03 November 2016

Alekhine 1914-1920

What is unusual about the following image? You might recognize it as two pages from the table of contents to Alekhine's 'Best Games : 1908-1923' (David McKay, 1965). Unusual is the gap between 1914 Mannheim and 1920 Moscow. This is the period covered by my previous posts in this Alekhine series, the most recent based on Albrecht Buschke's Alekhine in Soviet Land.

Of the games listed in chronological order under 'CHAPTER XI. LOCAL TOURNAMENTS...', no.32-45 were all played before WWI broke out in 1914. According to Alekhine, no.46 was played in 1916 and no.52 in 1919. Chessgames.com has individual pages for most of those last seven games:-

The 'Summary of Results' in Alekhine's 'Best Games' also lists nothing between 1914 Mannheim and 1920 Moscow. The English version of Kotov's 'Alexander Alekhine' (R.H.M. Press, 1975) lists three events in that period -- 1916, 1918, 1919 -- all in Moscow; the Russian version (Fizkultura i Sport, 1982) lists the same. These references might be useful as I continue with Buschke's Chess Life series.

No comments: