The Nottingham 1936 chess tournament was a 15-player

round robin Round-robin may refer to: Computing * Round-robin DNS, a technique for dealing with redundant Internet Protocol service hosts * Round-robin networks, communications networks made up of radio nodes organized in a mesh topology * Round-robin schedu ...

tournament held August 10–28 at the

University of Nottingham , mottoeng = A city is built on wisdom , established = 1798 – teacher training college1881 – University College Nottingham1948 – university status , type = Public , chancellor ...

. It was one of the strongest of all time. Dr. J. Hannak wrote in his 1959 biography of

Emanuel Lasker Emanuel Lasker (; December 24, 1868 – January 11, 1941) was a German chess player, mathematician, and philosopher who was World Chess Champion for 27 years, from 1894 to 1921, the longest reign of any officially recognised World Chess Cham ...

that "when it comes to awarding the plum for 'the greatest

chess tournament A chess tournament is a series of chess games played competitively to determine a winning individual or team. Since the first international chess tournament in London 1851 chess tournament, London, 1851, chess tournaments have become the standard ...

ever', in 1936, the Nottingham Tournament was certainly just that". W. H. Watts in the Introduction to the tournament book called Nottingham 1936 "the most important

chess Chess is a board game for two players, called White and Black, each controlling an army of chess pieces in their color, with the objective to checkmate the opponent's king. It is sometimes called international chess or Western chess to dist ...

event the world has so far seen". It is one of the very few tournaments in chess history to include five past, present, or future world champions (Lasker,

José Raúl Capablanca José Raúl Capablanca y Graupera (19 November 1888 – 8 March 1942) was a Cuban chess player who was world chess champion from 1921 to 1927. A chess prodigy, he is widely renowned for his exceptional endgame skill and speed of play. Capabl ...

, Alekhine, Euwe and Botvinnik). A number of other prominent players, such as

Reuben Fine Reuben C. Fine (October 11, 1914 – March 26, 1993) was an American chess player, psychologist, university professor, and author of many books on both chess and psychology. He was one of the strongest chess players in the world from the mi ...

Samuel Reshevsky Samuel Herman Reshevsky (born Szmul Rzeszewski; November 26, 1911 – April 4, 1992) was a Polish chess prodigy and later a leading American chess grandmaster. He was a contender for the World Chess Championship from the mid-1930s to the mid-196 ...

and

Salo Flohr Salomon Mikhailovich Flohr (November 21, 1908 – July 18, 1983) was a Czechoslovak and Soviet chess player and writer. He was among the first recipients of the title International Grandmaster from FIDE in 1950. Flohr dominated many tournam ...

, were in the tournament. According to the unofficial

Chessmetrics Chessmetrics is a system for rating chess players devised by Jeff Sonas. It is intended as an improvement over the Elo rating system. Implementation Chessmetrics is a weighted average of past performance. The score considers a player's win percen ...

ratings, the tournament was (as of March 2005) one of only six tournaments in history that had the top eight players in the world playing. (Chessmetrics gives the top eight at the time as, in order: Euwe, Botvinnik, Alekhine, Flohr, Capablanca, Reshevsky, Fine, Bogoljubow). The event is also notable for being Lasker's last major event, and for Botvinnik achieving the first Soviet success outside the Soviet Union. In parallel with the main tournament, the venue also played host to the 1936 British Women's Championship. The event was won by

Edith Holloway Edith Martha Holloway (6 December 1867 – 8 May 1956) was a volunteer nurse in Serbia during World War I and a British chess player. She was the daughter of sculptor John Denton Crittenden (1834–1877), who exhibited at the Royal Academy. Win ...

(1868-1956), age sixty-eight and a former winner in 1919. K. Whyld, ''Guinness Chess, The Records'', Guinness Books, 1986, p. 91. .

Results

References

External links

Nottingham 1936
on Chessgames.com
“Photographs of Nottingham, 1936” by Edward Winter
{{coord missing, Nottinghamshire Chess competitions Chess in England 1936 in chess 1936 in English sport Sport in Nottingham 20th century in Nottingham