Alekhine At San Remo 1930. One Of Chess History's Greatest Performances. Part Three.
Back with the final part of the story of Alekhine's rampage through the field at San Remo. Lots here - especially in the notes - so grab a beer and settle in for the afternoon! Will keep the chat to a minimum! ( sighs of relief all round, but my enthusiasm for doing this stuff is greater than your enthusiasm for reading it!)
On to round eleven. At this point Alekhine was two points clear of the field, and was Black against his recent challenger for the World Championship.
Time for a quick draw? Nope! It was a draw, but not of the 'Grandmaster' type by any means.
Round twelve saw him up against one of the lesser known players, seen here standing behind Alekhine at Pasadena 1932.
In round thirteen - against a player - Colle -
In round fourteen he was up against the great Akiva Rubinstein
And on to the final round. No thoughts of a quick draw with Black and take home first prize with Alekhine. He goes for an unbalanced position, where the opposite coloured Bishops favour the attacker, and eventually prevails. A great at work trying to win with Black against a lesser light.
In his really wonderful book
Tkachenko goes into some detail on Alekhine's various wives. His third wife is in the above picture - Nadezhda Semyonovna Vasilevna - a widow when she and Alekhine married, and, as was his way, significantly older than him - 19 years, according to the book.
Tkachenko quotes an interview with her daughter - Gwendolina Isnard - which is really fascinating. I can only say - go buy the book!!
From what I am reading there she was a remarkable woman, fluent in four languages, an accomplished musician, and generous to the point that she made sure that Alekhine's previous wife was taken care of.
A picture from the book -- with thanks to Ilan at Elk and Ruby- I have it elsewhere but am struggling to find it!
She also kept Alekhine, more or less, on the 'straight and narrow'. She looked after him, limited his famous alcohol consumption, etc. I think she was good for him! The marriage broke up in 1933.
Much nonsense has been written about Alekhine 'drinking away his title' with relation to the 1935 match. The Euwe article given in part one addresses that question to an extent. However, it is clear, if you study his games, that Alekhine was definitely at his very best during the period of his marriage to Nadezhda, and fell away after it ended. When studying chessplayers you have to take everything into account - including circumstances which are far from obvious.
O.K. some bits to finish up with.
