Zandvoort 1936

Paul Keres

     In the summer of 1936, sandwiched between the tournaments at Moscow and Nottingham, an international tournament was organized in Zandvoort, The Netherlands from July 18th to August 1st. 
     Although World Champion Max Euwe was playing, the star turned out to be the 21 year old Reuben Fine who won the tournament undefeated. This win would be the first of many successes for Fine. 
     Fine was younger than his main rival Reshevsky and was considered by some to be even more promising. He had already chalked up a some good results: 2nd at Lodz 1935 behind Tartakower, a plus score on board one at the 1935 Warsaw Olympiad and first ahead of Flohr at Hastings 1935-36. 
     Tartakower had this to say about Fine: “Lately it has become clear that the best tournament players have been Reshevsky and Fine, both avoiding refined opening theory and exhibiting the triumph of common sense over flashes of ‘creativity’. The main subject of discussion in Zandvoort was determining the style of Fine, whose wins are somehow unnoticeable, while he saved his other games with numerous daring salto mortales. The experts were finally able to conclude that Fine's style is based on the lack of one.” 
     At the age of 19, Keres got a chance to prove himself in Zandvoort where he filled in for Botvinnik who had turned down his invitation. Three losses (Euwe, Fine and Maroczy) relegated him to third place. 
     The tournament was held at the Grand Hotel in the seaside resort town of Zandvoort and was the first important international tournament in Holland since 1928 when the amateur world championship was held in The Hague. 
     Euwe was rushed to the tournament by car after his last exam and was hoping to use this tournament to get in shape for the upcoming Nottingham tournament which was to start a few weeks later. Euwe wanted to play like a true world champion at Nottingham and so Zandvoort was important for him. 
     At the same time, Euwe didn’t want his supporters to gets their hopes up and told them. “I am a better match player than a tournament player. I am not pessimistic but not optimistic either. I believe it’s better to warn people whose expectations of me are too high.” 
     The tournament was opened by the mayor of Zandvoort and the press began asking questions about how Euwe had managed to defeat Alekhine and Bogoljubow stated that it was because of Euwe’s youth and greater tactical (!) talent. That was an odd statement because when it came to tactics, with a few exceptions, Euwe never surpassed Alekhine. 
     Fine assumed the lead early on and was never really challenged and was the only player to go through the schedule undefeated, though he had a close call in his game with Euwe. 
     When they met in round 5 Fine got into a horrible position, but Euwe slipped up and only drew. That left Fine a half point ahead which he increased to a full point in round 6 when Euwe made an horrific blunder against Bogoljubow and lost. After that Fine sailed to an undefeated first a full point ahead of Euwe. 
     Asked to explain his blunders against Fine and Bogoljubow, Euwe said, “Tiredness, nothing else.” He went on to state that people expected too much of him. Exams had just finished and he had no chance to prepare and he had no chance to recover from his “extraordinarily tiring time at school.” He also believed that though the tournament helped get back into his stride, it would have been wiser for him not to participate at Zandvoort, but that would have been too much of a disappointment to the organizers. 
     Some have considered that Max Euwe won the world championship by accident and that he was the weakest of all the world champions, but that is unfair. While Euwe may not have dominated his contemporaries, they didn't demonstrate any clear superiority over him, either. He had excellent results prior to defeating Alekhine in 1935 and when he lost the title in 1937 the match was actually quite close until very near the end. 
     The tournament featured some exciting and instructive games and many are worth looking at. One game, Keres vs. Euwe, featured a struggle around the advanced white P on e5 and Euwe’s attack on Keres’ King is well known and was included by Fine in his book The World’s Great Chess Games. Hans Kmoch also used it as an example of levers in Pawn Power In Chess. 

 
     Kere’s opponent in this game was Lodewijk Prins (January 27, 1913 – November 11, 1999). Prins was awarded the IM title in 1950, International Arbiter in 1960 and was awarded the Emeritus GM title in 1982. He was Dutch champion in 1965. Prins was an arbiter and an endgames judge and in his later years he had a problems column, organizing yearly composing competitions. He also was a well respected writer and coauthored several chess books with Euwe.