When the war broke out The Netherlands was neutral, but that made no difference to the Nazis. On May 10, 1940, they invaded the country and on May 15, 1940, one day after the bombing of Rotterdam, the Dutch forces surrendered. The Dutch government and the royal family saved themselves by fleeing to London.
The Netherlands occupation by the Nazis lasted in some areas until the Germans surrendered in May 1945. Active resistance was carried out by a minority, which grew in the course of the occupation. The Nazis deported the majority of the country's Jews to Nazi concentration camps.
Prior to the invasion, between the 24th of December, 1939 and the 15th of January, 1940 Paul Keres and Dr. Max Euwe treated the chess world to a match that had been anticipated by players the world over.
Euwe was the ex-world champion and Keres was the winner of the great Semmering-Baden tournament of 1937 where he finished first ahead of Fine, Capablanca, Reshevsky, Flohr, Eliskases, Ragozin and Petrov.
Keres was also co-winner of the even more formidable AVRO tournament in 1938. There he tied for first with Fine ahead of Botvinnik, Euwe, Reshevsky, Alekhine, Capablanca and Flohr.
The match was staged in Amsterdam, Utrecht, Hilversum, The Hague and Rotterdam. Prior to this match, Euwe and Keres had played five times and the score was +2 =2 -1 in favor of Euwe.
It was an exciting match and Euwe got off to a fine start. Part of Keres’ bad start may have been due to his travel plans and the fact that the match almost collapsed at the last moment.
After the Olympiad, Keres had returned to Tallinn via Gibraltar, Genoa and Berlin. He had then planned to travel to Amsterdam by train. Due to visa difficulties, he was forced to commence the trip from Stockholm, but the ferry to Stockholm was overbooked. Keres was about to telegraph the organizers that the match would not take place, when he heard that a group of people in Riga had arranged a private plane charter from Stockholm. He managed to persuade them to give him a seat and arrived just in time.
Euwe won the third and fourth games, then after two interesting drawn games Keres tied the score by winning two beautiful games. Euwe again forged ahead by winning the seventh game but then struck a bad snag and lost the eighth, ninth and tenth games, leaving him two games down which was too much to make up.
Nevertheless, Euwe fought back and drubbed Keres in the eleventh game, but Keres fought back and administered Euwe a bad beating in the twelfth game. Keres needed only a draw in the remaining two games to clinch the match.
In the thirteenth game, Euwe played so nervously that he soon found himself with an inferior game and was happy to accept the draw offer. The match was over, but they played the fourteenth game which Euwe won, but it did not affect the outcome.
According to Garry Kasparov game 14 was Euwe's best achievement. He defended with a Queen's Gambit Accepted and the game followed contemporary theory until move 13. Keres played passively and allowed Euwe to develop a significant initiative. Euwe won the exchange, then overcame Keres' determined defense in a complex endgame.
The match came about because after Euwe’s successful winning spurt in the second half of the AVRO tournament in the fall of 1938, he immediately formed the “Euwe Committee” and began a new project.
The Committee considered a match against either Paul Keres or Reuben Fine, both winners at AVRO. Under the provisions of the AVRO tournament Keres had right to a title match against Alekhine. Euwe and the Committee did not want to interfere with that, so Fine was invited to play a 14 game match against Dr. Euwe in the summer of 1939.
Fine accepted the invitation, but backed out in the spring of 1939 due to the international situation. Meanwhile, the negotiations between Keres and Alekhine had failed and so the Committee invited Keres and he immediately accepted.
The match was viewed with great anticipation because it would settle the question of whether Euwe had returned to form and so be in a position to challenge Alekhine to a new title match, or whether Keres, who was fourteen years younger and was regarded by many as a future world champion, would be the most eligible.
Another question the match answered was how Keres' style going to evolve? His play was enterprising and he had a marked preference for gambits and almost always played an attacking type of game. Some called his play “wild.”
At the same time Keres had a good knowledge of opening theory, was a good defensive player and an artist in endgames. It was expected that eventually he would settle down and adopt a quieter, safer style.
After the match it was reported that the Euwe Committee arranged for a return match to take place in 1941, but it never happened because of the war.
You can view Euwe's forceful win in game 11 on YouTube HERE
No comments:
Post a Comment