Ronen Greatest Hits : Avro 1938

Avro 1938

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In this episode, Ronen Har-Zvi tells us about the AVRO 1938 tournament, arguably the strongest chess event ever held in history. Ronen has been presenting us with the chess geniuses of the 1920's and 1930's in the previous episodes of his show, and now he takes us back to almost a century ago, when 4 world champions (2 former wc's: Capablanca and Euwe; one reigning wc: Alekhine and one future wc: Botvinnik)and the rest of the chess elite (Keres, Fine, Reshevsky and Flohr) crossed their Kings and Queens over the board in the Netherlands. Keres won in a very convincing way, finishing unbeaten. The tournament, though not officially, was considered a sort of candidates' event, with the winner regarded as the possible challenger to the Chess Crown. Unfortunately, WWII broke loose, and the hope for a match vanished for the years to come. Alekhine died in 1946, so the throne went vacant. FIDE organized quintuple round-robin tournament played to determine the new World Chess Champion in 1948. Mikhail Botvinnik won the five-player championship tournament, beginning the era of Soviet domination of international chess that would last over twenty years without interruption. An important piece of chess history, presented by our GM Ronen Har-Zvi, which will for sure delight all the chess fans!