Author Description

This is a collection of the most instructive games played by Dr. Max Euwe against some of the strongest players in the world, with annotations by the American Fred Reinfeld. I would say that it is probable that this the best collection of games suitable for study anywhere for the average player. I only met Max Euwe one time. That was during a break in the meetings for the 1972 Fischer-Spassky Match for the World Chess Championship in Reykjavik, Iceland. I took advantage of the break to ask Dr. Euwe how to pronounce his name. I later felt embarrassed that I had asked the great man such a trivial question. Of course, nobody who is not Dutch can pronounce his name accurately. There is a well known ditty, "Kindly say its untrue we, pronounce it as you-we." Dr. Max Euwe was the only world champion who was never a professional chess player. He ws a college professor of Mathematics. Max Euwe was born May 20, 1901 - and died November 26, 1981 at age 80. Had it not been for Dr. Euwe, the World Chess Championship match between Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky would never have been played. There was controversy as to how Dr. Euwe won and lost the world championships. Some said Alekhine was drunk when he lost and sobered up to get the title back. The games themselves were strange and unique. Alekhine won the World Championship by beating Capablanca in a match in Havana Cuba in 1927. He refused to give Capablanca a rematch but played opponents he felt he could beat such as Bogoljubow and Euwe. Alekhine even reused to play in a tournament where Capablanca was also a player while Alekhine was World Champion. Thus, it was a great shock when Alekhine lost to Euwe