Nottingham 1936, was a 15-player round robin

Round-robin tournament

A round-robin tournament is a competition "in which each contestant meets all other contestants in turn".-Terminology:...

 chess

Chess

Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...

 tournament held August 10-28 at the University of Nottingham

University of Nottingham

The University of Nottingham is a public research university based in Nottingham, United Kingdom, with further campuses in Ningbo, China and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia...

. It was one of the strongest of all time.

Dr. J. Hannak wrote in his 1959 biography of Emanuel Lasker

Emanuel Lasker

Emanuel Lasker was a German chess player, mathematician, and philosopher who was World Chess Champion for 27 years...

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

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 tournaments have become the standard form of chess competition among serious players.Today, the most recognized chess...

 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 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

World Chess Championship

The World Chess Championship is played to determine the World Champion in the board game chess. Men and women of any age are eligible to contest this title....

 (Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine

Alexander Alekhine

Alexander Alexandrovich Alekhine was the fourth World Chess Champion. He is often considered one of the greatest chess players ever.By the age of twenty-two, he was already among the strongest chess players in the world. During the 1920s, he won most of the tournaments in which he played...

, Euwe

Max Euwe

Machgielis Euwe was a Dutch chess Grandmaster, mathematician, and author. He was the fifth player to become World Chess Champion . Euwe also served as President of FIDE, the World Chess Federation, from 1970 to 1978.- Early years :Euwe was born in Watergraafsmeer, near Amsterdam...

 and Botvinnik

Mikhail Botvinnik

Mikhail Moiseyevich Botvinnik, Ph.D. was a Soviet and Russian International Grandmaster and three-time World Chess Champion. Working as an electrical engineer and computer scientist at the same time, he was one of the very few famous chess players who achieved distinction in another career while...

). A number of other prominent players, such as Reuben Fine

Reuben Fine

Reuben Fine was one of the strongest chess players in the world from the early 1930s through the 1940s, an International Grandmaster, psychologist, university professor, and author of many books on both chess and psychology.Fine won five medals in three chess Olympiads. Fine won the U.S...

, Samuel Reshevsky

Samuel Reshevsky

Samuel "Sammy" Herman Reshevsky was a famous chess prodigy and later a leading American chess Grandmaster...

 and Salo Flohr

Salo Flohr

Salomon Mikhailovich Flohr was a leading Czech and later Soviet chess grandmaster of the mid-20th century, who became a national hero in Czechoslovakia during the 1930s. His name was used to sell many of the luxury products of the time, including Salo Flohr cigarettes, slippers and eau-de-cologne...

, were in the tournament.

According to the unofficial Chessmetrics

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:...

 ratings, the tournament was (as of March 2005) one of only five tournaments in history that had the top eight players in the world playing, and was (in terms of the leading players playing) the third strongest in history. All of the top twelve players on Chessmetrics' August 1936 rating list competed in the tournament except for numbers nine and ten (Andor Lilienthal

Andor Lilienthal

Andor Arnoldovich Lilienthal was a Hungarian and Soviet chess Grandmaster. In his long career, he played against ten male and female world champions, beating Emanuel Lasker, José Raúl Capablanca, Alexander Alekhine, Max Euwe, Mikhail Botvinnik, Vasily Smyslov, and Vera Menchik...

 and Paul Keres

Paul Keres

Paul Keres , was an Estonian chess grandmaster, and a renowned chess writer. He was among the world's top players from the mid-1930s to the mid-1960s....

).

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

British Chess Championship

The British Chess Championship is organised by the English Chess Federation. There are separate championships for men and women. Since 1923 there have been sections for juniors, and since 1982 there has been an over-sixty championship. The championship venue usually changes every year and has been...

. The event was won by Edith Holloway

Edith Holloway

Edith Martha Holloway was one of the brightest names in British women's chess. She was the daughter of sculptor John Denton Crittenden , who exhibited at the Royal Academy....

 (1868-1956), age sixty-eight and a former winner in 1919.

Results

Nottingham 1936

#	Player	01	02	03	04	05	06	07	08	09	10	11	12	13	14	15	Result
1		x	½	½	½	½	½	½	½	1	1	1	1	1	1	½	10
2		½	x	½	½	1	1	0	½	1	½	½	1	1	1	1	10
3		½	½	x	½	1	0	½	0	1	½	1	1	1	1	1	9½
4		½	½	½	x	½	½	½	1	½	1	½	1	1	½	1	9½
5		½	0	0	½	x	1	½	1	1	1	½	1	1	1	½	9½
6		½	0	1	½	0	x	1	½	½	1	1	½	1	½	1	9
7		½	1	½	½	½	0	x	1	1	1	½	0	0	1	1	8½
8		½	½	1	0	0	½	0	x	½	1	½	1	1	1	1	8½
9		0	0	0	½	0	½	0	½	x	1	½	½	1	½	1	6
10		0	½	½	0	0	0	0	0	0	x	½	1	1	1	1	5½
11		0	½	0	½	½	0	½	½	½	½	x	0	0	1	1	5½
12		0	0	0	0	0	½	1	0	½	0	1	x	½	½	½	4½
13		0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	0	1	½	x	½	½	3½
14		0	0	0	½	0	½	0	0	½	0	0	½	½	x	½	3
15		½	0	0	0	½	0	0	0	0	0	0	½	½	½	x	2½

External links

• Nottingham 1936 on Chessgames.com
  Chessgames.com
  ChessGames.com is a large chess community on the Internet, with over 156,000 members. The site maintains a large database of historical chess games where every game has a distinct message board for comments and analysis. Basic membership is free and the site is open to players at all levels of...