After Alekhine defeated Capablanca in 1927 he spent 1928 traveling and playing exhibitions in Europe and the United States. During that time he was under some pressure from the chess world to defend his title, preferably against Capablanca. He eventually agreed to a match, but with Bogoljubov.
Efim Bogoljubov (1889-1952) was born in Russia and originally studied for the priesthood, but soon realized he didn't want to be a priest; he wanted to be a professional chessplayer.
A few days after the Alekhine vs. Capablanca match in 1927, they both agreed in general terms that there would be a rematch sometime within the next year, but Capablanca never issued a formal challenge. Instead, in February of 1928, Capablanca wrote the FIDE president explaining his ideas about future changes for the world championship match. He wanted the time limit changed and the number of games reduced to 16. Capa also sent a copy of the letter to Alekhine who wrote Capa back stating that he refused to play under those conditions. Capablanca replied that he was talking about future matches, not their return match.
In the meantime, in August, Bogoljubov challenged Alekhine to a match and Alekhine accepted provided that Bogoljubow could guarantee a $10,000 purse. Then in October, Capa formally challenged Alekhine and Alekhine replied that he would give Bogoljubow until January 1929 to meet the conditions. He also added that even if the match with Bogoljubow did take place, he would then accept Capa's challenge. Rumor has it that in November 1928, American organizers offered Bradley Beach as the site for an Alekhine-Capablanca rematch, but apparently they could not raise the $10,000, or about $145,000 in today's currency.
In January 1929 Alekhine announced that the match with Bogoljubow held more interest for him than one with Capa because Bogoljubow was a “much more serious opponent." When August 1929 rolled around Bogoljubow hadn't been able to raise the money, but Alekhine agreed to play him for a smaller amount.
In order to get ready for his match with Bogoljubow, Alekhine, who was touring the United States, entered a tournament at Bradley Beach, New Jersey, his first tournament after winning the world championship. As there were no world class players taking part unless you count an aging Frank Marshall who finished a dismal sixth out of ten, Alekhine won easily, winning 8 games and drawing with Abraham Kupchik.
Alekhine believed Bogoljubow would be an easy mark and chose him as an opponent with the excuse that Bogoljubow had finished ahead of Capablanca in the 1928 Bad Kissingen tournament and also in 1928 Bogoljubow had defeated Euwe in a match by a score of 5.5-4.5. The match was to be played in different locations in Germany and Holland with the winner being the one with the highest score after 30 games. While Bogoljubow was a great player, he was inconsistent and only Bogoljubow though he had a chance of winning.
The match began in September 1929 with Alekhine getting $6,000 (a little over $88,000 today) and Bogoljubow would get whatever was left. The winner would be the first to score 15.5 points and six wins with a maximum of 30 games. The organizers added a stipulation that unlike the match with Capa which had been played in private, this match had to be public in order to help raise the money. In addition, only cities that contributed to the purse would be allowed to host the match. After twenty-five game Alekhine had won the match by a score of +11 -9 =9.
Alekhine claimed that Bogoljubow was more dangerous, but it was a lot more difficult to beat Capa. After his loss, Bogoljubow believed that nobody had a chance to win against Alekhine and advised Capa to not even bother with a rematch.
The 1934 Match
This match was, for Alekhine, played just for the money. Capa had been trying to get a return match and Alekhine had been avoiding him. In the mean time a new generation of players had appeared on the scene: Reshevsky, Fine, Kashdan, Keres, Botvinnik and Flohr. But, none of them were ever able to get a match with Alekhine.
Another Alekhine – Bogoljubow match was a ho-hum affair in which Alekhine crushed his opponent by a score of +8 -3 =15. Alekhine even wrote the second match was useless from the sporting point of view which explained his indifferent play on a number of occasions. There was to be a similar match almost forty years in the future and that was the second Fischer – Spassky “World Championship” match.
One wonders why Fred Reinfeld and Reuben Fine even bothered to write a book on the match. Nevertheless, since the book is in my library and I spent a dollar on it at the flea market, I decided to a look to see if there are any interesting games. Game two was pretty interesting and it was not exactly the one sided thumping the annotators seemed to suggest. True, Bogoljubow was walking a pretty thin line, but it wasn't until his time pressure blunder on move 26 that you could say he was totally lost. And, one has to admire the way Alkehine concluded the game.
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