Author Description

Groningen 1946 was the first major chess tournament after the conclusion of World War II. It was a 20 player round robin. Most of the strongest players of the world were present. Many of the games were exciting and are well annotated by Euwe. They demonstrate that even the strongest grandmasters can make obvious blunders. All of the traditional world champions had died during or in the immediate after math of the war. Emanuel Lasker died January 11, 1941 at age 72. Capablanca died 8 March 1942 at age 53 in the same hospital room as Lasker had died. Alekhine died March 24, 1946 at age 53. This meant FIDE could take control of the World Championship as there was nobody left alive who could claim the world championship as a personal possession. Groningen 1946 was much stronger than London A and B mainly because the top players were allowed out of the Soviet Union for the first time. Botvinnik, Smyslov, Flohr, Boleslavsky and Kotov represented the Soviet Union and Najdorf came from Argentina, his new country, to play. It had been hoped that Fine and Reshevsky would come from the USA to play but they did not arrive. An indication of the relative strenghts was Martin Christoffel, champion of Switzerland, who finished Second in London B, but finished last in Groningen. Another indicator was Botvinnik and Euwe had been in a race for first place. However, when Kotov defeated Botvinnik that seemed to end his chances for first place until Euwe blundered and lost to Najdorf. That ended for the time being the allegation that the Soviet players would throw games to each other to secure first place. This was the last tournament in which Euwe got a good result. In the World Championship Tournament held in 1948, Euwe scored one win, six draws and 13 losses for 4-16. This poor result showed that Euwe could no longer compete credibly for the World Championship.