While the Summer Olympic Games took place in Paris, a chess tournament was held at the Hotel Majestic from 13 to 24 July 1924, with an individual competition and a team competition, although not as an official Olympic event. On 20 July, delegates from 15 national federations founded the world chess federation, the Fédération Internationale des Échecs (FIDE). FIDE therefore celebrates 20 July each year as "International Chess Day".
Over the following decades, the tournament organised by the world chess federation never managed to become an official Olympic competition, despite all its efforts. But it soon organised its own Olympic Games, the Chess Olympiad. Today, with their large number of participating federations, teams, players and female players, these are among the biggest sporting events in the world in terms of the number of participants. But every beginning is difficult. This was also the case with the development of the Chess Olympiads.
Smyslov cultivated a clear positional style and even in sharp tactical positions often relied more on his intuition than on concrete calculation of variations. Let our authors introduce you into the world of Vasily Smyslov.After the founding year, nine delegates from national federations met in Zurich in 1925. The leadership already elected in Paris, with Alexander Rueb as president, was confirmed for a further three years.
The Hotel Gellert
In the summer of 1926, from 26 June to 15 July, the delegates gathered in Budapest for the 3rd FIDE Congress. The venue was the venerable Gellert Hotel. Several tournaments were played alongside the meeting: as individual tournaments, there was a master tournament with many prominent participants, an open tournament and a women's tournament. At the end of the congress, a team tournament also took place.
The master tournament, with 16 participants, was won jointly by Ernst Grünfeld and Mario Monticelli (1902-1995).
Ernst Grünfeld in 1921 | Photo: Austrian National Library
Monticelli is fifth from the left in the front row. | Photo via unoscacchista.com
Monticelli, a journalist by profession at various major Italian daily newspapers, was one of the best players in his country in the 1920s and 1930s. He became Italian national champion three times - in 1929, 1934 and 1939. When Monticelli, serving as a soldier during the Second World War, refused to collaborate with the National Socialists, he was deported to a concentration camp, but survived. In 1950, FIDE awarded him the honorary title of International Master. Monticelli remained active as a chess writer for many years.
The field in the master tournament included such strong players as Akiba Rubinstein, Richard Reti, Savielly Tartakower, Edgar Colle and Hans Kmoch.
From Mating with a queen; a rook; two bishops; a knight and a bishop; to the basics of pawn endgames – here you will gain the necessary know-how to turn your endgame advantages into victories!The women's tournament was won by English representative Edith Holloway. She had already played in FIDE's open tournament in Paris two years earlier, and at the time belonged to the international elite among women. In 1927, 1935 and 1937, she was one of the participants in the Women's World Championships.
Six teams of four players had originally entered for the team tournament at the end of the congress in July. In the end, however, only four teams took part, as Austria and Czechoslovakia withdrew their entries. One of the four teams was fielded by the German Chess Federation, which had not been among FIDE's founding members in 1924 but was allowed to join in 1926.
Hungary had two of its best-known and strongest players in Endre Steiner and Arpad Vajda, and was therefore also the favourite to win. Yugoslavia, with Boris Kostic on board one, was also highly rated. The German team was weakly composed, for financial reasons. The names of the German representatives at this tournament are barely known today.
Bruno Moritz, who came from Neuwarp in Western Pomerania, played on the first board.
Bruno Moritz | Photo: German Chess Federation
He took part in a number of tournaments in the 1920s, especially congresses organised by the German Chess Federation. As a Jew, he fled to South America in 1939 and became one of the most important booksellers in Ecuador. In 1964, at the age of 67, he still represented Ecuador at the Chess Olympiad in Tel Aviv.
Board two was occupied by the Hamburg player Wilhelm Schönmann. He had played in a number of German congresses, in the main tournaments.
Wilhelm Schönmann | Photo: private collection of the Schönmann family, via Wikipedia
In 1928, Schönmann won the Hamburg Championship. Later he turned to correspondence chess and finished third in the 1935 European Correspondence Chess Championship behind Ekström and Keres.
Gottlieb Machate, who came from Breslau and at the time was one of the youngest participants in the team tournament, played on board three for the German team. Machate was only 24 years old in 1926.
Photo: Frankfurt Chess District
In the 1920s and 1930s, Machate played in the Silesian Chess Congresses and the German Chess Congresses, and occasionally also gave blindfold exhibitions.
After the Second World War, Machate lived in Stuttgart-Feuerbach, became Württemberg Champion and, by 1950, had taken part four times in the all-German Championships. His best placings were third place in both 1947 and 1948, in 1948 behind Unzicker and Kieninger but ahead of Lothar Schmid.
Until 1971, he played for Schachgemeinschaft Stuttgart. He died on 27 May 1974 in Feuerbach.
Top trainers strongly recommend regular study of well-explained classical games to improve your understanding of chess in the long term. 33 modern classics are explained in details on this video course.Finally, Otto Rüster, who also came from Silesia, played on board four. In 1925, he had won the tournament at the Silesian Chess Congress. After the Second World War, he lived in East Germany, took part in the 1953 GDR Championship, but by then had also mainly turned to correspondence chess.
The team tournament was won convincingly by the favourite team from Hungary. Yugoslavia and Romania took the next places. The most prominent player in the Yugoslav team was Stevan Ćirić, Minister of Education and President of the Parliament of Yugoslavia. The German team finished only fourth.
All the results from the team tournament have survived, but only some of the games.
At the actual congress, which was held from 15 to 17 July, the young chess federation had to deal with several politically delicate items on the agenda. There were a number of applications for membership, most of which were unproblematic. Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Finland were newly admitted. The losers of the First World War, Germany and Austria, were also now allowed to become members of the world chess federation. An application by the Flemish Chess Federation was rejected because Belgium objected. Catalonia was provisionally admitted, as there was not yet a Spanish chess federation. There were also several Russian exile chess federations that were admitted into FIDE, as Soviet Russia was opposed to the world chess federation. In the still young Czechoslovakia, there was a chess federation of the ethnic German citizens that also wanted to be integrated into FIDE. A compromise was found here. The German players in Czechoslovakia were to be involved in and represented by the Czechoslovak Chess Federation. The admission of Yugoslavia caused greater problems, since there were two national federations there.
The congress dealt with various discussions regarding rules, and also decided to hold a major national-team tournament at the next congress in London in 1927. The London tournament is now regarded as the first Chess Olympiad - sixteen federations participated. Hungary won again. With Siegbert Tarrasch, Jacques Mieses, Carl Carls and Heinrich Wagner, the German team was this time stronger than in Budapest and finished sixth.
There will also be another Chess Olympiad in 2026, the 46th edition. The world chess federation now has 203 member federations, most of which will be represented by teams in the open and women's tournaments from 15 to 28 September in Samarkand, Uzbekistan.
Experts examine the games of Max Euwe. Let them show you which openings Euwe chose to play, where his strength in middlegames were, which tactical abilities he had or how he outplayed his opponents in the endgame.
Max Euwe became the fifth World Chess Champion after beating Alexander Alekhine in the 1935 World Championship match. A maths teacher by profession, Euwe remained an amateur throughout his life, but was still the best chess player in the Netherlands, and one of the world's best players. Euwe holds the record for the most Dutch national championships, with twelve. After winning the World Championship, Euwe was also the world's best player for a while. He lost the title again in 1937 in the rematch against Alexander Alekhine.
Free video sample: Openings
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