A Century of Chess: Bogoljubow Matches 1920-21

Is there any elite player in chess history as overlooked as Efim Bogoljubow?

Bogoljubow quietly emerged in the mid-1910s as an elite player, playing at Mannheim and then sort of captaining the Triberg internees, had a breakthrough in 1920 when he finished third at Gothenburg, shared second at Berlin, and nearly stole a match from Akiba Rubinstein, then was one of the most fearsome tournament players of the 1920s and a viable world championship challenger to Alekhine in 1929. But Bogoljubow overplayed his hand, securing a second match in 1934 when he was past his peak — and which gave him an enduring reputation as Alekhine’s ‘client.’ He had pronounced Nazi sympathies (he had settled in Germany after his emigration), even joining the Nazi Party in 1938, and that made Bogoljubow persona non grata in the chess world after the war. In 1950, when FIDE named its first class of grandmasters, they conspicuously left Bogoljubow off the list.

Bogoljubow’s unfortunate politics, and somewhat heavy-handed personality, obscure his remarkable chess achievements. He was a good illustration of how far optimism can take a player in chess — his style is characterized by the constant taking of risks. 

It's not completely clear what the impetus was for the 1920 match with Rubinstein — it may just have been that both Bogoljubow and Rubinstein loved playing chess and were a bit footloose after the war — but Bogoljubow's near-upset was a shock. Rubinstein easily won the first two games, playing in his pellucid style, but then Bogoljubow won the next two, taking advantage of Rubinstein's relative discomfort in chaotic positions. 

The players traded victories from games six to nine and then Rubinstein finally broke through in Game 11 when Bogoljubow blundered a piece. 

The quality of the chess wasn't particularly high — Rubinstein seemed to struggle in general in matches; and the match featured some surprisingly basic mistakes for players of this caliber — but Bogoljubow's contribution to chess was already apparent. He was fearless and very much at ease in turbulent waters. In the match he found a surprising chink in Rubinstein's armor — his devotion to his variation in the Four Knights. Bogoljubow, with white, found ways to sharpen the play and won all three games in which that variation was contested. The match also featured the introduction of the Bogo-Indian Defense — in a Round 10 draw. 

Bogoljubow's annus mirabilis continued with his convincing victory (+3-1=0) over a slumping Aron Nimzowitsch. Nimzowitsch seemed to be intent on testing out hypermodern ideas, particularly in the French Advance Variation, but wasn't ready to face Bogoljubow's whirlwind energy.

And then in 1921 Bogoljubow played a secret (likely training) match against Alexander Alekhine, which ended in a tie (+1-1=2) — a result that must have impressed Alekhine and may have contributed to his decision years later to award Bogoljubow a title match. 

The issue with Bogoljubow was that he could sometimes lose his sense of proportion and simply play very badly — he always seemed to be working harder in his match wins than his opponents were in theirs — but the tendency to see him as a kind of elevated club player does an injustice to his ingenuity. He was deeply innovative in the openings, one of the stars of the hypermodern revolution, and he played always with creativity and aggression — and with his great year in 1920 forced the chess world to take him seriously as a member of the elite. 

As a bonus to this post, here is a game from Alekhine's six-game match with Richard Teichmann in 1921. I have no idea why this unlikely pairing occurred — again, it may just be that the two were adrift in post-war Europe. Alekhine won two games and appeared to be polishing off his opponent, but Teichmann — always easily-underestimated — struck back to tie the match and give Alekhine one of the very few match disappointments he would experience over the course of his career. 

Sources: The Rubinstein match is discussed in Donaldson and Minev's Life and Games of Akiba Rubinstein. Chessbase discusses Bogoljubow here and Edward Winter here.