Moscow 1925 Chess Tournament
This international super-tournament, organised by Nikolai Krylenko, was held in Moscow, the Soviet Union, from 10 November to 8 December 1925. It was the world's first state-sponsored chess tournament. There were eleven foreign stars and ten Soviet masters. World champion José Raúl Capablanca and his predecessor Emanuel Lasker were lured to Moscow by gold. A race between them, as in the New York 1924 chess tournament, was expected before the tournament, but Efim Bogoljubow won a sensational victory. Lasker finished 1½ points behind Bogoljubow and just ahead of Capablanca.
The event aroused great interest among the Soviet citizens. Hundreds of spectators followed the games in Hotel Metropol and ten of thousands watched demonstration boards downtown. Bogoljubow's win was regarded as a Soviet victory; however, shortly after this in 1926, like Alexander Alekhine he left the Soviet Union and became a German citizen. Later Bogoljubow and Alekhine were called "renegades" in the USSR.
The film Chess Fever used a number of scenes from the tournament, and even featured Capablanca playing himself.
Read more about Moscow 1925 Chess Tournament: Results
Famous quotes containing the words moscow and/or chess:
“Napoleon is a torrent which as yet we are unable to stem. Moscow will be the sponge that will suck him dry.”
—Mikhail Kutuzov (1745–1813)
“The sailor is frankness, the landsman is finesse. Life is not a game with the sailor, demanding the long head—no intricate game of chess where few moves are made in straight-forwardness and ends are attained by indirection, an oblique, tedious, barren game hardly worth that poor candle burnt out in playing it.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)