A Century of Chess: Zandvoort 1936
Few world-class chess players have generated as little warm feeling as Reuben Fine. He appeared in international chess as a fully-formed, elite player but with a grim, workmanlike style, was a fully viable world championship contender for a decade, and then abruptly left chess for a middling career as a psychologist — for which he would be best known for inane Freudian-to-the-max interpretations of the psychology of chess players. He seems to have been a difficult person, and he had no real following in the chess world — even in America, he was sort of an afterthought after Reshevsky, and it was his misfortune that his peak years corresponded with the Depression and World War II when chess wasn’t exactly on anybody’s list of top priorities.
But it’s worth giving Fine his due — he was an extraordinary talent, a gifted tactician with an ultra-modern sense of the way in which chess is reducible to concrete calculation. 21 years old when Zandvoort was played, he seemed completely confident playing against first-rate masters, winning the tournament with no particular difficulty, while Euwe, his main rival, failed to convert an advantage in their head-to-head game and then, frustrated, lost to Bogoljubow in the next round. Ever ready with a quote, Tartakower had this to say about Fine: "The main subject of discussion in Zandvoort was determining the style of Fine, whose wins are somehow unnoticeable, while he saved his other games with numerous daring somersaults. The experts were finally able to conclude that Fine's style is based on the lack of one.”
The tournament should have been Max Euwe's opportunity to bask in the limelight of being world champion. He did his part, playing in an "expansive and aggressive style," as Kasparov wrote, but Fine ruined his party. Euwe had his alibi ready, which was that he had to rush from his school right after the year's end to make the tournament.
Though he had less of a sensational tournament than Fine, the 20-year-old Paul Keres impressed. His play was easier to like — fresh and combinatorial.
More of a student than Fine, who was humiliating his elders in the tournament, Keres commented, "My playing strength was not yet on a level with the best participants of this tournaments. The game against the veteran master Maróczy showed that I had much to learn about quiet positional play."
The evergreen Savielly Tartakower shared third with Keres, his wins including this fun miniature in the From Gambit.
Sources: Reuben Fine gives his perspective on the tournament in A Passion for Chess. Euwe's perspective can be found in the Linder biography of him and Keres' in The Road to the Top. The Tartakower quote comes from Tartajubow's blog post and the photos from Ilibrariana.
