Alekhine - Euwe. Two Views of the Same Game. Photos and Chat.

Good Morning everyone. Had my head in another Alekhine related book!

My friend Victor Ciobano has been kind enough to send me the first draft of his latest translation work - Botvinnik on the 1937 World Championship Match.

The two Alekhine - Euwe matches are amongst my very favourite matches for the title. Full of drama and wonderful chess. Great battles!

Apologies if this turns into one of my ramblings - just doing my thing of sitting down with some friends and talking chess over a couple of beers. It's what I do!!

 @ddtru has written a wonderful article on the first match - in 1935 - here. https://www.chess.com/blog/ddtru/alekhine-vs-euwe-world-chess-championship-1935   

I am always fascinated by contemporary comments to games. Somewhere in my video archive - VHS for those of you who can remember such things - is a piece of old Blues film, with the wonderful Floyd Jones, a Chicago street musician. 

O.K. taken time out to find it.

''Stockyard Blues. No Kidding. It was right in the time.'' A line that has always stuck in my head.   Contemporary notes put a game 'right in the time'.

I think that it is easy to be mislead by comments written years after games - particularly those using computer analysis and written by annotators who have not studied the players. Just my opinion!! Anyone presenting games of the greats is doing a good  job, as far as I am concerned- even when they have no idea what they are talking about!!

In the work mentioned we have the comments made at the time by someone who was both a World Class player - one of the greatest -  and rival of the participants. And, of course, Botvinnik was a fine analyst.

So, a brief post today, presenting just one game, with the comments of both Alekhine and Botvinnik.

Due to the difficulties in combining the notes within one game in the electronic format, I have done two files. Not a problem! You can just go through both at the same time on  the screen to compare the annotations.

Assuming that they will fit on the same page!

Since my last couple of articles have been based on tactical battles, I have decided to give a more positional one. It is also one of my absolute favourites from the match.

My friend @kamalakanta recently posted - with reference to Tal - to the effect that all great players are strong in all areas of the game. Apologies for not having the link to hand - hopefully someone will add it in the comments.

Like Tal, Alekhine has the well deserved reputation of being a great - and ferocious -  attacker. However, he could also play wonderful positional chess. (Interestingly, Alekhine believed himself to be superior to Euwe in that respect)

Like Kasparov, many years later, he also put a lot of time and effort into improving his endgame play.

So, enjoy the game! Firstly with notes by Alekhine, from the relevant 'My Best  Games' volume. ( There is also a slightly different set of notes by him available, but I didn't want to confuse things.)

Then I will give the Botvinnik notes from the Ciobano book.

So, a suitable point to add a nice photo - the end of the 1937 match, found via zanchess. No doubt better versions can be found in the Dutch press archives. Hint taken anyone??!!

Euwe was a gentleman in the true sense. Note him applauding the winner.

There are some great players who I respect as fine human beings as well as their standing as great players.

There are some great players about whom I can only quote the great Roberto Duran and say that if you had shut the two of us in a phone box, only one of us would have walked out.

Euwe was in the first group!! ( And he would have probably been the one who walked away if he had been in the second group!! )

So, Alekhine's notes. Alekhine was one of the great annotators. His best games collections are a 'must read'.

Perhaps one day I will actually get round to the promised  article on my favourite annotators - is a matter of finding the time to do endless one finger typing!!

I found his note at move 22 particularly instructive. White has cashed in his positional advantage in exchange for a Pawn. Then the game begins again. You learn from such small comments.

A photo that I really like, of Alekhine and his son. For all that the great man was, or was not, he was as human as the rest of us.

 Botvinnik's notes - via Victor Ciobiano. I will post them here to keep them on the same page for you be able to run both games at the same time. Fingers crossed! If not, there are 3 dots top right of screen. click on that and take the magnification down to 90%. Worked for me!!

At the time, Botvinnik was hard at work - studying the games of the World Title Match would have been part of that. He had a semi-forgotten match of his own in hand, against a fascinating chess figure, Grigory Levenfish. ( other spellings are available!!)

I believe that Douglas Griffin is working on a translation of the Russian language version of the Levenfish autobiographical best games book. ( I am very lucky and have an original )

If, as, and when it appears I will let you know. It is one of my dream books, even though it was edited by the Soviet 'powers that be', before publication.

I think that it may be this book :-

It is not released yet, but keep your eyes open, here. 

http://www.qualitychess.co.uk/products/1/355/soviet_outcast_by_grigory_levenfish/ 

A photo via douglas griffin of the match - game 11.

Thanks for coming along for the ride guys. It's been an enjoyable afternoon just talking about chess things gone by.

Cheers!!