On November 23, 1939, President Franklin Roosevelt carved the turkey at the Thanksgiving Dinner on his estate in Warm Springs, Georgia and wished all Americans a happy Thanksgiving. All Americans weren't happy though.
Many were not observing Thanksgiving on that day...they were waiting to celebrate the holiday the following Thursday because in many states November 30th was the official Thanksgiving Day.
In those days, legally, Thanksgiving was not a fixed holiday; it was up to the President to announce what date it would fall on. By tradition, since 1863, it was always the last Thursday in November because that's when President Lincoln declared it a national holiday.
Statistics showed that most people began their Christmas shopping after Thanksgiving and since 1939 had five Thursdays, merchants feared they would lose money because there were only 24 shopping days until Christmas...so they asked Roosevelt to make Thanksgiving a week earlier. Thus, Thanksgiving in 1939 would be held, the President proclaimed, on the 23rd and not the 30th.
Changing the date proved to be a contentious move. Thousands of letters poured into the White House opposing the change. Some retailers were pleased to get the extra week of Christmas shopping which would increase profits, but smaller businesses grumbled that they would lose business to larger stores. How is not clear.
Calendar makers were enraged because they had already printed calendars for 1940. Most schools had already scheduled vacations and annual Thanksgiving Day football games and the change disrupted everything.
And, many were angry because they claimed Roosevelt was trying to alter not only a long-standing tradition, but, also, American values just to help businesses make more money. Some states defied Roosevelt and declared November 30th as Thanksgiving anyway.
It wasn't until Congress to passed a law on December 26, 1941, declaring Thanksgiving to be on the fourth Thursday of November every year that the mess was straightened out.
In the rest of the world more important issues were at stake because they were at war. In the chess world, the Olympiad in Buenos Aires had been disrupted by the outbreak of the war which happened just after the completion of the preliminaries.
The English team returned home immediately and Stuart Milner-Barry, Harry Golombek and C.H.O'D. Alexander went to work at the top-secret code-breaking station at Bletchley Park.
Remarkably, the final went ahead, but the French, Polish and Palestinian teams refused to play against Germany. Organizers decided that unplayed matches would be scored as 2-2 draws. Germany won ahead of Poland and Estonia.
Many European players remained in Argentina after the Olympiad and eventually settled in South America, rather than return to war torn Europe.
After the Nazis annexed Austria in 1938, Austrian players were incorporated into the Greater German Chess Federation. After the annexation the only two players of equal stature were the aging Efim Bogoljubow who was almost almost fifty years old and twenty-five year old Erich Eliskases.
On the Chessmetrics January 1939 rating list Eliskases is ranked 9th and Bogoljubow 11th.
They played a 20-game match between the 4th of January and the 12th of February 1939 that took place in eleven towns and cities in Germany.
It was a clash of styles. Bogoljubow, while a player of strong positional skills, was primarily known as a strong tactician. Eliskases was a predominantly positional player and technically proficient in the ending.
Halfway through the match Eliskases had lost only the first game and had a huge 3 game lead. But, in the second half Bogoljubow fought back and won two games, but also lost two.
How to pronounce Erich Eliskases
How ow to pronounce Efim Bogoljubov
Erich Eliskases–Efim Bogoljubow1–0A70Match Game 3, Germany1939Stockfish 15
Modern Benoni 1.d4 f6 2.c4 e6 3.f3 c5 In the previous game, as white,
Bogoljubow had played the solid but antiquated Giuoco Pianissimo and Eliskases
played energetically and drew the R&P ending. In this game Bogoljubow defends
with a Hyper-modern defense. Frank Marshall invented the Modern Benoni in 1927,
but his experiments with the opening went largely ignored. Then in the 1950s
players in the Soviet Union, especially Mikhail Tal, began using it. It
suffered a theoretical crisis in the 1980s and 1990s, but it made a recovery
when Vladimir Kramnik used it in the 2004 World Championship. 4.d5 exd5 5.cxd5 d6 6.c3 a6 7.a4 g6 8.e4 g7 9.d3 0-0 10.0-0 This is the basic
P-structure of the Modern Benoni. White has a central P-majority, black a
Q-side P-majority. Black aims to counterattack rather than equalize and
frequently must resort to tactical play and material sacrifices in order not
to be forced into passivity. White's central majority gives him a space
advantage on the K-side. However, to make things more complicated, black can
place a R on the e-file which restrains white's play. White can play a4 and
Nf3-d2-c4 to hinder black's Q-side play. As GM Lev Psakhis once wrote, the
Modern Benoni is definitely not an opening for cowards. g4 11.h3 xf3 12.xf3 bd7 13.e2 e5 13...c7 14.f4 fe8 15.f3 c4 16.c2 c5+ 17.h1 b5 18.e3 b4 White is better. Pfleger,H (2545)-Filipowicz,A (2405) Tel Aviv
1964 14.c2 14.f4 is interesting. xd3 15.xd3 d7 16.e5 dxe5 17.f5 f6 Black should have tried a P-sac here with ...c5 and ...Rc8 followed by ...
Nc5 with equal chances. 18.g5 h6 This loses quickly. Again, ...c4 was
better. 19.xf6 xf6 20.fxg6 Inviting, but this loses all his advantage
and allows black back in the game. Winning was 20.Ne4 xg6 21.e4 Now this
is wrong; he should have exchanged Qs. f5 Even better was 21...c4 22.xc5 e4 23.c4 A good looking move, but it's also a losing move! 23.Qe3 was
correct. d6 24.b4 Losing outright. The N belongs on e6 when the chances
would be equal. 24.xb7 b6+ 25.c5 ac8 26.b4 xa1 Black is better. 24...a5 25.b5 d4+ White resigned. Rausch,S (2346)-Granabetter,J Vienna
2003. This game illustrates some of the complications involved in the Modern
Benoni! 14...h5 15.g4 f6 16.f4 ed7 17.e3 e8 To hinder the advance
e5. 18.g2 b5 This is a sound move but results in no more than equality.
Bogoljubow misses the correct followup though. 19.axb5 axb5 20.xa8 xa8 21.g5 White is more active. 21.xb5 favors black after xd5 22.c1 22.exd5 xe3 is very much worse for white. 22...b8 23.e5 xf4 24.xf4 xe5 in this unbalanced position the chances are about even. 21...h5 22.xb5 This is playable now that the possibility of ...Nxd5 has been
eliminated. b8 Inhibits Nc7. 23.d3 b3 is the strong threat. f5
This is questionable. 23...Nb6 threatening Nxd5 as well as c4 wins back the P. 24.gxf6 dxf6 25.c3 25.xd6 was playable, but not better. xd6 26.e5 b8 27.d6 27.exf6 loses to xe3 28.f3 28.fxg7 g3 28...xf3 29.xf3 xf6 wins 27...d7 28.c6 f8 29.c4+ h8 30.d1 It's doubtful that
black can save the game. 25...b3 Better was 25...Bh6 26.c1 26.e5
is not so clear. dxe5 27.b5 b8 28.a4 xb2 29.xb2 xb2 30.fxe5 xd5 31.xd5 xe5 26...d7 27.c2 b4 This is bad. 27...d4+ 28.g2 b8 29.xb3 xb3 is about equal. 28.b5 This is a real gut punch. g3 29.d2 d4+ Black's position is not good, but this is probably the worst mover
available. 29...xb2 30.xb2 xb2 31.e1 and black's d-Pawn goes and
with it the game. 30.g2 Even better was 30.Rf2 30.f2 Black's Q is
trapped. xf2+ 31.g2 with an easy win. 30...xf1 31.xf1 xb2 32.xb2 xb2 33.xd6 a8 34.c4 Inhibits Nb6. c1 35.xc1 a1 36.e5 xc1+
37.e2 The ending is won for white but he needs to exhibit good
technique. h1 38.e6 f6 39.d6 h2+ 40.e1 xh3 41.e5 h1+ 42.d2
Threatens to win with d7. a1 43.d7 a8 44.c6 g7 45.d8 xd8 46.xd8
Stockfish says white is clearly winning, but great care is still required! But,
I was curious. A Shootout using an old engine (Fritz 5.32) was stopped because
while it evaluated the position as won for white, it was running was too
slowly and was making little progress in just the first game, so I stopped it!
The ending is actually not so easy! h5 47.e7 h4 48.b5 h3 49.e8 xe8 50.xe8 f6 51.b7 h2 52.c6 c4 53.d6 g5 54.fxg5+ xg5 55.xc4 Confident
in his opponent's ability to mate with a N and B, Bogoljubow resigned. How
would white mate? Watch. 55.xc4 h1 56.xh1 The Nalimov Endgame
Tablebases show black loses in 27 moves no matter what he plays. f5 57.d5 g5 58.e3 f5 59.d4 g5 60.e5 g6 61.d6 g7 62.e4 g8 63.f6 f8 64.d3 g8 65.f7 f8 66.h7 e8 67.e5 d8 68.e6 c7 69.d7 b7 70.d3 c6 71.e2 c7 72.b5 d8 73.b6 c7 74.a4 d8 75.d6 c8 76.c5 d8 77.a4 c8 78.d7+ b8 79.c6 a7 80.c7 a8 81.b6 b8 82.a6+ a8 83.c6# 1–0
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