In between those two unfortunate losses, from April 1st to June 14th, the world championship match was held in 12 cities in Germany (Baden-Baden, Villingen, Freiburg, Pforzheim, Stuttgart, Munich, Bayreuth, Bad Kissingen, Nuremburg, Karlsruhe, Manheim, and Berlin) between Alekhine and Bogoljubov. Alekhine easily retained his title. After the match, Alekhine accepted a championship match with Max Euwe.
Botvinnik drew a match (+2 -2 =8) with 25-year-old Salo Flohr (then a Czech citizen) held in Moscow and Leningrad. Flohr probably ranked right behind Alekhine and Kashdan.
The match was arranged by Alexander Ilyin-Genevsky, a member of the Soviet embassy in Prague. It was opposed by high level Soviet chess officials becaused they didn't think Botvinnik stood any chance against such a strong opponent. In spite of attempts to dissuade him, Nikolai Krylenko, who in the 1930s headed the Soviet chess, checkers, insisted the match be played because, "We have to know our real strength."
Botvinnik fell two games behind by the end of the first six games which were played in Moscow. However, aided by his old friend Ragozin and coach Abram Model, heevened the score in Leningrad and the match was drawn.
In March the newspapers reported that chess master, pedophile, thief and con artist Norman T. Whitaker, an imprisoned lawyer companion of rogue FBI agent Gaston B. Means, convicted of swindling Mrs. Evalyn Walsh McLean of $104,000 on the pretense of recovering the kidnapped Lindbergh baby, was singing like a canary in an attempt to bargain for his freedom by telling where the money is hidden. Whitaker also is said to have declared that Means knows the "inside story" of the Lindbergh kidnapping.
The Western Open (US Open) was held in Chicago and Samuel Reshevsky and Reuben Fine tied for first with a score of 7.5-1.5. They were followed by Arthur Dake (6.5) and Arnold Denker (5.5).
Chess Review magazine complained that the negotiations for a Marshall-Kashdan match for the US title were still dragging and added, "From present indications it looks as though it will continue to drag on, and on, and on."
While the magazine (i.e. Al Horowitz) expressed respect and admiration for both Frank Marshall and Isaac Kashdan, "over and above any individual chess player, or gcoup of chess players. stands the great chess public." And, the public wanted a match and they were entitled to it.
Horowitz opined that the present situation was absurd and Marshall's demand for a purse of $5,000 (about a whopping $97,000 in today's buying power) was absurd because the title wasn't worth that much.
Chessmetrics estimates Al Horowitz' rating in 1934 to have been in the mid-2400s barely placing him in the world's top 100 players.
Horowitz (November 15, 1907 – January 18, 1973) was a leading player in the U.S. during the 1930s and 1940s. He was U.S. Open Champion in 1936, 1938, and 1943. In 1941, he lost a match (+0−3=13) with Reshevsky for the US Championship. He played on the U.S. Team in four Chess Olympiads, in 1931, 1935, 1937, and 1950.
In the 1945 USA-USSR radio match Horowitz scored one of the only two wins for the US by defeating Salo Flohr and in the 1946 edition of the same event he split his match against Isaac Boleslavsky.
In 1934, Chessmetrics puts Reuben Fine's rating at about 2600 placing him in the world's top 25.
In January the 20-year old Fine won the 17th Marshall Chess Club Championship and he was US Open Champion in 1932, 1933 and 1934. He would go on to win the title again in 1935, 1939, 1940 and 1941.
Fine had graduated from City College of New York in 1932, at the age of 18 and first achieved prominence by winning the championship of the Marshall Chess Club, a few years earlier. At the Olympiad at Folkestone in 1933, playing on board 3, he scored +6 -1 =6 earning the board silver medal.
Thus, in 1933, Fine was a seasoned veteran and one of the country's outstanding players. Chess Review said the quality of his play entirely belied his years. Never impetuous, always imaginative, he is capable of winning by virtue of a thorough knowledge of positional principles and an ability to achieve and increase small and subtle advantages.
He began 1934 by again winning the championship of the Marshall Chess Club and in the spring he engaged in a twelve-game match, played at various venues over a couple of months time, with Horowitz. All of the games illustrated Fine's resourcefulness and his style of play as Fine scored a decisive +4 -1 =5 victory.
Horowitz got off to an unexpected bad start by losing the first two games when Fine played aggressive, attacking chess. In the last game Horowitz declined a draw offer and lost giving Fine 6.5 points in what turned out to be an easy match victory. The last two games scheduled at the Marshall and Manhattan Chess Clubs were not played.
Note that the database in 365chess.com is incorrect. It lists only nine games, but the Brooklyn Daily Eagle (July 5, 1934) verifies that ten games were played.
Fine 1 1 = = 1 = 0 = 1 = 6.5
Horowitz 0 0 = = 0 = 1 = 0 = 3.5
The following first game of the match was an indication of what was to come as Fine handled Horowitz with ease.
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