Alekhine At San Remo 1930. One Of Chess History's Greatest Performances. Part One.

I don't do GOAT lists!! In either chess or cricket you have to put everything into it's time and be objective. However in chess history there have been a number of players who just dominated everyone at a particular point in time. A recent conversation with @Terlito reminded me of an article - or series of articles, that I started on a while ago and never got round to. 

In 1930 Alekhine utterly dominated chess. In that year he scored - from memory, 23 out of 24 in important events. ( To balance that, his performance of 9/9 in the Hamburg Olympiad was against selected opponents) Not only a great score(!), but, to my mind more importantly, the quality of the chess that he played - put into the historical context - was simply astounding.

To my mind, taking everything into consideration, no player has ever played better chess within the constraints of the era than Alekhine in 1930. So I will give his games from the San Remo tournament - with his own notes where possible - over three blogs. Just enjoy the chess!

Also some great pictures from the event have recently come to light - I first found them on twitter via Douglas Griffin, but there are many links to be found now, so I will include them as I go along.

The conversation with @Terlito was about an article that Max Euwe wrote about his matches with Alekhine. I will quote this from it... 

''So far as the opening stage was concerned he was in a class by himself. Both in San Remo and bled he usually got the better positions in the openings. and since he was the strongest of all the contemporary players, no wonder that one brilliant victory came after another.

These were in effect handicap games in which the stronger player received the odds of a better position in the opening. As a result Alekhine made short work of most of his opponents. I still remember Spielmann who, while studying Alekhine's games in San Remo, pointed out that the World Champion's opponents hadn't even had the time to castle.''

Perhaps one day I will post the full article, but for now just enjoy the chess, and feel free to enter the - subjective - debate on the greatest chess performances ever. 

LOTS of one finger typing here, so please don't point out the typos!!

Round One. Monticelli, the local representative.

He wasn't so bad!! In this tournament he won a famous brilliancy against Bogoljubov. Alekhine crushed him.

Round 2. Black against a player who had already beaten him twice - Fred Yates. a wonderful battle - Alekhine annotated it in 'My Best Games of Chess. 1924-37.'

Round 3. Alekhine's best known game from the tournament - the origin of the term 'Alekhine's Gun.' His opponent

is quoted as saying 'Alekhine treated us all like children'.

Round 4. As Alekhine notes, games between him and the wonderful Milan Vidmar ( check out my blogs on him!) were always fantastic battles. The ending of this game is much discussed as a theoretical endgame of great significance. For example here :- http://www.chessninja.com/whitebelt/samples/019whitebelt.htm  

What a game!! fascinating from start to finish.

O.K. I am going to go out of sequence here, because this was the first game which I did the notes for, and it is one of my very favourite Alekhine games - trust me I have studied pretty much every one of Alekhine's tournament and match games - a special pleasure in my life of studying chess games.

His ....Nd5 idea always stuck in my head - an incredible move!! I used the idea myself in an analogous position - learn from the greats!! If I remember just one of his brilliant and surprising ideas, it is that one.

The way in which he turned a quiet, positional opening - with Black - into a dog-fight to create chances to get the initiative. The almost casual way in which he sacrificed a Pawn or two ( I view it as one and a half Pawns) for 'positional compensation' which he doesn't even bother to explore in depth in his notes, as if it were all self - evident. 

The quiet moves to keep his initiative alive, and the final crushing attack.

This is just a magnificent game. Has anyone played better within the possibilities of their own era. Questionable! As Tartakower said 'Akekhine spielt Sonnenschach.' Chess which shines like the sun being one translation. 

For all his faults Alekhine was simply the most magnificent player, and at San Remo he reached heights which have been matched by very few, and very rarely.