33 Facts About Max Euwe

Max Euwe was the fifth player to become World Chess Champion, a title he held from 1935 until 1937.

Max Euwe served as President of FIDE, the World Chess Federation, from 1970 to 1978.

Max Euwe taught mathematics, first in Rotterdam, and later at a girls' Lyceum in Amsterdam.

Max Euwe played his first tournament at age 10, winning every game.

Max Euwe won every Dutch chess championship that he entered from 1921 until 1952, and won the title again in 1955; his 12 titles are still a record.

Max Euwe married in 1926, started a family soon afterwards, and could play competitive chess only during school vacations, so his opportunities for top-level international chess competition were limited.

The match was played to help Max Euwe prepare for a future encounter with Jose Raul Capablanca, then world champion.

At Zurich 1934, Max Euwe again finished equal second with Flohr, behind Alekhine, and he defeated Alekhine in their game.

In 1933, Max Euwe challenged Alekhine to a championship match.

Alekhine quickly went three games ahead, but Max Euwe managed to even out and eventually win the match.

Max Euwe's title gave a huge boost to chess in the Netherlands.

Former world champions Vasily Smyslov, Boris Spassky, Anatoly Karpov, and Garry Kasparov later analysed the match and concluded that Max Euwe deserved to win and that the standard of play was worthy of a world championship.

Former World Champion Vladimir Kramnik has said that Max Euwe won the 1935 match on merit and that the result was not affected by Alekhine's drinking before or during the match.

Max Euwe's performance in the great tournament of Nottingham 1936 indicated he was a worthy champion, even if he was not as dominant as the earlier champions.

Max Euwe returned to the sort of form he had shown from 1927 to 1934, when he dominated chess.

The match was a real contest initially, but Max Euwe's play collapsed near the end, and he lost four of the last five games.

Fine, who was Max Euwe's second, attributed the collapse to nervous tension, possibly aggravated by Max Euwe's attempts to maintain a calm appearance.

Until American-born Bobby Fischer won the title in 1972, Max Euwe was the last World Chess Champion not born in the Russian Empire or Soviet Union.

Max Euwe finished equal fourth with Alekhine and Reshevsky in the AVRO tournament of 1938 in the Netherlands, which featured the world's top eight players and was an attempt to decide who should challenge Alekhine for the world championship.

At 47, Max Euwe was significantly older than the other players, and well past his best.

Max Euwe took part in the Gijon international tournament in 1951, winning ahead of Pilnik and Rossolimo with a score of +7=2.

Max Euwe was in the top half of the field after the first half of the tournament, but tired in the second half.

Max Euwe played for the Netherlands in seven Chess Olympiads from 1927 to 1962, a 35-year span, always on.

In 1957, Max Euwe played a short match against 14-year-old future world champion Bobby Fischer, winning one game and drawing the other.

Max Euwe won a total of 102 first prizes in tournaments during his career, many of them local.

Max Euwe became a computer science professor at Tilburg University in 1964.

From 1970 until 1978, Max Euwe was president of FIDE.

Some commentators have questioned whether Max Euwe did as much as he could have to prevent Fischer from forfeiting his world title in 1975.

Max Euwe was noted for his logical approach and for his knowledge of openings, in which he made major contributions to chess theory.

Sosonko thought Max Euwe's modesty was a handicap in top-class chess.

Vladimir Kramnik says Max Euwe anticipated Botvinnik's emphasis on technical preparation, and Max Euwe was usually in good shape physically because he was a keen sportsman.

Max Euwe wrote over 70 chess books, far more than any other world champion; some of the best-known are The Road to Chess Mastery, Judgement and Planning in Chess, The Logical Approach to Chess, and Strategy and Tactics in Chess.

Max Euwe did not forget children in his published writings.