A Century of Chess Euwe-Alekhine 1935

The greatest upset in chess history. Alekhine was fresh off a period of complete dominance — he had won 11 of the last 12 tournaments he had participated in and three straight world championship matches — and was playing with a a truly terrifying ferocity. Euwe, meanwhile, was almost no one’s idea of a world champion. He was a mathematics teacher at a girls’ high school, diffident and retiring. He had had a remarkable inside track to the world title — he was virtually the only top player from a ‘missing generation’ after World War I and therefore attracted outsize attention in the ‘20s; he benefited from the patronage of a small and wealthy country, with Alexander Rueb putting him up for a FIDE ‘world championship’ in 1928 and then again in 1929 when he likely wasn’t in the world’s top ten; and his rivals suffered from financial and logistical challenges that he did not have. Nimzowitsch could not raise the funds for a match in the early ‘30s, nor could Flohr in 1934. Botvinnik was in the Soviet Union and Alekhine seemed to be deliberately avoiding Capablanca.

If Euwe’s qualifications for the world championship were somewhat in question, he had, however, considerably improved. He finished shared second to Alekhine at both Bern 1932 and Zurich 1934, and shared first at Hastings 1934/5, and, actually, he seemed to move forward to a different chess understanding, doing deep theoretical work in the opening, particularly the hypermodern openings, and using his researches to shape a strategic approach to the middlegame. If Capablanca  is the patron saint of the natural player and Alekhine of players with sheer indomitable will, Euwe is a more relatable figure among the world’s elite — something like the king of the amateurs and the club players, aware of his own limitations (he wasn’t a Capablanca-level genius and he had a lifelong propensity to blunder) but taking the game seriously and steadily, relentlessly improving. 

 Alekhine, Euwe, and Flohr on Dutch radio
In the early part of the match everything went pretty much as expected with Alekhine drawing first blood, having a two-point lead after four games and a three-point lead after nine. But the important factor was psychological. Euwe had prepared intensively, and in multiple ‘dimensions,’ for the match. He was swimming and boxing and taking cold showers to get himself into peak physical condition. He was studying the opening deeply, and had the support of the great Salo Flohr, which, in a sense, made the match two against one. Alekhine, meanwhile, was heavily availing himself of the free drinks at the Carlton Hotel. It’s been a lingering debate to what extent alcohol affected Alekhine’s play during the match — some reports depict him as having been a falling-down drunk; in later years, Euwe downplayed this — but he certainly did make unaccountable blunders in Games 12 and 14, which allowed Euwe to even the score at the match’s halfway point.

In Game 1, Alekhine opened the bloodletting with a typically brutal victory, playing around the pin on the e5 knight. 

Alexander Alekhine vs. Max Euwe
1-0 Alekhine - Euwe World Championship Match Amsterdam NED Round: 1 ECO: D17

 
But in Game 2, Euwe demonstrated what he brought to chess — a deep conception of the opening that, out of a Grunfeld, gave him a dominating position on both wings. To everybody’s amazement he blew Alekhine off the board.

Max Euwe vs. Alexander Alekhine
1-0 Alekhine - Euwe World Championship Match Amsterdam NED Round: 2 ECO: D81
  
Game 3 was another impressive win by Alekhine that seemed to set the tone for the match. Out of a messy Winawer French, he grabbed a pawn on b7 and emerged ahead out of thorny tactics.

Alexander Alekhine vs. Max Euwe
1-0 Alekhine - Euwe World Championship Match Amsterdam NED Round: 3 ECO: C15
  
With Game 4, the match result seemed no longer in doubt, with Alekhine fixing his broken Grunfeld and producing a never-ending attack against white’s uncastled king. 

Max Euwe vs. Alexander Alekhine
0-1 Alekhine - Euwe World Championship Match The Hague NED Round: 4 ECO: D81
 
In Game 5, the players finally took something of a reprieve, Alekhine winning a pawn out of a French but without enough of a margin to win.

In retrospect, Game 6 was an important game. Alekhine outplayed his opponent in a complex ending but couldn’t find the win and Euwe hung onto a draw by the skin of his teeth.

Game 7 continued the theme of the unequal match. Alekhine played creatively and in a very modern style out of a Winawer, producing yet another inextinguishable attack. 

Alexander Alekhine vs. Max Euwe
1-0 Alekhine - Euwe World Championship Match Utrecht NED Round: 7 ECO England Gambit
Desperately needing a win to stay alive, Euwe delivered in Game 8, outfoxing Alekhine in a tricky theoretical variation of the Slav and cutting his lead to two points. 

Max Euwe vs. Alexander Alekhine
1-0 Alekhine - Euwe World Championship Match Amsterdam NED Round: 8 ECO: D45
 
 But Alekhine jumped forward once again in Game 9, winning an exchange out of a messy Winawer with Euwe never quite able to generate sufficient counterplay. For Euwe, the result was doubly painful — it was played at the school where he worked with his students observing. 

Alexander Alekhine vs. Max Euwe
1-0 Alekhine - Euwe World Championship Match Amsterdam NED Round: 9 ECO: C15

From Game 10 the match starts to turn. Out of a Slav, Euwe was able to execute one of his grand strategic designs, with play across the board, and with the game fully heading his way once Alekhine blundered an exchange. 

Max Euwe vs. Alexander Alekhine
1-0 Alekhine - Euwe World Championship Match Gouda NED Round: 10 ECO: D45
 
Game 11 was one of the very few quiet draws in this match.

In Game 12 Euwe cut the lead to one point with a massacre.  He had found a weakness in Alekhine’s game — his defense against queen’s pawn openings. Alekhine had struggled with the Slav, but now the Grunfeld was no better. He inexplicably sacrificed a pawn on move 8 and was down a piece by move 12. This game is a centerpiece for the theory that alcoholism cost Alekhine his title — according to Kotov‘s (unsubstantiated) account, Alekhine actually meant to move the c-pawn rather than b-pawn on move 8. But Kotov was writing years later and Kasparov argues that the pawn sacrifice was actually sound; Alekhine just mishandled it.

Game 13 was a wildly complicated game where the advantage seemed to change hands several times. The simplest narrative is that Euwe defended effectively against a signature strong-serve opening of Alekhine’s but missed opportunities to convert the win.

Game 14 is Exhibit B for the Alekhine-was-drunk thesis — he castled directly into a brutal h-file attack. Surprisingly, he was able to hang on for a long time, but the result was a foregone conclusion, and, suddenly, the three-point lead was gone and the match tied. 

Max Euwe vs. Alexander Alekhine
1-0 Alekhine - Euwe World Championship Match Various Locations NED Round: 14 ECO: D82
   
Sources: Munninghoff's biography of Euwe isn't available to me online. Kasparov discusses match extensively in My Great Predecessors. Edward Winter addresses the Alekhine alcohol question here. ddtru has an extensive blog post here. There is a rare piece of documentary footage of both Capablanca and Euwe discussing the match in advance and with Capablanca rating Euwe's chances highly.