A Century of Chess: Kecskemet 1927

Kecskemet was one final tune-up for Alekhine before his world championship match, and it was a sight that the chess world was already becoming used to — Alekhine tearing through a tournament with terrifying force. He still had limitations in his play — he was lucky, for instance, that Yates didn’t find the coup de grâce in their game — but he won the tournament without difficulty. 

After a slow start to the 1920s, Aron Nimzowitsch had become a fully viable world championship candidate. He failed to win his preliminary group but came close to catching Alekhine in the finals, finishing only a half point back. 

The tournament had a baroque format — two preliminary sections giving way to a finals section, with scores carrying over — and something about it seemed to confuse a few of the international masters. Tartakower, Grunfeld, Yates, and Colle all had off tournaments. From a sporting perspective, the tournament was, instead, a triumph for the local Hungarian players. Hungary, with the re-retirement of Géza Maróczy, had no world-class players, but, as is always the case, there was a strong crop of Hungarian masters, and Finals Group A was filled with unfamiliar names. The little-known Lajos Steiner — one of three strong Hungarian Steiners — had the result of his career with a shared second-place finish, which featured a scalp of Nimzowitsch. 

Sources: Alekhine covers three of his games in My Best Games of Chess. Nimzowitsch analyzes the majority of his wins in this tournament in Chess Praxis.