Podebrady 1936

   The year 1936 began with the 16th Annual Hastings Christmas Congress ending on January 4th. The winner of the Premier Section was Reuben Fine followed by Flohr, Tartakower and Koltanowski. 
     Adele Rivero won the U.S. Women’s Championship which was held at the Marshall Chess Club from January 26 to April 5. Alexander Kevitz defeated Albert Simonson in a playoff to win the Manhattan Chess Club Championship. 
     The first U.S. Chess Championship Tournament was held in New York from March 30 to May 16 and was won Samuel Reshevsky ahead of Albert Simonson, Reuben Fine and George Treysman (tied) and Isaac Kashdan. 
     The Premier Tournament at Margate, England was won by Salo Flohr ahead of Capablanca and Stahlberg. An international tournament in Moscow was won by Jose Capablanca followed by Flohr, Lilienthal, Ragozin and Emanuel Lasker.
     Alexander Alekhine and Paul Keres tied for 1st place at Bad Nauheim, Germany. Aleklhine also finished first at Dresden. He was followed by Engels, Maroczy and Stahlberg (tied) and Bogoljubow. 
     At the international tournament in Zandvoort, Holland the winner was Reuben Fine followed by world champion Euwe, Keres and Tartakower (tied).
     The really big tournament of the year was the great Nottingham tournament which was held August 10-28, 1936. Botvinnik and Capablanca tied for 1st place and were followed by Euwe, Fine and Reshevsky (tied), Alekhine, Lasker and Flohr (tied). 
     The American Chess Federation Congress (forerunner of the U.S. Open) was held in Philadelphia. Al Horowitz won it. Arthur Dake and Arnold Denker tied for second ahead of Isaac Kashdan and Abraham Kupchik. 
     From August 17-31, 1936, an Olympic Team Tournament was held in Munich, Germany. The Hungarians won and were followed by Poland and Germany. This event wasn;t sponsored by FIDE so it was an unofficial Olympiad. 
     In Poughkeepsie, New York Isaac Kashdan defended his title with 10 wins and 1 draw to remain state champion. 2nd-3rd was a tie between Herman Helms and George Shainswit. We know all of that thank's to Bill Wall's wonderful site to which there is a link on the left!

     Pretty much lost to history was the tournament in Podebrady, an historical spa town in the Czech Republic about 31 miles east of Prague. It was also the 14th Czechoslovak Championship and was held from July 5-26, 1936. It was organized as an international event with the title going to the top Czech finisher. You can see the photo of the players and a couple of autographed postcards on page 42 HERE. 
   

 Flohr and Alekhine were the two world championship caliber players and after nine rounds Alekhine was at 7-2 and Flohr 6-3, but the surprise of the tournament was Paulino Frydman, the Polish master, who was in first with a score of 8-1 thanks to a six game winning streak in rounds 2-7. 
     After that Frydman collapsed and didn’t win another game for the rest of the tournament. In his round 14 game with Flohr, Frydman was still only one point behind Alekhine and Flohr when he resigned in a position that he probably could have won. Rumor had it that he suffered a nervous breakdown as a result, but see Edward Winter’s post on the affair HERE. 
     In the final round, Flohr played a safe 17-move draw while Alekhine went all out against Petrov and narrowly avoided losing. Flohr lost one game, to Eliskases while Alekhine was undefeated. His draws with Skalicka and Thomas turned out to be very costly. 

1) Flohr 13.0 
2) Alekhine 12.5 
3) Foltys 11.0 
4-5) Stahlberg and Pirc 10.5 
6-7) Eliskases and Frydman 9.5 
8-9) Richter and Pelikan 9.0 
10-11) Petrov and L. Steiner 8.5 
12) Opocensky 8.0 
13) Menchik 7.0 
14) Zinner 6.5 
15-16) Treybal and Skalicka 6.0 
17-18) Fazekas and G.A. Thomas 4.0 

     Karel Opocensky (born February 7, 1892 _ November 16, 1975, 83 years old) was the Czech champion in 1927, 1929 and 1938. He was awarded the IM title in 1950 and was the chief arbiter at the Botvinnik - Bronstein World Championship Match in 1951 and the Botvinnik - Smyslov match in 1954. 
     Dr. Karel (Carlos) Skalicka (November 1, 1896 – December 10, 1979, 83 years old) was born in the Czech Republic; he also used the pseudonym Karoly Mitovsky. He remained in Argentina following the outbreak of World War II.

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[Event "Podebrady"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "1936.7.14"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Karel Opocensky"]
[Black "Karel Skalicka"]
[Result "1-0"]
[WhiteELO "?"]
[BlackELO "?"]

%Created by Caissa's Web PGN Editor
{Queen's Gambit Accepted} 1. d4 d5 2. c4 dxc4 {A rare bird at the time when
the QGD Orthodox Defense was all the rage. Black surrenders the center and
will try to weaken white's center Ps to gain an advantage in the ending by
playing ...c5 and ...cxd4 at some point. White can also end up with an
isolated d-Pawn with an ensuing sharp battle. For his part, white will try to
seize space in the center and use it to launch an attack. This is almost never
seen because it's believed the early development of the Q allows black to gain
time by harassing it. The statistics do not seem to support that believe
though.} 3. Qa4+ c6 4. Qxc4 b6 {Black has also tried 4...Nf6 and 4... g6 here.
Skalicka's move is an interesting experiment even if it didn't work in this
game.} 5. Nf3 Ba6 {I bet everybody thought the B was going to b7!} 6. Qc2 Nd7
7. g3 {In a 2001 Internet game between a couple of players, Matisson,
J-Radeiski,W, white played the innocuous 7.e4 Bxf1 8.Kf1 and the agreed to a
draw on move 10. Opocensky's move looks more logical.} 7... Rc8 8. Bg2 e6 9.
O-O c5 10. Nc3 {After 10...cxd4 11.Nxd4 the threatened Nc6 forces black to
play ... Bb7 anyway.} 10... Bb7 11. e4 cxd4 12. Nxd4 Bc5 13. Rd1 a6 {To guard
against a potential Nb5-d6.} 14. Nb3 Be7 {A loss of time...a small and almost
imperceptible factor, but it's things like this that are important in GM play.
Komodo is already giving white a sizable (over 1-1/4 Pawn) advantage here.}
15. Bf4 {What is black to do? He can't very well play 15...Ngf6 16.Qe2 O-O
because then 17.e5 leads to exchanges on d5 and the loss of a P. Engines are
recommending the daredevil plan of ...g4 and ...h5 for black as his best
chance at counterplay.} 15... b5 16. Qe2 Qb6 17. Nd5 {Instead of the solid
17.Rac1 white elects to go the tactical route.} 17... exd5 18. exd5 Kf8 19.
d6 Bf6 {White only has his P on d6 for the N, but black's K is dangerously
exposed so white has more than enough compensation. Still, it's going to take
some pretty nifty play for white to demonstrate that he is considerably
better.} 20. Be3 {It turns out that 20.Rac1 would have been better.} 20...
Re8 {Theoretically white's best line would have been 21.Bxb6 Rxe2 22.Bxb7 Nxb6
23.d7 Nxd7 24.Rxd7 and all the exchanges would leave black drawing chances.}
21. Qg4 Rxe3 {Forced, but it's the only move and it puts black back in the
game.} 22. Qxd7 {Best. If 22. fxe3 Ne5 black has active play.} 22... Bxg2 23.
Rac1 {Now black misses his chance. 23...g6 and if 24.fxe3 (White can introduce
unclear complications with 24.Qc7) Qxe3+ draws.} 23... Re8 24. Rc7 {Clearly
white has the upper hand and black is facing a difficult defense.} 24... Nh6
{This is a difficult position for both sides. White's best chance lies in the
variation 25.Qxe8+ Kxe8 26.d7+ Kd8 27.Rc8+ Ke7 28.Rxh8 Ke6 29.Kxg2 Ng4 30.Rd2
Bd8]} 25. Kxg2 {This move presents black with the chance to equalize, maybe
even get slightly the better of it. Correct is connecting the Rs with 25...g6!
and 26...Kg7 which would make things quite difficult for white.} 25... Rd8
26. Nc5 {Nice.} 26... Kg8 {Of course now he really does threaten to take the
Q. White keeps a winning advantage by retreating the Q to h3 where it would
only sit for a short time. Or, he could also play 27.Rc6 and keep a nice
advantage.} 27. Re1 {Instead he allows black to keep himself in the game with
27...g5!! This move would have given black's K an escape square on g6. After
27...g5!! 28.Qh3 Qxd6 29.Qh6 Be7 black has nearly equalized.} 27... g6 { This
awful move allows a mate in 3.} 28. Re8+ Kg7 29. Ne6# 1-0