Paul Keres

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Paul Keres.
Paul Keres.

Paul Keres (January 7, 1916 – June 5, 1975) was an Estonian chess grandmaster and one of the strongest chess players of all time. On four consecutive occasions he missed the chance of a World Championship match by being runner-up in the Candidates' Tournament. Many claim him to be the strongest player never to become World Chess Champion. He was dubbed "The Crown Prince of Chess".

Contents

[edit] Early life

Paul Keres was born in Narva, Estonia.

Keres first learned about chess from his father and older brother. With the scarcity of chess literature in his small town, he learned about chess notation from the chess puzzles in the daily newspaper, and compiled a handwritten collection of almost 1000 games.[1] In his early days, he was known for a brilliant and sharp attacking style. He was a three-time Estonian schoolboy champion. His playing matured after playing correspondence chess extensively while in high school. From 1937 to 1941 he studied Mathematics at the University of Tartu, and, according to his biography, represented the school in several interuniversity matches.

[edit] pre-War Years

Keres became champion of Estonia for the first time in 1935. He played on the top board for Estonia in the 6th Chess Olympiad at Warsaw 1935 (+11 –5 =3), and was the new star, admired for his dashing style. A bit surprised at his success there, he gained confidence to venture onto the international circuit the next year. A busy two years of building successes, beginning with his victory at Bad Nauheim 1936, greatly advanced his reputation. He had an astounding year 1937: he won or tied for the top in strong tournaments at Margate, Ostend, Prague, and Vienna. This successful string earned him invitation to the very strong tournament at Semmering 1937, which he won ahead of Reuben Fine, Jose Raul Capablanca, and Samuel Reshevsky. He was second at Hastings 1937-38 (behind Reshevsky), and at Noordwijk 1938 (behind Erich Eliskases).

He continued to represent Estonia with success in Olympiad play, including the unofficial Olympiad at Munich 1936 (+12 –1 =7), the 7th Olympiad at Stockholm 1937 (+9 –2 =4), and the 8th Olympiad at Buenos Aires 1939 (+12 –2 =5).

In 1938 he tied with Reuben Fine for first in the all-star AVRO tournament, held in various cities in the Netherlands, beating Fine 1½-½ in their individual two games, ahead of chess legends Mikhail Botvinnik, Max Euwe, Samuel Reshevsky, Alexander Alekhine, José Raúl Capablanca and Salo Flohr. Keres had the edge on Fine by tiebreak. It was expected that the winner of this tournament would be the challenger for the World Champion title, but the outbreak of the Second World War, especially because of the first occupation of Estonia by the Soviet Union in 1940–1941, brought negotiations with the current champion, Alekhine, to an end. Keres had begun his studies in 1938, and this also played a role in the failed match. Keres won Margate 1939 ahead of Capablanca and Flohr.

[edit] World War II

In 1942–1943 Keres and Alekhine both played in four tournaments organized by the German Chess Union. Alekhine won at Salzburg (Six Grandmasters' Tournament) in June 1942, at Munich (1st European Championship) in September 1942, and at Prague (International Tournament) in April 1943, always ahead of Keres. They tied for first at Salzburg (Six Grandmasters' Tournament) in June 1943.

During World War II, Keres played in a number of other chess tournaments, some of which (especially the Soviet ones) were very strong: (1939 Buenos Aires; 1940 Moscow; 1941 Leningrad and Moscow; 1942 Tallinn, 1943 Posen, Tallinn, Madrid; 1944 Lidköping; 1944/45 Riga; and 1945 Tallinn). Keres won matches against Max Euwe in the Netherlands in 1939/1940, and Folke Ekström at Stockholm in 1944.

The close of World War II placed Keres in dangerous circumstances. During the war, his native Estonia was successively occupied by the Soviets, Germany and again the Soviets. Keres participated in several tournaments in Europe under the German occupation, and when the Soviets recaptured Estonia in 1944, he unsuccessfully attempted to flee. As a consequence he was harassed by the Soviet authorities and feared for his life. Fortunately, Keres managed to avoid deportation to Siberia or any worse fate (e.g., that of Vladimirs Petrovs), but his return to the international chess scene was delayed. Presumably for political reasons, he was excluded from the ten-player Soviet team for the 1945 radio match against the U.S.A. and did not participate in the first great post-war tournament at Groningen 1946, which was won by Botvinnik, just ahead of Euwe and Vasily Smyslov.

Keres returned to international play in 1946 in the Soviet radio match against Great Britain, and found his excellent playing form again that year. Even after he resumed a relatively normal life and chess career, however, his play at the highest level appears to have been affected by his outsider status within the Soviet Union, which at a minimum must have aggravated the stress of playing under the watchful eye and tight control of the Soviet chess hierarchy.

[edit] World Championship Candidate (1948-65)

Although he participated in the 1948 World Championship tournament, arranged to determine the world champion after Alekhine's death in 1946, his performance was far from his best. Held jointly in The Hague and Moscow, the tournament was limited to five participants: Mikhail Botvinnik, Vasily Smyslov, Keres, Samuel Reshevsky, and Max Euwe. (Reuben Fine had also been invited but declined.) A player met each of his opponents five times. Keres finished joint third, with 10.5 out of 20 points. In his individual match with the winner Botvinnik he lost four out of five games, winning only in the last round when the tournament's result was already determined.

Since Keres lost his first four games to Botvinnik, it has often been speculated that Keres was pressured by the Soviet authorities to throw games to the more politically correct Botvinnik. A detailed survey of the evidence by Taylor Kingston in 1998 found some people who claimed this happened, but none with clear evidence.[2] [3] In 2002 Kingston interviewed Yuri Averbakh, who suggested that Keres was under subtle, perhaps imagined, political pressure, rather than being told outright to let Botvinnik win.[4]

In other post-war events, however, Keres dominated the field. He won the exceptionally strong USSR Chess Championship three times: (1947, 1950 and 1951). He also won Parnu 1947, Iwonicz Zdrój 1951 and Budapest 1952, the latter ahead of world champion Botvinnik and an all-star field. The Budapest victory, which capped a stretch of four first-class wins in just two years, may represent the peak of his career.

Keres participated in six Candidates' Tournaments:

  • In 1950, he was fourth behind David Bronstein.
  • In Zurich 1953, he was equal second, 2 points behind Smyslov.
  • In Amsterdam 1956, he was outright second, 1.5 points behind Smyslov.
  • In Yugoslavia 1959 he scored a very impressive 18.5/28 (a score which would have been good enough to win in 1962), and had positive or equal scores against all competitors, including a 3-1 score over Mikhail Tal. However this was only good enough for second, as Tal scored an incredible 14.5/16 against the bottom half of the field, to win with 20/28.
  • At Curaçao 1962 he came equal second, half a point behind Tigran Petrosian. (This event is discussed further at World Chess Championship 1963)).
  • In 1965, he lost his quarter-final match 6-4 to eventual Candidates' winner Boris Spassky.

Keres' four second-placed finishes make him by far the player with the most "near misses" to reaching a World Championship match.

[edit] Later Career

After becoming a Soviet citizen, Keres represented the Soviet Union in seven consecutive Olympiads (Helsinki 1952, Amsterdam 1954, Moscow 1956, Munich 1958, Leipzig 1960, Varna 1962, and Tel Aviv 1964), and on each occasion contributed very strongly to Soviet team gold medal victories.

Keres continued to play exceptionally well on the international circuit. His major wins from the mid-1950s included Hastings 1955-56, Mar del Plata 1957, Santiago 1957, Hastings 1958-59, and Zurich 1961. Keres shared first with World Champion Petrosian at the very strong 1963 Piatigorsky Cup in Los Angeles.

Further tournament championships followed: Beverwijk 1964 and Bamberg 1968, two points ahead of World Champion Tigran Petrosian. He won Budapest 1970. Also in 1970, Keres's 3:1 with Ivkov on the last board gave victory to the Soviet team in the match vs Rest of the World. His last Interzonal was Petropolis 1973.

He died of a heart attack in Helsinki, Finland in 1975, at the age of 59, although it is commonly reported that he died on the same date in Vancouver, Canada. His death occurred while returning to his native Estonia from a tournament in Vancouver, which he had won. The Paul Keres Memorial Chess Tournament has been held annually in Vancouver ever since in his honour. Over 100,000 were in attendance at his state funeral in Tallinn, Estonia.

[edit] Chess legacy and writings

Paul Keres was ranked among the top 10 players in the world for close to 30 years, between approximately 1936 and 1965, and overall he had one of the highest winning percentages of all grandmasters in history. Chessmetrics, which specializes in calculating historic ELO ratings and accounting for ratings inflation, has placed his 20-year peak rating as the seventh highest ever, at 2755, from 1944 to 1963.

He was one of the very few players who had a plus record against Capablanca. He also had plus records against World Champions Euwe and Tal, and equal records against Smyslov, Petrosian and Anatoly Karpov. In his long career, he played no fewer than ten world champions. He beat every world champion from Capablanca through Bobby Fischer (his two games with Karpov were drawn), making him the only player ever to beat nine undisputed world champions. Other notable grandmasters against whom he had plus records include Fine, Flohr, Viktor Korchnoi, Efim Geller, Savielly Tartakower, Mark Taimanov, Milan Vidmar, Svetozar Gligoric, Isaac Boleslavsky, Efim Bogoljubov and Bent Larsen.

He wrote a number of chess books, including a well-regarded, deeply annotated collection of his best games, Grandmaster of Chess ISBN 0-668-02645-6, The Art of the Middle Game (with Alexander Kotov) ISBN 0-486-26154-9, and Practical Chess Endings ISBN 0-7134-4210-7. All three books are still considered among the best of their kind for aspiring masters and experts. He also wrote several tournament books. He authored several openings treatises, and contributed to the first volume, 'C', of the first edition of the Yugoslav-published Encyclopedia of Chess Openings (ECO), which appeared in 1974, just before his death the next year. Keres also co-founded the Riga magazine Shahmatny.

Keres made many important contributions to opening theory. Perhaps best-known is the Keres Attack against the Scheveningen Variation of the Sicilian Defence (1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 Nf6 5.Nc3 e6 6.g4), which was successfully introduced against Bogolyubov at Salzburg 1943, and today remains a topical and important line. An original system on the Black side of the Closed Ruy Lopez (1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bb5 a6 4.Ba4 Nf6 5.0-0 Be7 6.Re1 b5 7.Bb3 d6 8.c3 0-0 9.h3 Na5 10.Bc2 c5 11.d4 Nd7) was introduced by Keres at the 1962 Candidates' tournament, and it had a run of popularity for several years. He also popularized the Keres Defence (1.d4 e6 2.c4 Bb4+). Another important system on the Black side of the English Opening was worked out by him; it runs 1.c4 e5 2.Nc3 Nf6 3.g3 c6.

[edit] Acknowledgements

The five kroons (5 krooni) Estonian banknote bears his portrait. He is the only chess player whose portrait is on a banknote.[citation needed]

A statue honouring him can be found on Tõnismägi in Tallinn.

An annual international chess tournament has been held in Tallinn every other year since 1969. Keres won this tournament in 1971 and 1975. Starting in 1977 after Keres' death, it has been called the Paul Keres Memorial. There are also a number of chess clubs and festivals named after him.

In 2000, Keres was elected the Estonian Sportsman of the Century.

[edit] Notable chess games

[edit] Quotes

"At Amsterdam in 1954 he scored 96.4% on fourth board and won another game so brilliant against Šajtar of Czechoslovakia that the Soviet non-playing captain, Kotov, told to me that it was 'a true Soviet game.' I told this to Keres who, with the nearest approach to acerbity I ever saw him show, said: 'No, it was a true Estonian game.'" – Grandmaster Harry Golombek[5] (The game Keres-Šajtar; a typical Sicilian sacrifice on e6)

"At the Warsaw team tournament in 1935, the most surprising discovery was a gangling, shy, 19-year-old Estonian. Some had never heard of his country before, nobody had ever heard of Keres. But his play at top board was a wonder to behold. Not merely because he performed creditably in his first serious encounters with the world's greatest; others have done that too. It was his originality, verve, and brilliance which astounded and delighted the chess world." – Grandmaster Reuben Fine

"I loved Paul Petrovitch with a kind of special, filial feeling. Honesty, correctness, discipline, diligence, astonishing modesty – these were the characteristics that caught the eye of the people who came into contact with Keres during his lifetime. But there was also something mysterious about him. I had an acute feeling that Keres was carrying some kind of a heavy burden all through his life. Now I understand that this burden was the infinite love for the land of his ancestors, an attempt to endure all the ordeals, to have full responsibility for his every step. I have never met a person with an equal sense of responsibility. This man with internally free and independent character was at the same time a very well disciplined person. Back then I did not realise that it is discipline that largely determines internal freedom. For me, Paul Keres was the last Mohican, the carrier of the best traditions of classical chess and – if I could put it this way – the Pope of chess. Why did he not become the champion? I know it from personal experience that in order to reach the top, a person is thinking solely of the goal, he has to forget everything else in this world, toss aside everything unnecessary – or else you are doomed. How could Keres forget everything else?" – Former World Champion Boris Spassky[6]

"I was unlucky, like my country." – Paul Keres, on why he never became world champion.[7]

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ^ Paul Keres, Grandmaster of Chess: The Complete Games of Paul Keres, ed. and trans. by Harry Golombek, Arco, New York, 1977.
  2. ^ The Keres-Botvinnik Case: A Survey of the Evidence, Part I, Taylor Kingston, 1998
  3. ^ The Keres-Botvinnik Case: A Survey of the Evidence, Part II, Taylor Kingston, 1998
  4. ^ Yuri Averbakh, An Interview with History, Part 1, by Taylor Kingston, chesscafe.com, 2002
  5. ^ Noteworthy Estonians - PAUL KERES - Chess player
  6. ^ Noteworthy Estonians - PAUL KERES - Chess player
  7. ^ Remembering Paul Keres, Chessbase, 3-6-2003

[edit] Bibliography

Keres, Paul; Harry Golombek (ed. and trans.). Grandmaster of Chess: The Complete Games of Paul Keres.  Arco, New York, 1977.

Varnusz, Egon. Paul Keres' Best Games, Volume 1: Closed Games.  Cadogan Chess, London, 1994, ISBN 1-85744-064-1.

[edit] External links

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