A Century of Chess: Hastings 1933/34

In 1927, Alekhine finished distant second at the New York International. After that, he started a streak of nine tournaments and two matches in which he came in first every single time. That had to come to an end eventually, and it finally did at Hastings with Salo Flohr nipping Alekhine by a half point. 

Alekhine did nothing wrong — he went undefeated in the tournament — but he wasn’t quite as murderous as usual with the tailenders. Had the tournament occurred at any other time than at the peak of the Depression, this likely would have been the moment when the chess community arranged a world championship match between Flohr and Alekhine. Flohr was without question deserving of a match, although, with the benefit of hindsight we likely know how it would have turned out. Flohr was a strong positional player with very quick tactical vision, but he didn’t have the complicated approach to chess that Alekhine did. He wasn’t an opening theorist, he didn’t have kinetics in his play, and, in fact, he ended up with a -5 lifetime record against Alekhine. But against weaker players Flohr really could be very impressive. His game against Alexander is a textbook case of exploiting microscopic advantages all the way through the game. 

Alekhine did fine scoring +4 including this exciting if error-strewn game with Lilienthal. 

The tournament is our introduction to Andre Lilienthal, 22 years old at the time and one of the great talents of the era. Lilienthal played a tempestuous combinative chess that could give the impression of overpowering dominance. 

Lillenthal’s tempestuous side got the better of him in other ways. He said something sarcastic to Alekhine — it seems to have been about Alekhine falling behind Flohr — which led to the famous response, “Lilienthal you will never play with me again,” a promise that Alekhine actually kept to.

Sources: The tournament is discussed in Brustkern and Wallet, The Chess Battles of Hastings, and a bit in Edward Winter's post on Flohr.