The AVRO tournament was a chess

Chess

Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...

 tournament held in the Netherlands

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

 in 1938, sponsored by the Dutch broadcasting company AVRO. The event was a double round-robin tournament

Round-robin tournament

A round-robin tournament is a competition "in which each contestant meets all other contestants in turn".-Terminology:...

. The eight players generally regarded as the strongest in the world took part: World Champion Alexander Alekhine

Alexander Alekhine

Alexander Alexandrovich Alekhine was the fourth World Chess Champion. He is often considered one of the greatest chess players ever.By the age of twenty-two, he was already among the strongest chess players in the world. During the 1920s, he won most of the tournaments in which he played...

, former champions José Raúl Capablanca

José Raúl Capablanca

José Raúl Capablanca y Graupera was a Cuban chess player who was world chess champion from 1921 to 1927. One of the greatest players of all time, he was renowned for his exceptional endgame skill and speed of play...

 and Max Euwe

Max Euwe

Machgielis Euwe was a Dutch chess Grandmaster, mathematician, and author. He was the fifth player to become World Chess Champion . Euwe also served as President of FIDE, the World Chess Federation, from 1970 to 1978.- Early years :Euwe was born in Watergraafsmeer, near Amsterdam...

, future champion Mikhail Botvinnik

Mikhail Botvinnik

Mikhail Moiseyevich Botvinnik, Ph.D. was a Soviet and Russian International Grandmaster and three-time World Chess Champion. Working as an electrical engineer and computer scientist at the same time, he was one of the very few famous chess players who achieved distinction in another career while...

 and challengers Paul Keres

Paul Keres

Paul Keres , was an Estonian chess grandmaster, and a renowned chess writer. He was among the world's top players from the mid-1930s to the mid-1960s....

, Reuben Fine

Reuben Fine

Reuben Fine was one of the strongest chess players in the world from the early 1930s through the 1940s, an International Grandmaster, psychologist, university professor, and author of many books on both chess and psychology.Fine won five medals in three chess Olympiads. Fine won the U.S...

, Samuel Reshevsky

Samuel Reshevsky

Samuel "Sammy" Herman Reshevsky was a famous chess prodigy and later a leading American chess Grandmaster...

 and Salo Flohr

Salo Flohr

Salomon Mikhailovich Flohr was a leading Czech and later Soviet chess grandmaster of the mid-20th century, who became a national hero in Czechoslovakia during the 1930s. His name was used to sell many of the luxury products of the time, including Salo Flohr cigarettes, slippers and eau-de-cologne...

. Keres and Fine tied for first place, with Keres winning on tiebreak by virtue of his 1½-½ score in their individual games. Capablanca, who had only lost 26 tournament games over a span of 29 years, lost four games in this event. He had suffered a mild stroke during this tournament and his ill health was largely responsible for this poor performance.

The tournament was apparently organised in the hope that it would provide a challenger to Alekhine, but it was not an official Candidates Tournament

Candidates Tournament

The Candidates Tournament is a chess tournament organized by the world chess federation FIDE since 1950, as the final contest to determine the challenger for the World Chess Championship...

, and World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 dashed any hopes of a championship match for years to come. However, when FIDE

Fédération Internationale des Échecs

The Fédération Internationale des Échecs or World Chess Federation is an international organization that connects the various national chess federations around the world and acts as the governing body of international chess competition. It is usually referred to as FIDE , its French acronym.FIDE...

 organised its 1948 match tournament for the world title

World Chess Championship 1948

The 1948 World Chess Championship was a tournament played to determine a new World Chess Champion following the death of the previous champion Alexander Alekhine in 1946. The tournament marked the passing of control of the championship title to FIDE, the International Chess Federation which had...

 after Alekhine's death in 1946, it invited the six surviving AVRO participants (Capablanca had also died), except that Flohr was replaced by Vasily Smyslov

Vasily Smyslov

Vasily Vasilyevich Smyslov was a Soviet and Russian chess grandmaster, and was World Chess Champion from 1957 to 1958. He was a Candidate for the World Chess Championship on eight occasions . Smyslov was twice equal first at the Soviet Championship , and his total of 17 Chess Olympiad medals won...

.

Schedule

The AVRO tournament was played from November 6 to November 27, 1938. The players travelled from one city to another in the following order:

Round	Place	Date
1	Amsterdam Amsterdam Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...	Nov. 6
2	The Hague The Hague The Hague is the capital city of the province of South Holland in the Netherlands. With a population of 500,000 inhabitants , it is the third largest city of the Netherlands, after Amsterdam and Rotterdam...	Nov. 8
3	Rotterdam Rotterdam Rotterdam is the second-largest city in the Netherlands and one of the largest ports in the world. Starting as a dam on the Rotte river, Rotterdam has grown into a major international commercial centre...	Nov. 10
4	Groningen	Nov. 12
5	Zwolle Zwolle Zwolle is a municipality and the capital city of the province of Overijssel, Netherlands, 120 kilometers northeast of Amsterdam. Zwolle has about 120,000 citizens.-History:...	Nov. 13
6	Haarlem Haarlem Haarlem is a municipality and a city in the Netherlands. It is the capital of the province of North Holland, the northern half of Holland, which at one time was the most powerful of the seven provinces of the Dutch Republic...	Nov. 14
7	Amsterdam	Nov. 15
8	Utrecht Utrecht (city) Utrecht city and municipality is the capital and most populous city of the Dutch province of Utrecht. It is located in the eastern corner of the Randstad conurbation, and is the fourth largest city of the Netherlands with a population of 312,634 on 1 Jan 2011.Utrecht's ancient city centre features...	Nov. 17
9	Arnhem Arnhem Arnhem is a city and municipality, situated in the eastern part of the Netherlands. It is the capital of the province of Gelderland and located near the river Nederrijn as well as near the St. Jansbeek, which was the source of the city's development. Arnhem has 146,095 residents as one of the...	Nov. 19
10	Breda Breda Breda is a municipality and a city in the southern part of the Netherlands. The name Breda derived from brede Aa and refers to the confluence of the rivers Mark and Aa. As a fortified city, the city was of strategic military and political significance...	Nov. 20
11	Rotterdam	Nov. 22
12	The Hague	Nov. 24
13	Leiden	Nov. 25
14	Amsterdam	Nov. 27

Crosstable

No.	| Name	State	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	Total
1	Paul Keres Paul Keres Paul Keres , was an Estonian chess grandmaster, and a renowned chess writer. He was among the world's top players from the mid-1930s to the mid-1960s....		XX	1=			1=		1=		8½
2	Reuben Fine Reuben Fine Reuben Fine was one of the strongest chess players in the world from the early 1930s through the 1940s, an International Grandmaster, psychologist, university professor, and author of many books on both chess and psychology.Fine won five medals in three chess Olympiads. Fine won the U.S...		0=	XX	1=	10	10	11		1=	8½
3	Mikhail Botvinnik Mikhail Botvinnik Mikhail Moiseyevich Botvinnik, Ph.D. was a Soviet and Russian International Grandmaster and three-time World Chess Champion. Working as an electrical engineer and computer scientist at the same time, he was one of the very few famous chess players who achieved distinction in another career while...			0=	XX	=0	1=	1=	=1		7½
4	Machgielis Euwe			01	=1	XX	0=	0=	01	1=	7
5	Samuel Reshevsky Samuel Reshevsky Samuel "Sammy" Herman Reshevsky was a famous chess prodigy and later a leading American chess Grandmaster...		0=	01	0=	1=	XX			1=	7
6	Alexander Alekhine Alexander Alekhine Alexander Alexandrovich Alekhine was the fourth World Chess Champion. He is often considered one of the greatest chess players ever.By the age of twenty-two, he was already among the strongest chess players in the world. During the 1920s, he won most of the tournaments in which he played...			00	0=	1=		XX	=1	=1	7
7	José Raúl Capablanca José Raúl Capablanca José Raúl Capablanca y Graupera was a Cuban chess player who was world chess champion from 1921 to 1927. One of the greatest players of all time, he was renowned for his exceptional endgame skill and speed of play...		0=		=0	10		=0	XX	=1	6
8	Salo Flohr Salo Flohr Salomon Mikhailovich Flohr was a leading Czech and later Soviet chess grandmaster of the mid-20th century, who became a national hero in Czechoslovakia during the 1930s. His name was used to sell many of the luxury products of the time, including Salo Flohr cigarettes, slippers and eau-de-cologne...			0=		0=	0=	=0	=0	XX	4½

The longest game was a 68-move win of Fine over Alekhine. The shortest game was a 19-move draw

Draw (chess)

In chess, a draw is when a game ends in a tie. It is one of the possible outcomes of a game, along with a win for White and a win for Black . Usually, in tournaments a draw is worth a half point to each player, while a win is worth one point to the victor and none to the loser.For the most part,...

 between Flohr and Fine. Of the 56 games played: White won 17, Black won 7, and 32 were drawn.

External links

• AVRO 1938
• AVRO 1938 game collection on Chessgames.com
  Chessgames.com
  ChessGames.com is a large chess community on the Internet, with over 156,000 members. The site maintains a large database of historical chess games where every game has a distinct message board for comments and analysis. Basic membership is free and the site is open to players at all levels of...