Mikhail Botvinnik

Euwe - Alekhine Mikhail Botvinnik

The return match Alekhine - Euwe was the most significant event in 1937. Both outstanding players were in excellent shape, except for the unsuccessful game of Euwe at the finish. Their games are a good material to study and, first of all, can bring invaluable benefits to all young chess players. The match-return of Alekhine - Euwe is much more interesting than their first match in 1935. If in the first match, Alekhine played several games, roughly speaking "adventurous", then in this match he was playing in an actual style. The same style in which he played in the 1927 match with Capablanca. However, even in this match, he sometimes unreasonably complicated the position (for example, the fourteenth game); it seems to me that this is due to different reasons - no matter how strong a chess player is, he can incorrectly assess the position. When at the end of 1937 I commented on two games of rematch for the magazine "Chess in the USSR", I noticed that my comments differ from those previously published. Moreover, this is quite understandable: comments can be unmistakable if the chess player does not write them in a hurry. I concluded that it would be extremely useful to re-analyze all the games of the match, despite the fact that they are well known to the Soviet reader. I set myself the task of analyzing the games as deeply as possible, so that the picture of the struggle was the most complete. The readers with interest would re-examine the games. It is not for me to judge how well this task has been accomplished. In advance, I must warn the reader that in some simple games I was not able to contribute anything substantial. However, in those games where the struggle was complicated - here, it seems, I fulfilled my intentions satisfactorily.