Paul Keres

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Paul Keres (born January 7, 1916, in Narva, Estonia; died June 5, 1975, in Helsinki, Finland) was an Estonian chess grandmaster and one of the strongest chess players of all time, apart from the World chess champions. Many claim him to be the strongest modern player (since the line of official World Champions started with Steinitz in 1886) never to play in a world championship match. He was dubbed "The Crown Prince of Chess".

1 Biography
2 Chess output
3 Acknowledgements
4 Notable games
5 Quotes
6 External links

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Biography

Paul Keres first learned about chess through solving chess puzzles in a newspaper column. It wasn't until later that he found out the puzzles came from an actual game. In his early days, he was known for a brilliant attacking style. His playing matured after playing correspondence chess extensively.

Keres became an Estonian chess champion for the first time in 1935. He played for Team Estonia at the board one in the 6th Chess Olympiad at Warsaw 1935, unofficial Olympiad at Munich 1936, the 7th Olympiad at Stockholm 1937, and the 8th Olympiad at Buenos Aires 1939.

From 1937 to 1941 he studied mathematics at the University of Tartu.

In 1938 he won the all-star AVRO tournament tied with Reuben Fine (with equal total score, but 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. It was supposed 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. In 1942-1943 Keres and Alekhine have played themselves 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, at Prague (International Tournament) in April 1943, allways ahead of Keres, and he tied for 1st with Keres at Salzburg (Six Grandmasters Tournament) in June 1943.

During World War II Keres played in strong chess tournaments (1939 Buenos Aires, 1940 Moscow, 1941 Leningrad and Moscow, 1942 Tallinn, Salzburg, Munich, 1943 Prague, Posen, Salzburg, Tallinn, Madrid, 1944 Lidköping, 1944/45 Riga, 1945 Tallinn). Keres won in matches against Max Euwe in the Netherlands in 1939/40, and Ekström at Stockholm in 1944.

In the 1948 World Championship tournament, arranged to find a champion following Alekhine's death in 1946, Keres finished joint third, with 10.5 out of 20 points. This, probably his main disappointment, must be seen in the context of his difficult personal situation after the end of WWII. His native Estonia had been successively occupied by the Soviets, Germany and then in 1944 the Soviets again, and he had participated in several tournaments in Europe during the German occupation. Upon the Soviet invasion of Estonia in 1944 his attempt to flee the country failed, and as a consequence he was harassed by the Soviet authorities and feared for his life. Newly opened KGB files show that the Soviets made him throw games in international events, in favour of more "politically correct" Soviet players. His chess career may have been hampered, but Keres did manage to avoid deportation to Siberia or any worse fate during the Soviet occupation (e.g., that of Vladimirs Petrovs).

Keres won the strong USSR Chess Championship three times (1947, 1950 and 1951), and finished as first runner-up in the Candidates Tournament four times (Zurich 1953, Amsterdam 1956, Yugoslavia 1959 and Curacao 1962), never qualifying for a world championship match. He never became world champion but defeated nine world champions in his career.

He died of 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. He did in fact die in Finland, but while en route to Estonia from Vancouver. The Paul Keres Memorial Chess Tournament has been held in Vancouver ever since in his honour. Over 100,000 were in attendance at his state funeral in Tallinn, Estonia.

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Chess output

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 the inflation, has placed his 20-year peak rating as the seventh highest ever.

He was one of very few players who had a plus record against Capablanca. He also had plus records against World Champions Euwe and Mikhail Tal, and equal records against Vasily Smyslov, Tigran Petrosian and Anatoly Karpov. Through his long career, he played against no less than ten world champions, beating nine (his games with Karpov were drawn). Other notable grandmasters which he had plus records against 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 well-regarded collection of his games, several tournament books, The Art of the Middle Game (with Alexander Kotov) ISBN 0486261549 and Practical Chess Endings ISBN 0713442107. The latter two are still considered among the best of their kind for aspiring masters and experts.

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Acknowledgements

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 year since 1969. Keres won this tournament in 1971 and 1975. Starting in 1976 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, he was elected the Estonian Sportsman of the Century.

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Notable 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 SN 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.

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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 (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

"I was unlucky, like my country." - Paul Keres, on why he never became world champion

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