio: Pablo Morán, a spanish chess journalist, found a few years ago an interview in an old spanish newspaper of 1943, (AA was then in Spain), where Alekhine quoted his famous articles of Paris Zeitung and didn't denie or complaint about what he wrote there. You can find the reference in chesscafe or chesshistory, I don't rememeber exactly. More than this, in the same link you can search Hans Kmoch and read about the Alekhine's racism & anti-jewish BEFORE the war, and his close friendship with Hans Frank, the Poland butcher. I also have a book about his final two years of life in Spain and Portugal, but it's enough for me, I think he wrote the articles because he wanted to do it. |
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| Dec-18-04 | | Ralston: As for Alekhine's bravery, or lack thereof, I think it important to know that he was in two wars, wounded in one and taken prisoner in another. As for the articles, I don' think it a stretch to believe that he was being coerced by the Nazis, the same group that he would not allow his French team to play at the outbreak of the war. Wasn't his wife being held by the same Nazis, or am I mistaken? And since Spain was an ally of the Nazis, I am not surprised that his comments on his articles were still pro Nazi. Now his death is another matter. I don't think it was suicide nor do I buy the choking on the meat story. If you look at the death photo, you'll see a man seated as if he were asleep. One does not choke to death that way. The coroner's report states, or so I have read, that a piece of meat was removed from his throat. If that is the case, then it was put there on purpose after death had occured. And that means murder, in my book. Again, in the photo you'll see a pile of empty plates, tossed onto the table in a rather slobbish manner. Yet in the room you see neat tables with books stacked in rows and vases laid out in display mode. Not the customs of a slob. And how is it that someone chokes on the very last piece of meat, indeed, the very last piece of food whatsoever, in the entire meal? And how is it that the butler originally stated the meal was UNEATEN? I don't know who killed him, but I know it wasn't a piece of meat. If I had to bet, I would throw it all on the Russians, who had just intimidated Keres into not playing but would never allow Alekhine to defeat their upcoming star, Mikhail Botvinnik. Alekhine, they knew, they could not intimidate. |
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| Dec-18-04 | | drukenknight: what two wars was he in? |
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| Dec-18-04 | | Ralston: He was wounded in WWI and signed on to the French Army as an interpreter/translator in WWII. He was more interested in fighting against the Germans than the French were... |
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| Dec-18-04 | | WMD: Alekhine was not a foot soldier in WW1 either. According to a contemporary Russian report, quoted by Skinner & Verhoeven, in 1916 Alekhine "went off to the front, where for some months he was serving as head of a mobile dressing station of the Red Cross. He gave help to the wounded in the most dangerous places, A. Alekhine twice suffered from shell shock, incidentally the second time so seriously that he had to be confined to bed in the hospital in Tarnopol." |
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| Dec-18-04 | | Ralston: Yes, that sounds correct to me. I didn't mean to imply that he was Sgt. York, only that he was not lacking in personal fortitude. This is especially significant where his joining the French Army as an interpreter/translator is concerned. It's just not where a coward would hang out. I think it also speaks volumes as to whether or not he was a Nazi, which I do not accept given his war time actions, as well as his refusal to let the French Chess team play the Germans at the outset of war.
Personally, I would be willing to accept a sudden death from the effects of prolonged heavy drinking, bringing on diabetes or some other related disorder, which is known to cause some of the afflicted, such as Tony Miles, to die suddenly. But this meat in the throat thing...doesn't cut with me. |
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| Aug-11-07 | | wolfmaster: Good, solid draw from Lupi. |
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| May-14-08 | | RookFile: I think Alekhine should have kept playing in the final position.
click for larger viewThe d pawn, of course, is going to disappear as soon as Alekhine lines his two rooks up against it. Black can't change that. What's then left is King, two rooks and two pawns versus King, queen, and two pawns. It's not quite as good as a chance as Kramnik beating Leko with King, two rooks and three pawns vs. King, queen and three pawns, but nevertheless, there would be opportunities to apply pressure and set up traps against Lupi's position. Above all, it would be a 'can't lose' endgame for Alekhine. |
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| Dec-04-08 | | masterwojtek: Alekhine missed a win on move 27 with f6.
Example:
27.f6 gxf 28.Rb7 Qxb7 29.e7 wins or
27.f6 Qa7+ 28.Kh1 (28...Qf2 29. Rbb1)QxR 29. e7 Qe8 30.f7 wins |
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Sep-14-09
 | | blazerdoodle: The only time 6.c4 appears in the database. Is it such a dog that only Alekhine braved it as a surprise weapon, and no one has touched it since? |
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Dec-15-14
 | | Phony Benoni: Of course Alekhine was not the only person to play <6.c4>. John Taliaferro Beckner - William Widmeyer
14th Western Championship Chicago, IL (2), 18.08.1913 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.0-0 Nxe4 6.c4 Nc5 7.Bc2 d6 8.d4 exd4 9.Nxd4 Nxd4 10.Qxd4 Ne6 11.Re1 Be7 12.Qe4 Nc5 13.Qe2 Be6 14.f4 Bc8 15.Be3 Nd7 16.Nc3 c6 17.Bd4 Nf6 18.Bxf6 gxf6 19.Rad1 Bd7 20.Rxd6 Qb6+ 21.Kh1 0-0-0 22.Nd5 Qc5 23.Nxe7+ Kc7 24.Rxf6 Be6 25.Rxe6 fxe6 26.Qxe6 Rhe8 27.f5 Kb8 28.f6 Rd6 29.Nxc6+ Qxc6 30.Qxe8+ Qxe8 31.Rxe8+ Kc7 32.f7 1-0 Coming soon to a database near you. I just happened on it as part of my US Open project. One thing I am learning from this project is that finding opening innovations is very difficult--at least in the sense of being the first to play a particular move. I constantly see relatively unknown players come up with moves that become grandmaster TNs decades later. So should this variation be known as the Beckner Attack? I don't know about that. When a grandmaster finds, studies and refines an opening innovation, it's not just a single move but part of a new plan. When we lesser mortals play an "innovation", it's usually because we can't remember the book move.. The credit should go not to the person who first plays a move, but the player who uses the move to devise a new way of playing a particular variation. |
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| Dec-15-14 | | morfishine: <Phony Benoni...When we lesser mortals play an "innovation", it's usually because we can't remember the book move> I do this all the time thinking I'm on my way to glory :) ***** |
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Aug-31-17
 | | tpstar: <It turns out the pictures of AA dead sitting in front of the board were, in fact, staged. A reporter admitted that he rushed to the room and set up the chess board and took the pictures. Death for profit.> How sad. I could understand properly recording the scene for the authorities, without arranging a photo shoot or tampering with evidence. <it would be a 'can't lose' endgame for Alekhine> Agree. |
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