Maróczy Memorial Tournament in 1952 (1st part)
Submitted by
cgs on Mon, 06/09/2008 at 2:33am.
Budapest was the capital of Chess for one month
The greatest Hungarian chessmaster of any times – Géza Maróczy – was born on 3 March, 1870.Today is 29, May. 57 years ago he died on this very day in 1951. In the year after his death the first Maróczy Memorial Tournament (MMT) began in Budapest - on his 82nd birthday on 3 March, 1952.The cream of grandmasters arrived in Budapest to the memory of the greatest Hungarian chess-player and chess-teacher.As the leader of the Soviet delegation Ragozin grandmaster represented the soviet chess-school , and he was accompanied by the best Soviet grandmasters and the world-champion Botvinnik. There were two grandmasters (Hungarian champions) and three international masters representing Hungary. The champions of South-America, England and Belgium arrived by the same airplane. The champions of Poland, Romania and Prague arrived by train. Gideon Stahlberg, the best grandmaster of the North European States came last to Budapest, and to represent German chess-playing Hans Platz arrived from Magdeburg. He was the third in the championship of the German Democratic Republic three times and he was the co-author of the chess-book titled „Die Sizilianische Verteidigung” (1953).What a strong field! Among the Hungarian IM there is the young Benko" (24), the winner of Sopot Tournament in Poland in 1951 Gereben, and Szily who defeated the world-champion during this tournament. And in the Soviet team there are also two later world-champions. The cream of chess-playing was in Budapest. They were…, these 18 competitors.There was a chess journal issued only for the MMT. During the Tournament 11 issues were published. Here is the front-page of this journal. (the 1st issue) The title is MMT Herald. I’m lucky to have every original copy of this Herald, in which you can read the description of all the games, some of them were analyzed by the grandmasters of the Tournament. With help of this 11 Heralds I’ll publish an article series in 11 parts about this MMT, with 2-2 analyzed games in every part. And together with that I’ll translate the articles from the Herald. There is a long article from Maróczy, and other articles by Árpád Vajda and Ragozin in connection with the Tournament.A Hungarian caricaturist Béla Szepes drew every participant of the MMT. You can see these caricatures (sketches) among my pictures under „Maróczy MT sketches”.3, March, 1952. The Tournament starts.
This is the drawing:
1 Petrosian, Tigran (Soviet Union), grandmaster
2 Keres, Paul (Soviet Union), grandmaster
3 Pilnik, Herman (Argentina) i. master
4 Sliwa, Bogdan (Poland) i. master
5 Geller, Efim (Soviet Union), i. master
6 Golombek, Harry (England) i. master
7 Stahlberg, Gideon (Sweden) grandmaster
8 Szabó, László (Hungary) grandmaster
9 Gereben, Erno" (Hungary) i. master
10 Szily, József (Hungary) i. master
11 Benko", Pál (Hungary) i. master
12 Kottnauer, Cenek (Czecho-Slovakia) master
13 O’Kelly de Galway, Alberic (Belgium) i. master
14 Troianescu, Octavian (Romania) i. master
15 Botvinnik, Mikhail (Soviet Union), grandmaster, world-champion
16 Barcza, Gedeon (Hungary) grandmaster
17 Platz, Hans (GDR) master
18 Smyslov, Vasyly (Soviet Union), grandmaster
Results, I. series of games:
Golombek – O’Kelly 0-1 Gereben – Szily 0-1 Sliwa – Botvinnik 0-1 Pilnik – Barcza 0-1
Geller – Troianescu 1-0 Petrosian – Smyslov ½ - ½ Stahlberg – Kottnauer 1-0 Szabó – Benko" 1-0
From I. series of games:
Analyzed by Tibor Flórián
Results, II. series of games:
Troianescu – Golombek 0-1 Smyslov – Szily ½ - ½ Botvinnik – Geller 0-1 Benko" – Gereben ½ - ½
Barcza – Sliwa ½ - ½ Kottnauer – Szabó 1-0 Platz – Pilnik 0-1 O’Kelly – Stahlberg ½ - ½
From II. series of games:
Analyzed by Aleksandr Tolush
Now Geller leads with 2 points. To be continued...