The infamous 8th Chess Olympiad

On March 24th of this year, and with the Covid-19 crisis growing into a global pandemic, FIDE made the difficult decision to postpone the 44th chess Olympiad till next year. For the first time ever, we witnessed an online Olympiad instead of an OTB tournament. For myself, I have always enjoyed watching the Olympiad and seeing some high quality action between some of the best chess players in the world. This unfortunate set of circumstances reminded me of another chess Olympiad that although did go ahead, had a much different global crisis to contend with...

On August 21st 1939, the 8th chess Olympiad had begun in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It was a milestone for the development of global chess, as it was the first ever Olympiad to be played outside of Europe. This tournament was set to be the best Olympiad ever. With a record number of 29 entries this year from around the world, it was clear that the remoteness of such a tournament did not serve as too much of a barrier to the competitors. In fact, with it being held in South America, it encouraged the new emerging chess talent from the Americas to compete on the world stage:

A few newspaper clippings and pictures I found here

The headliners for this tournament were of course World Champion, Alexander Alekhine, and ex-world champion, Jose Raul Capablanca (representing France and Cuba respectively). With both of them competing on board one, it was a hotly anticipated game, as the pair of worthy adversaries had only met each other on three separate occasions since their world championship match twelve years ago. To put this into a modern context, imagine if Fabiano Caruana and Magnus Carlsen would only play each other once every 4 years, and you begin to realise just how much build-up there probably would have been for this match. Despite the immense build-up, and the prospect of some great chess games on the horizon, the 8th Olympiad would end up being a tournament overshadowed by a new global crisis.

The calm before the storm?

Troubles begun early on for the tournament organisers. Max Euwe, ex-world champion, announced he would not play for the Netherlands. The USA team, an easy top seed contender based on their talent, would refuse to play too. The team argued that their playing fee was not high enough to warrant a trip to the relatively distant country of Argentina. Admittedly though, their potential travel journey would be nothing in contrast to their European counter-parts. Indeed, the practical problem of distance was a huge issue for some players (bare in mind this is before commercial flight was available). For many of the players, particularly those travelling from Europe, it was a 3-week long boat journey to get to the remote Buenos Aires. 

Nonetheless, with a large number of teams from around the world representing their countries, the first preliminary round went relatively smoothly. To briefly explain the format of the tournament: There were two team chess rounds. Round 1 was a preliminary round where countries were paired off into four round-robin groups (the top four teams of each group, qualifying for the final A group). Final A would be a 16-team round robin tournament to determine the best country in the world.

Some of the great chess from the Preliminary round A

A video I have made discussing this game

The evening standard reporting on the outbreak of war

How to continue?

Upon it's announcement, it was unclear how play could possibly continue. Of the 16 teams that reached the second stage of competition, 12 of them were European, most of them representing countries which had now declared war on one another. The English team would announce that they would not play any of their matches as they were forced to leave immediately to aid England's code-breaking operations. Interestingly their talents would be used at Bletchley Park as code-breakers during the war alongside famous Mathematician  Alan Turing:

The Code-breakers of Bletchley would be depicted in the film "Imitation Game." Conel Hugh O'Donel Alexander, board one for the England team, is a pivotal character in the film and is presented as the British chess champion.  

An assembly of team captains decided that play would continue with some results being declared a draw. Germany, France and Poland would all agree to play their games to a 2-2 default draw. Czechoslovakia, or as they were known in this tournament, the Protectorate of Bohemia-Moravia were pushed by the German team to also agree to a 2-2 draw against them. British Palestine however, refused to play Germany altogether leading to a walk-over 4-0 win for the Germany. In total, 6 matches and 24 games were to be set as a default with 1 team (England) not playing at all. This created a number of practical problems. For the teams who did have declared draws, particularly the German team, they would have sizeable breaks of play throughout the tournament allowing them to rest before pivotal matches

Despite these external dramas, there were still some great games that were played:

The game that was believed to have won the brilliancy prize. A faultless victory from white

Alexander Alekhine showing off his middle-game and end-game technique in this double IQP game.

Grandmaster Daniel Naroditsky has already provided excellent analysis on this positional masterclass by Jose Raul Capablanca. Below is his analysis and the article on Jose Raul brilliant play

Germany due to their many breaks and a 4-0 walkover win against Palestine, secured their victory in the 8th Olympiad. Sadly, despite some flurries of brilliant play, the tournament was largely a failure due to the extenuating circumstances that occurred during it. If anything though, we could argue that the tournament was a great success due to the simple fact that they were able to finish it. The largely anticipated match of Alekhine versus Capablanca would sadly never happen as both players decided on taking a break during Cuba - France's match. Unfortunately, the two would never meet again in a match with Capablanca and Alekhine passing away in 1942 and 1946 respectively.

Aftermath

With many of players thousands of miles away from home, and for many the prospect of prosecution on their return, most of the competitors decided to stay in Buenos Aires, some never returning home. In particular, the German team, the eventual winners, all decided to stay in Argentina to avoid the war.

The eventual winners, the German chess team

Significantly, there were a number of Jewish players who did not return to Europe: Moshe Czerniak, Chris De Ronde, Movsas Feigins, Paulino Frydman, Sonja Graf, Aristide Gromer, Zelman Kleinstein, Markas Luckis, Mendel (later Miguel) Najdorf, John O’Donovan, Jiri Pelikan, Meir Rauch, Ilmar Raud, Pauletter Schwartsmann, Adolf Seitz, Karel Skalicka, Gideon Stahlberg, Franciszek Sulik, and Victor Winz. (According to Chessbase). FIDE, in large part to avoid the consequences of war, decided to move their headquarters to Argentina with Augusto de Muro, president of the Argentine Chess Federation becoming the president of FIDE in 1939. 

Sadly the 2nd World War would have a largely negative impact on the chess world. In Justin Corfield's book Pawns in a greater Game, he goes to great lengths to describe the unfortunate fate of many of the chess players during and after the war. (Also see this chess blog which also has the fates of the many greats). Many of the best players would sadly die. During WW2, we lost two ex-world champions, Emmanuel Lasker (1941) and Jose Raul Capablanca (1942). A year after the war we would also lose the current world champion Alexander Alekhine (1946). 

A positive outcome

Despite the negative outcomes with the eruption of the war, the greatest legacy ofthe Olympiad was how much chess flourished in Argentina. Imagine for a moment, your own country having a large number of master level players suddenly on your doorstep. With such a calibre of master level talent, chess had become an irresistible pursuit. The Argentine chess team, in future Olympiads would become a dominate power-house with prominent players like Miguel Najdorf (previously Polish) and end-game experts like Erich Elikases (previously German) now representing the top boards. 

The "Mar Del Plata" Open become a prominent chess tournament with considerable reputation. We can also thank this tournament, and the talent it attracted, for introducing the world to the Mar De Plata variation of the King's Indian Defense: 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. e4 d6 5. Nf3 0–0 6. Be2 e5 7. 0–0 Nc6 8. d5 Ne7 - Famously first played in a game between Miguel Najdorf and Svetozar Gligoric: 

Perhaps in another blog I will talk about the Argentine golden age of chess, but for now that concludes the wild, and ill-fated 8th chess Olympiad.