A Century of Chess: Hastings 1931/2

I’ve been skipping over the annual Hastings tournaments, which were — especially in this period — an important part of the chess calendar. They were always organized by the British Chess Federation and held in the week between Christmas and New Year’s, and even as Britain lost a great deal of the centrality to international chess that it had in the 19th century, the tournament became a symbol of continuity in the chess world, with the kind of cozy reassurance of mulled wine or chestnuts roasting on the fire.

Initially, the tournament was a local affair. Starting around 1923, the BCF tended to invite two international masters, who usually tore through the field. But towards the late ‘20s, it became a proving ground for the international players and was a significant stepping-stone in several players’ careers. Max Euwe largely established himself as a world-class player through his results at Hastings — winning in 1923/4 and then finishing ahead of Capablanca in 1930/1. Sultan Khan really made his name by defeating Capablanca in the 1930/1 edition. And in 1931/2 the Czech master Salo Flohr entered the international elite with his +7-0=2 performance here.

Flohr was very much not the first image you might have of an elite chess player. He was roly-poly, good-natured, very invested in his creature comforts, and in the later part of his career would abruptly lose all his ambition, but for a magical period in the early 1930s he was a world-beater and soon emerged as the most deserving challenger to Alekhine. 

Flohr is a kind of proof of how far it’s possible to go in chess without dynamism. His play — similar to Rubinstein and Capablanca's — was all about squares and weaknesses, a step-by-step movement through the middlegame to a superior ending. He made almost no mistakes, was extremely difficult to beat, and could win — particularly against weaker competition — with no obvious sign of exertion.

There is something very peculiar about Flohr that, even at the moment of his emergence, his brand of chess was going obsolete. Alekhine was in the process of developing a heightened, dynamic style of chess that profoundly influenced Botvinnik and the nascent Soviet School. The hypermoderns were learning how to tuck kinetic possibilities deep within a position. And players like Euwe were developing the kind of deep theoretical study of the opening that would be so predominant for the rest of 20th century chess. Flohr, on the other hand, was the truest successor to classicism — avoiding weaknesses, steadily strengthening his position, and bringing that low-key, common-sensical brand of chess all the way to the doorstep of the world championship. 

Isaac Kashdan continued his run of strong, unshowy results with a second-place finish here. We haven't talked much about Vera Menchik, the first woman to reach international elite level. Born in Russia, she left in 1921 and settled in England where she became a pupil of Géza Maróczy. She won the inaugural Women's World Championship in 1927 and began participating in master tournaments, often finishing towards the middle of the field. Hastings was one of her better results with wins over Euwe and Khan. 

Flohr had a golden year in 1932, finishing second at London and Bern, shared first at Bad Sliac, drawing a match with Euwe, and winning one with Khan. The Hastings victory was also the start of three straight triumphs there. Euwe was the more famous player at the time of their match, but even Euwe, in his post-match annotations, was quick to acknowledge that Flohr was in many ways a superior player. "Flohr calculates much faster than I and has learnt to discern the truth with decisive certainty," Euwe wrote. But there were weaknesses in Flohr's game — there was a certain superficiality and absence of deep strategy, which Euwe, a more careful player, was able to exploit to tie the match. 

Flohr seemed also to dispense with a major rival when he won a six-game match against Sultan Khan, whose meteoric career was starting to flatline. The match was even through five games with Flohr breaking through in the sixth.