1946 Staunton Memorial - participation of Abe Yanofsky

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  • 1946 Staunton Memorial - participation of Abe Yanofsky

    https://en.chessbase.com/post/the-fi...-memorial-1946 Some excellent background of the great 1946 Staunton Memorial tournament. Abe Yanofsky is barely mentioned, although he had a good tournament and was a giant killer of the great GM Botvinnik. I wasn't previously aware of the exciting finish in the last round. The great GM Najdorf did his part by knocking out GM Botvinnik!, leaving the door open for GM Max Euwe to win the tournament. Unfortunately GM Euwe lost to GM Kotov.

    Small sidenote: None of the listed GM's were GMs at the time. FIDE only finally released its GM list in 1950.

  • #2
    After viewing the Najdorf - Botvinnik game I have to say (again!!) what a creative player the great Najdorf was! Unfotunately ex world champion Max Euwe unexplicably blundered in his game with Kotov.

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    • #3
      There are a few more interesting insights on that last round at Groningen 1946. GM Pachman, in his wonderful book 'Decisive Games In Chess History' notes that Kotov vs Euwe could have been drawn, but Euwe blundered. Gm Soltis in his excellent book 'Soviet Chess 1917-1991', writes that Kotov was asked to take a draw with Euwe before the round, to ensure that Botvinnik, leading by half a point, would do no worse than tie for the title, but that Kotov replied, "No, I want to beat Max Euwe", and did. And finally GM Bronstein, in his 1995 book 'Sorcerer's Apprentice', wrote that after Najdorf beat Botvinnik in the last round, a great game, he was gloating 'I beat him like a chicken', and Botvinnik found that offensive. Then, later, when Najdorf won a tournament at Prague 1946, which was supposed to be a qualifier for the later 1948 World Championship tournament, the Prague tournament was called 'too weak' to count for that, according to Pachman. Bronstein wrote that Botvinnik used his influence to keep Najdorf out; Soltis wrote that when Fine withdrew from the 1948 event, Najdorf was waiting in the wings to enter, but was blocked.

      At Groningen, I believe that Yanofsky was the youngest entrant, at age 21. His win there over future World Champion Botvinnik was the first time Canadian chess made news around the world!

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