My Favourite Annotators. Part Two. Alexander Alekhine.

Afternoon everyone. I am off on holiday in a couple of days so back more quickly than intended with this part of the series.

Before I begin, let's throw in a wonderful picture I have just come across researching this - I guess it is from the Nottingham 1936 tournament, but I may be wrong on that. Alekhine, his wife ( of the time!) and Bogoljubov.

I have always said - and will always say, that if you only have time to properly study one pre-war player, then it has to be Alekhine. Not only are his games wonderful and always full of content ( I recall one chess author saying that if the gods granted him the ability to play chess  like just one great player, he would choose to play like Alekhine) but he was probably the outstanding chess annotator of all time.

His output was prodigious! Lots of his annotations out there. He produced lots of work and always of the highest possible quality.

My friend Barry Wood once told the story of how he had secured Alekhine to write some articles for CHESS magazine. Nothing arrived, but Barry, being Barry, honoured the agreement and sent of the payment. A short time later he received an article which he described as one of the best he had ever published.

Alekhine didn't just annotate his own games. He wrote notes for games of others with the same diligence and insight as he put in writing on his own games. His notes to the famous game between the two Laskers at New York 1924 are the stuff of legend. Around 60 notes in one game!

Here's a thing - the game note that I learned the most from was by Alekhine, and I have studied a lot of game annotations! - If you don't learn anything form studying his annotations there is no hope for you, and that applies very much to anyone studying in the modern engine age. He studied, knew and understood so much, Then he could explain it all in words.

For example. In the game I have chosen here he played this move ...Qd6. I know where he got the idea from - he had looked at a game between Steinitz and Tchigorin played many years before. His knowledge was extraordinary. Then he has the objectivity to say that in the actual position in the  game it probably wasn't a great idea. Hs notes - like those of Tarrasch, for example, were always objective, and he gave credit where it was due, and criticism where it was merited.

So which set of notes to choose to post here? I have gone on an assumption that those reading this will have at least looked at his own magnificent best games books if nothing else.

So, being me, I like to share material that readers probably won't have seen. The notes here can be found in a couple of book sources that most won't have looked at. Even as a lonely, isolated, homeless individual, in the most horrible of circumstances - alcohol dependent and basically living hand to mouth - he produced this piece of work.

He must have played close to a hundred serious games with Bogoljubov.

I haven't checked, but this is the last serious game between the two that I can think of. Just enjoy the game and the magnificent - there is no other word - annotations.

Modern technology at work! A colourised version of a famous picture from the 1929 match. Yes, That is Lasker centre of picture.