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Mikhail
Botvinnik and Salo Flohr tied for 1st place
in the Second Moscow International. The
tournament
was held at the players' National Hotel overlooking the
Red Square from February 15th - March 15th,
1935. The field boasted an amazingly talented cast
of players including the likes of
Jose
Raul Capablanca,
Emanuel
Lasker, Rudolf Spielmann, and Grigory
Levenfish.
Although Lasker was getting
older, and Capablanca only slowly regaining his form
after losing the championship to Alekhine years before,
this tournament still signaled the emerging power of
Soviet chess with Botvinnik as its leading proponent.
Notable too is the presence
of future world correspondence champion Viacheslav
Ragozin, and reigning women's world champion Vera
Menchik.
Botvinnik notched nine wins but was defeated twice, by
Ilya Kan and his nemesis Fyodor Bohatyrchuk. Flohr was undefeated, as was the 67-year old Lasker, turning in one of the most
impressive performances of his career.
The
tournament was not without controversy. Flohr (a Czech)
was tied with Botvinnik (a Russian) going into the final
round, which was both inconceivable and unacceptable to
the uprising Russian chess machine (specifically Nikolai
Krylenko), especially in their home tournament.
It was suggested to Botvinnik that
Ilya Rabinovich would possibly lose his last round match to
him on purpose. Botvinnik reportedly replied that if
he realized that was happening, he would blunder away a
piece and "resign on the spot". Botvinnik, fearing the pre-arranged
win, immediately offered and was accepted a draw.
Flohr did the same in his match with Vladimir Alatortsev, and the
result was a shared tournament championship between the two
great players. |
