Don't malign one great player in praising another.

both, from different sources, living under stress. with Keres, we will never know how much

I very much enjoyed your thoughts and tribute to Paul Keres; thanks for taking the time to put them to paper, sharing.

I've never understood that to be the conventional wisdom. Keres won (by tiebreak over Fine) possibly the strongest tournament ever held, AVRO 1938, which was supposed to qualify him for a world championship match against the declining Alekhine, but the match fell through and Keres subsequently lost many of his best years to WWII.

It seems to me that the conventional wisdom on Keres is that he was, for about 25 years, one of the equals referred to in Botvinnik's famous "first among equals", and that he might well have been world champion, but that it just didn't happen, and that he is probably the greatest player never to acquire the title.

...And speaking of Botvinnik`s intrigues , he surely knew how to use his political ties much earlier than 50s. There is detailed story (on Russian thou http://www.chesspro.ru/_events/2007...) explaining how he used his ˝protectors˝ to simply `improvise` another USSR championship (!) only few months after he finished only 6th (!) in the 12th USSR championship 1940.( http://www.chesspro.ru/_events/2007... , table is on the bottom , and there is few interesting photos meantime if you dont know Russian ). Needles to say , his fragile dreams of match with Alekhine crumbled to dust in such situation.

The artificial USSR championship , called ˝The absolute˝ (as you might recall from the history books) to justify and distinguish it from the ˝normal˝ one in which Bondarevsky ( later on the Spassky`s second, man without whom Boris might never become the WC) and Lilienthal shared USSR champ title only few months prior to that. Just for the flavor , I will try to translate first few lines of this mammoth text :

<˝Operation Absolute Championship˝

After 12th championship Botvinnik lived in shock for 2 months , and he had good reason : all his hopes for Match against Alekhine suddenly vanished! OFC , he could try to return the title in a year on the next championship , but he couldn`t wait that long. and who guaranteed that he will succeed ? His position seemed hopeless , when he came up with desperate idea :˝In december I sent a letter to Snegirev (Chess Sportcommittee) , ironising the fact that the champion of the state , ie leader of USSR chess , will become the winner of the Bondarevsky-Liliental match (both of them are very talented players , but without signifucant chess achievements) , while Keres and me had such , and international BTW , achievements.

Snegirov knew himself , that such match has no value concerning the Alekhine`s challenger; He understood my sign , and started working - as always , silently but with great energy. How he persuaded the higher authorities , I have no clue , he didn`t talk too much about that , but in 2 months it was declared that 6 winners of the 1940. championship ...> Why exactly 6? Remember , Botvinnik was, accidentally, 6th...just an innocent remark ;) < ...will play for the title of ˝absolute˝ champion . The meaning of the word ˝absolute˝ was clear: the ˝absolute˝ USSR champ would play the match against Alekhine.˝...>

Keyword was ˝silent˝ , players had no idea what is happening until it was too late, and what is most important, nobody mentioned Botvinnik`s name in the process. He was diligently preparing , while : <... Lilienthal remembers that he , relaxed by the promises ( by Snegirov? ) that he and Bondarevsky will be , without any match , declared the USSR champions , went traveling to Syberia: ˝Suddenly i recieved a letter from the president of Sportcommittee , Snegov , to immediatelly return to Moscow , to take part in so called absolute championship. I was shocked. I was very angry : I simply did not expect anything like that. Needless to say , i went totally unprepared ˝...> Keywords shocked , suddenly + unprepared =) <...Young Bondarevsky told angrily to Keres one year later : ˝I was simply inexperienced...I should simply decline , and that`s it!˝...> BTW , decline in 1941 USSR ? keyword: inexperienced =) <...Keres , accepting the participation , had no idea how high the stakes were. Neither previous nor this championship did he consider connected in any way with the world championship , and he payed dearly for being so naive. If up to that moment Keres was seen as the Alekhine`s challenger (he was placed above Botvinnik twice in important tournaments)...> key one being AVRO , considered ac the ˝candidates˝ by many <... after the ˝Absolute˝ Botvinik had every right to say ˝It is clear now who should challenge Alekhine˝...> And it was only the first of the cruel games that destiny played with Paul...keywords, cruel games + naive =(

PS You can compare the scoretables in first and second tournament to compare how successful ˝Operation Absolute˝ was for Botvinnik =)

PPS My English is not perfect , and Russian even worse than that , so the translation is prolly far from accurate @ some points.

<The first truly world-class player I ever saw was Paul Keres. It was in 1975. Vancouver, a beautiful city just across the border from Seattle, hosted a large open tournament. In those years I ofter traveled north to Vancouver, British Columbia and south to Portland, Oregon, playing in as many open events in the Pacific Northwest as I could squeeze in between my school classes. I was a "Class A" to "Expert" player at the time, meaning I sported a 1900-2100 rating, which jumped around a great deal....With the [tournament] about to begin...our eyes were glued Paul Keres as we watched his every move. he was well dressed dignified an with what might be called a noble bearing. He deeply impressed out whole party.>

<In his game, Keres' opponent was Denis Allan, a strong Canadian master who employed the Petroff Defence and was a tough man to beat. We were all anxious to see how Keres might gain an advantage so that we could use the same idea ourselves. After all the announcements the game began 1. e4 e5 2. ♘f3 ♘f6, and now, without any hesitation at all, Keres played 3 d3. as if this was a killer refutation. We were sunk. The game continued 3 ...♘c64. ♘bd2 ♗c5 5. c3 d5 6. ♗e2 dxe4 7. dxe4 a5, and Keres won smoothly in 25 moves. It was a thrill to watch a world-class player in acrion. His manner, his bearing, his unhurried approach to the position, the accuracy of his moves, and the precision and manner in which he physically played his moves all made a deep impression. I was especially drawn to observing his physical movement of the pieces, as he carefully put them correctly in the middle of the square so as not to annoy his opponent. In fact, I went home to practice so that I could mimic his movements as well and to endeavour, as best I could, to play chess "properly" at the board ... I wanted to be world class and behave like world-class player. I wanted to be, a least in manner, like Paul Keres.>

Anand vs Kramnik, 2005