PAUL KERES

'Paul Keres' (born January 7, 1916, Narva, Estonia – June 5, 1975, Helsinki, Finland) was an Estonian chess grandmaster and one of the strongest chess players of all time. Keres was also a highly respected chess author. 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 nicknamed "The Crown Prince of Chess". Keres won the 1938 AVRO Tournament in The Netherlands, which qualified him for a World Championship match against Alexander Alekhine, but the match never took place. Keres won three Soviet Chess Championships (1947, 1950, and 1951), as well as several elite tournaments over top-class fields, such as Semmering 1937, Budapest 1952, and Los Angeles 1963.

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.

pre-War Years

Keres became champion of Estonia for the first time in 1935. He tied for first (+5 =1 -2) with Gunnar Friedmann in the tournament, then defeated him (+2 =0 -1) in the playoff match. Later in 1935, Keres defeated Kibbermann, one of Tartu's leading masters, in a training match, by (+3 =0 -1).
Keres played on the top board for Estonia in the 6th Chess Olympiad at Warsaw 1935 (+11 =3 -5), 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. At Helsinki 1935, he placed 2nd behind Friedmann with 6.5/8 (+6 =1 -1). He won at Tallinn 1936 with 9/10 (+8 =2 -0). Keres' first major international success came at Bad Nauheim 1936, where he tied for first with Alexander Alekhine at 6.5/9 (+4 =5 -0). He struggled at Dresden 1936, placing only 8th-9th with (+2 =3 -4), but wrote that he learned an important lesson from this. Keres recovered at Zandvoort 1936 with a shared 3rd-4th place (+5 =3 -3). He then defended his Estonian title in 1936 by drawing a challenge match against Paul Schmidt with (+3 =1 -3).
Keres had an astounding year in 1937. He won at Tallinn with 7.5/9 (+6 =3 -0). Then he tied 1st-2nd at Margate with Reuben Fine at 7.5/9 (+6 =3 -0), 1.5 points ahead of Alekhine. At Ostend, he tied 1st-3rd places with Fine and Henry Grob at 6/9 (+5 =2 -2). Keres dominated at Prague to claim first with 10/11 (+9 =2 -0). He then won a theme tournament at Vienna with 4.5/6 (+4 =1 -1); the tournament saw all games commence with the moves 1.d4 Nf6 2.Nf3 Ne4. He tied 4th-5th places at Kemeri with (+8 =7 -2), as Salo Flohr won. Then he tied 2nd-4th at Parnu with 4.5/7 (+3 =3 -1). This successful string earned him invitation to the very strong tournament at Semmering 1937, which he won with 9/14 (+6 =6 -2), ahead of Fine, Jose Raul Capablanca, Samuel Reshevsky, and Erich Eliskases. He was tied for second at Hastings 1937-38 with 6.5/9 (+4 =5 -0) (half a point behind Reshevsky), and at Noordwijk 1938 (behind Eliskases) with 6.5/9 (+4 =5 -0). Keres drew a 1938 exhibition match in Stockholm with Swedish Grandmaster Gideon Stahlberg on 4-4 (+2 =4 -2).
He continued to represent Estonia with success in Olympiad play, including the unofficial Olympiad at Munich 1936 (+12 –1 =7, gold medal on board one), the 7th Olympiad at Stockholm 1937 (+9 –2 =4, silver medal on board one), and the 8th Olympiad at Buenos Aires 1939 (+12 –2 =5). Estonia won the team bronze medals in Buenos Aires.

World Championship match denied

In 1938 he tied with Fine for first, with 8.5/14, in the all-star AVRO tournament, held in various cities in the Netherlands, ahead of chess legends Mikhail Botvinnik, Max Euwe, Reshevsky, Alekhine, Capablanca and Flohr. Keres won on tiebreak because he beat Fine 1½-½ in their individual two games. It was expected that the winner of this tournament would be the challenger for the World Champion title, in a match against World Champion Alexander Alekhine, 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 Alekhine to an end. Keres had begun his university studies in 1938, and this also played a role in the failed match. Keres struggled at Leningrad-Moscow 1939 with a shared 12th-13th place; he wrote that he had not had enough time to prepare for this strong event. But he regrouped and won Margate 1939 with 7.5/9 (+6 =3 -0), ahead of Capablanca and Flohr.

World War II

At the outbreak of World War II, Keres was in Buenos Aires at the Olympiad. He stayed on to play in a Buenos Aires International tournament after the Olympiad, and tied for first place with Miguel Najdorf with 8.5/11 (+7 =3 -1).
His next event was a 14-game match with former World Champion Max Euwe in the Netherlands, held from December 1939 -- January 1940. Keres managed to win a hard-fought struggle by 7.5-6.5 (+6 =3 -5). This was a superb achievement, because not only was Euwe a former World Champion, but he had enormous experience at match play, far more than Keres.
With the Nazi-Soviet Pact of August 1939, Estonia became part of the Soviet Union. Keres played in his first Soviet Championship at Moscow 1940 (URS-ch12), placing fourth (+9 =6 -4) in an exceptionally strong field. This was ahead of the defending champion Mikhail Botvinnik, however. The Soviet Chess Federation organized the "Absolute Championship of the USSR" in 1941, with the top six finishers from the 1940 championship meeting each other four times; it was split between Leningrad and Moscow. Botvinnik won this super-strong tournament, one of the strongest ever organized, with 13.5/20, and Keres placed second with 11/20, ahead of Vasily Smyslov, Isaac Boleslavsky, Andor Lilienthal, and Igor Bondarevsky.
With the German Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941, Estonia came under German control. 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, who placed second in all three of those tournaments. They tied for first at Salzburg (Six Grandmasters' Tournament) in June 1943, with 7.5/10.
During World War II, Keres played in several more chess tournaments. He won all 15 games at Tallinn 1942, and swept all five games at Posen 1943. He also won at Tallinn 1943, and Madrid 1944 (13/14, +12 =2 -0). He was second at Lidköping 1944 (playing hors concours in the Swedish Championship). Keres won a match with Folke Ekstrom at Stockholm in 1944 by 5-1.

Dangerous Circumstances

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, in spite of his excellent form; he won at Riga 1945 (10.5/11), early in the year. Presumably for political reasons, he was excluded from the ten-player Soviet team for the 1945 radio match against the U.S.A., and he 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.
He won the Estonian Championship at Tallinn 1945 with 13/15 (+11 =4 -0), ahead of several strong visiting Soviets, including Alexander Kotov, Alexander Tolush, Lilienthal, and Flohr. He then won at Tbilisi 1946 (hors concours in the Georgian Championship) with a near-perfect score of 18/19, ahead of Vladas Mikenas and a 16-year-old Tigran Petrosian.
Keres returned to international play in 1946 in the Soviet radio match against Great Britain, and continued his excellent playing form that year and the next 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.

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] According to American chess historian James Schroeder, Botvinnik is on record from this era as stating that the next World Champion should be a Russian like himself, not an Estonian like Keres. Kingston is very critical of Schroeder's evidence, calling it "at best speculation and at worst rubbish."^[2] 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.^[5]
In several other post-war events, however, Keres dominated the field. He won the exceptionally strong USSR Chess Championship three times. In 1947, he won at Leningrad, URS-ch15, with 14/19 (+10 =8 -1); the field included every top Soviet player except Botvinnik. In 1950, he won at Moscow, URS-ch18, with 11.5/17 (+8 =7 -2) against a field which was only slightly weaker than in 1947. Then in 1951, he triumphed again at Moscow, URS-ch19, with 12/17 (+9 =6 -2), against a super-class field which included Geller, Petrosian, Smyslov, Botvinnik, Averbakh, Bronstein, Taimanov, Aronin, Flohr, Bondarevsky, and Kotov.
Keres won Parnu 1947 with 9.5/13 (+7 =5 -1), Iwonicz Zdrój 1950 with 14.5/18 (+11 =7 -1), and Budapest 1952 with 12.5/17 (+10 =5 -2), the latter ahead of world champion Botvinnik and an all-star field which included Geller, Smyslov, Stahlberg, Szabo, and Petrosian. The Budapest victory, which capped a stretch of four first-class wins over a two-year span, may represent the peak of his career.
Keres participated in six Candidates' Tournaments:

★ In 1950, he was fourth behind David Bronstein and Isaac Boleslavsky at Budapest, with 9.5/18 (+3 =13 -2).

★ In Zurich 1953, he was equal second, 2 points behind Smyslov, with 16/28 (+8 =16 -4).

★ In Amsterdam 1956, he was outright second, 1.5 points behind Smyslov, with 10/18 (+3 =14 -1).

★ In Yugoslavia 1959 he scored a very impressive 18.5/28 (+15 =7 -6, 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 with Efim Geller, half a point behind Tigran Petrosian, with 17/27 (+9 =16 -2). ''(This event is discussed further at World Chess Championship 1963)).'' He then defeated Geller in a 1962 playoff match at Moscow, by 4.5-3.5, for an exempt place in the next Candidates' cycle.

★ In 1965, he lost his quarter-final match by 6-4 (+2 =4 -4) to eventual Candidates' winner Boris Spassky. This was the only match loss of Keres' long career. Keres' four second-placed finishes make him by far the player with the most "near misses" to reaching a World Championship match.

Unmatched International team successes

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. At Helsinki 1952, he was on the difficult first board, and scored a somewhat disappointing 6.5/12. At Amsterdam 1954, on board four, he played the best chess in the event to tally an astonishing 13.5/14, to win the gold medal. At Moscow 1956, he was again on board three, and scored 9.5/12, for another gold medal. At Munich 1958, he was on board three once more, and again scored 9.5/12, for another gold medal. At Leipzig 1960, he was back on board three, and made 10.5/13, for a fourth straight gold medal. At Varna 1962, he was on board four, and scored 9.5/13, good for a bronze medal. Finally, at Tel Aviv 1964, he was on board four, and scored 10/12, for his fifth board gold medal in seven Olympiads. Although not selected to play for the Soviet Olympiad teams after 1964, Keres served successfully as a trainer with Soviet international teams for the next decade.
Altogether, in 11 Olympiads (counting the unofficial Munich 1936 event), playing for Estonia and the Soviet Union, and in 161 games, Keres accumulated a brilliant total of +97, =51, -13, for 76.7 per cent. He won seven team gold medals, five individual gold medals (including four straight), and a bronze medal for the Soviet Union. His four straight board gold medals is an all-time Olympiad record.
Keres also appeared three times for the Soviet Union in the European Team Championships. In the inaugural event at Vienna 1957, he scored 3/5 on board two, for team and individual gold medals. Then at Oberhausen 1961, he was on board three, scored 6/8, and again won team and individual gold medals. He was not selected for Hamburg 1965. Finally, at Kapfenberg 1970, he was on board eight, scored a perfect 5/5, and for the third straight time, won team and individual gold medals. All told, in Euroteams events, he scored 14/18 without a loss.

Later career and death

Beginning with the Parnu 1947 tournament, Keres made some significant contributions as a chess organizer in Estonia; this is an often overlooked aspect of his career.
Keres continued to play exceptionally well on the international circuit. He tied 1st-2nd at Hastings 1954-55 with Smyslov on 7/9 (+6 =2 -1). He dominated an internal Soviet training tournament at Parnu 1955 with 9.5/10. Keres placed 2nd at the 1955 Goteborg Interzonal, behind David Bronstein. Keres defeated Wolfgang Unzicker in a 1956 exhibition match at Hamburg by 6-2 (+4 =4 -0). He tied 2nd-3rd in the USSR Championship, Moscow 1957 (URS-ch24) with 13.5/21 (+8 =11 -2), along with Bronstein, behind Mikhail Tal. Keres won Mar del Plata 1957 (15/17, ahead of Miguel Najdorf), and Santiago 1957 with 6/7, ahead of Alexander Kotov. He won Hastings 1957-58 (7.5/9, ahead of Svetozar Gligoric). He was tied 3rd-4th at Zurich 1959, at 10.5/15, along with Bobby Fischer, behind Tal and Gligoric. Keres was third at Stockholm 1959-60 with 7/9. He won at Parnu 1960. He was the champion at Zurich 1961 (9/11, ahead of Petrosian). Keres shared first with World Champion Petrosian at the very strong 1963 Piatigorsky Cup in Los Angeles with 8.5/14.
Further tournament championships followed: Beverwijk 1964, with 11.5/15, tied with Iivo Nei; and Bamberg 1968, two points ahead of World Champion Tigran Petrosian. He won Budapest 1970 with 10/15, ahead of Laszlo Szabo. Also in 1970, Keres's 3:1 with Ivkov on the tenth board gave victory to the Soviet team in the match vs Rest of the World. He won at Tallinn 1971. His last Interzonal was Petropolis 1973, the same year as his last Soviet Championship appearance. But his health declined the next year, and he did not play any major events in 1974. Keres' last major tournament win was Tallinn 1975, just a few months before his death.
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.

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, including an important account of the 1948 World Championship Match Tournament. He authored several openings treatises, often originally in German, as listed by the Hungarian writer Egon Varnusz: ''Spanisch bis Franzosisch'', ''Dreispringer bis Konigsgambit'', and ''Vierspringer bis Spanisch''. He 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.
The Hungarian writer Egon Varnusz wrote that Keres "published 180 problems and 30 studies. One of his rook endings won first prize in 1947." (''Paul Keres' Best Games, Volume 1: Closed Games'' (Cadogan 1994.))

Acknowledgements

5 kroons banknote with the portrait of Paul Keres.

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

Notable chess games

★ Paul Keres vs José Raúl Capablanca, AVRO Amsterdam 1938, French, Tarrasch, Open Variation, Main line (C09), 1-0 Almost unpredictable jumps of the White Knight slowly destroy Black's position. A beautiful tactical game.

★ Paul Keres vs Alexander Alekhine, Margate 1937, Ruy Lopez (C71), 1-0 Here Keres outplayed Alekhine already in the first 15 moves. The game is crowned by two small combinations.

★ Paul Keres vs Edgar Walther, Tel Aviv 1964, King's Indian, Petrosian System (E93), 1-0 The game where Keres introduced a new plan against the King's Indian opening: Bg5, h4, Nh2 and a sacrifice on g4.

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^[6]
(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.^[8]

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. The Keres-Botvinnik Case: A Survey of the Evidence, Part I, Taylor Kingston, 1998
5. Yuri Averbakh, An Interview with History, Part 1, by Taylor Kingston, chesscafe.com, 2002
6. Noteworthy Estonians - PAUL KERES - Chess player
7. Noteworthy Estonians - PAUL KERES - Chess player
8. Remembering Paul Keres, ''Chessbase'', 3-6-2003

Bibliography

★ Arco, New York, 1977.

★ Cadogan Chess, London, 1994, ISBN 1-85744-064-1.

External links

★

★ Estonian banknotes

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