A Century of Chess: Margate 1936

A chess master vs chess amateur sort of event. Margate featured four foreign matters tearing through a field of British players. The tournament had an exhibition-like aspect, with Capablanca and Flohr almost knowing from the start that they weren’t going to lose and just seeing how many times they would be able to squeeze out wins. Flohr proved to be more tenacious — the key event was his 107-move win over the British master Tylor. 

Capablanca’s slightly more laidback approach led to a second place finish and a disappointment for him. That approach reached a certain level of absurdity in his 8th round game with Stahlberg. Stahlberg had a better position but was short on time. The two of them agreed to a draw somewhere around move 25 but since tournament rules prohibited draw offers before move 30 they had to play out a few more moves. At which point both players started blundering and then having to cover for each other. 

The tournament was a breakthrough event for the Swedish player Erik Lundin — his first proper international tournament apart from Olympiads. He won his game from his compatriot Stahlberg and finished just behind him in fourth place. 

An oddity of the tournament is that around a quarter of the game scores were lost — rare for an international event.

Sources: The Capablanca-Stahlberg story is given in an Edward Winter note.