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 multiple serious players.
152-506: The Chess Olympiad is a biennial chess tournament in which teams representing nations of the world compete. FIDE organises the tournament and selects the host nation. Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic , FIDE held an Online Chess Olympiad in 2020 and 2021 , with a rapid time control that affected players' online ratings. The use of the name "Chess Olympiad" for FIDE's team championship is of historical origin and implies no connection with
304-413: A crosstable . A crosstable is an arrangement of the results of every game in a tournament in the form of a table. The result of each individual game is recorded in the appropriate cell. Rows contain the player's name and a number indicating their finishing position; individual games can be looked up using these numbers as co-ordinates. Wins are indicated by 1, draws by ½ and losses by 0. For example,
456-527: A Swiss tournament system was adopted. Starting from 2008, the first criterion for determining ranking has been match points instead of board points. Teams score 2 points for a match win, 1 point for a drawn match and 0 points for a match loss. The trophy for the winning team in the open section is the Hamilton-Russell Cup, which was offered by the English magnate Frederick Hamilton-Russell as
608-407: A draw according to the rules of chess , the player is allowed to stop both clocks and record the draw claim as long as their opponent agrees to the claim. If the opponent disputes the draw claim, the director may be called to come to a conclusion. If the claim is found to be correct, the game is drawn. Once a player has made a move from a position eligible for a draw, they lose their rights to claim
760-604: A dominant record against Graf of +15–3=5. Beyond Graf, Price was the only other female player to have multiple known wins against Menchik, albeit before she became world champion. The only other women to have any recorded wins against Menchik are Wally Henschel in the Women's World Championship and Elaine Saunders . Menchik never had a FIDE title because FIDE did not establish the Grandmaster or International Master titles until 1950 after her death and they have never awarded
912-543: A dominant score of 10½/11, only drawing once against Edith Michell . She finished 1½ points ahead of the runner-up Katarina Beskow , and 5 points ahead of Price, who came in sixth place with an even score. Menchik started playing master-level events in 1928, beginning with Scarborough in May where she was included in the Premier section after two invited American players became unavailable. She demonstrated she could compete at
1064-412: A draw in that position. The quickplay finish is the phase of the game when all remaining moves must be made in a limited time. If a player has two minutes or less left on their clock, they may ask the arbiter to adjudicate a draw. The arbiter must decide if the player's opponent is making any attempt to win the game by normal means, or if the position can be won in any way. If the arbiter decides against
1216-428: A draw, the player's opponent will be awarded two extra minutes of time. Otherwise, the game is drawn, and the decision of the arbiter is final. Players are granted one point (1) for a win, a half point (½) for a draw, and no points (0) for a loss toward their tournament score. A minority of tournaments use alternative scoring systems such as "football scoring" (3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw), but they are treated
1368-408: A favourable end-game and of avoiding wild complications." He compared her style of play to that of Samuel Reshevsky and Salo Flohr, but stated that she was not as accomplished as them because she lacked their imagination. Menchik's style also resembled that of her coach Géza Maróczy. Other players such as Harry Golombek and Julius du Mont likewise pointed out her lack of imagination as the reason she
1520-560: A few tournaments, such as Bilbao and London, have experimented with the football 3-1-0 scoring system to encourage players to go for wins. A tournament that has too many participants for a round-robin format is commonly conducted as a Swiss-system tournament . This is the most common format for amateur events, and is also common at professional level. In the Swiss style, players are paired as far as possible with opponents having same or similar scores. Pairing players for Swiss-system tournaments
1672-440: A fixed amount of time for all their moves of the game. The FIDE Handbook designates the following common blitz time controls: Blitz time controls increase the odds that a player would "lose on time", meaning forfeiture of the game due to expiration of their clock time. Blitz tournaments are often documented with the notation "G/5" or "G/15", meaning "game in 5" and "game in 15", respectively. In standard time controls (STCs)
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#17327688927801824-424: A guide for future international chess tournaments that would follow it. The tournament not only showed the need for time controls but it also clearly demonstrated the drawbacks to the knockout elimination tournament format. It was won by Adolf Anderssen of Germany, who became regarded as the world's best chess player as a result. The number of international chess tournaments increased rapidly afterwards. By
1976-511: A living primarily through chess-related positions. Although she was not a full-time professional player, she supplemented the limited prize money she earned in competition by giving chess lessons, serving as a chess editor for different journals, and serving as a host at different chess clubs. She also earned money by giving simultaneous exhibitions . Menchik was an editor for the Social Chess journal with William Winter and later served as
2128-470: A loss ( L ) is 0 points, and a draw ( D ) is a ½ point. Places that were shared are indicated with "=". Menchik played seven Women's World Championship tournaments, winning all of them. Key: Federation is the country represented by the player. Format is either round-robin (RR) or the Monrad variant of a Swiss system. Score is the number of points scored divided by the number of games, where
2280-408: A match against Jacques Mieses , who was still an active competitor at 77 years old. Mieses had previously been one of the top ten players in the world around 1900 and later would be one of the inaugural players to receive the Grandmaster title. This match was the first between a woman and someone who had been an established top men's player. Menchik defeated Mieses in the match 6½–3½ (+4–1=5). Menchik
2432-597: A match. They ended up playing two five-game matches, one in April and one in June. Menchik won both matches 3–2 (+2–1=2 and +3–2=0), establishing herself as the best female player in the country. Menchik had another big success that August at the Stratford tournament, where she finished runner-up to George Thomas . She won her game against Thomas and earned a prize of £8 (equivalent to about £580 in 2022). At some point during
2584-496: A mechanic at his textile factory. Her father later owned a mill and resumed working as a mechanic. Menchik and her family lived in a large six-room flat and had an above-average standard of living. Menchik was taught how to play chess by her father at age nine. When she was eleven, the Russian Revolution that started in 1917 began to reshape her life. Her family was forced to share the extra space in their flat with
2736-468: A particular tournament result could count towards a particular title. The starting category for master-level tournaments was category I, which applied to a tournament whose participants had an average rating from 2251 to 2275. From 2276 to 2300 it was a category II tournament, and so on with a further category every 25 points. Categories are no longer used in these calculations, but informally, strong tournaments are sometimes described by category. Through 2005,
2888-448: A player has a set amount of time to complete a specified number of moves. If the specified number of moves is met, the player's time will rejuvenate. The first standard time controls, introduced in 1861, were 24 moves in two hours, with the average game lasting five hours. In the mid-1980s, a new format, 40 moves in two hours, proved popular because few games lasted over 60 moves. There are two main forms that provide compensation for both
3040-400: A player is forbidden to have a mobile phone or any other electronic means of communication in the playing venue; failure to comply with this may result in a forfeit. Chess score sheets may be used for recording matters relevant to the game. Players should not distract or annoy their competitor in any way. Once a player has finished their game, they are considered a spectator. Refusal of
3192-539: A player to comply with the rules may result in penalty, up to and including forfeiture of the game or even disqualification of the player. If two opponents both refuse to obey the rules, the game may be considered lost by both players. In 1976, smoking was banned in a major tournament for the first time (the National Open, Las Vegas ). The arbiter must see that the Laws of Chess are observed and make decisions in
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#17327688927803344-538: A prize for the 1st Olympiad (London 1927). The cup is kept by the winning team until the next event, when it is consigned to the next winner. There is a separate women's competition . Since 1976 it has been held at the same time and venue as the open event, with the two competitions comprising the Chess Olympiad. The trophy for the winning women's team is known as the Vera Menchik Cup in honor of
3496-450: A qualifying event for the 1993 Women's World Championship. Sylvia Chidi of Nigeria didn't enter the tournament until after the first two rounds were played, so her first two games are listed as forfeited. Relaying moves formerly required another person to copy the moves of the players on a large demonstration board behind the players, and then transmit them via radio or telegram. Advancements in camera technology allowed zooming clearly at
3648-538: A requirement for doping tests, which they are obligated to take at the events such as the Olympiad. The tests were first introduced in 2002 under significant controversy, with the widespread belief that it was impossible to dope in chess. Research carried out by the Dutch chess federation failed to find a single performance-enhancing substance for chess. According to Dr Helmut Pfleger, who has been conducting experiments in
3800-469: A score of 5½/9, a ½ point behind the bronze medallist. She defeated the three lowest-finishers, lost to her sister, and drew against her other five opponents. Olga's only other appearance was at the next Women's World Championship in 1937 when she finished in joint 17th place out of 26 players with a score of 6½/14. She did not face Vera this time due to the Swiss format used in this edition. Menchik earned
3952-417: A second illegal move in the same game, the arbiter shall declare the game lost by the offending player. If a game begins with the piece colors reversed, the game should be stopped and restarted unless an arbiter rules otherwise. If a player displaces any pieces, they should place them in the correct locations on their own time. In games with long time controls , each player is required to record all moves of
4104-466: A second match a month before the next Women's World Championship tournament in 1937. Like the previous match, it was privately organized, this time with the help of William Zimdin, an Estonian luxury hotel owner who sponsored the match to be held at his Panhans Hotel in Semmering , Austria. Unlike the previous match, it was recognized by FIDE at the time as for the world championship title, albeit not for
4256-502: A specific target. Because of that limitation, they were used with the intent of killing random civilians from afar and inciting terror amongst the general population. The Menchiks were among a little over 6000 casualties during the almost half a year of bomb attacks. As the bomb destroyed the Menchik family's home, most of the records of Vera's life were also lost in the attack, including game records, her writings, and her trophies. One of
4408-485: A strong marriage. Menchik's sister Olga was also an accomplished chess player. She finished in equal first at the London Girls' Championship in 1928 the year after Vera became too old to participate, ending up as the runner-up after losing the playoff. Olga participated in the Women's World Championship competitions alongside Vera twice. Her best result was in 1935 when she finished in fourth place out of ten with
4560-512: A team into the Olympiad. Each team is made of up to five players, four regular players and one reserve (prior to the tournament in Dresden 2008 there were two reserves). Initially each team played all other teams but as the event grew over the years this became impossible. At first team seeding took place before the competition, with teams playing in preliminary groups and then finals. Later certain drawbacks were recognized with seeding and in 1976
4712-540: A time, computers competed in human tournaments as well, but computers have become so strong that humans are no longer able to compete with them; players now tend to treat them as analysis tools rather than as opponents. Interest remains in computer chess tournaments, especially the World Computer Chess Championship and Top Chess Engine Championship . FIDE publishes a handbook giving rules for chess tournaments. This includes sections giving
Chess Olympiad - Misplaced Pages Continue
4864-695: A title to anyone posthumously. Menchik had a record of about 25% against GM-level players and a record of nearly 50% against IM-level players. As such, she is generally recognized as an IM-strength level player. Max Euwe was the only World Champion she won or drew a game against, although she achieved this (in 1930 and 1931) before Euwe became World Champion. The only other World Champions she faced regularly were Capablanca and Alekhine, who won all of their nine and eight games against her respectively. Nonetheless, both Capablanca and Alekhine regularly praised Menchik's ability. When asked "are there any women who played good chess" in 1932, Capablanca replied, "One. Her name
5016-649: A winning party. Although modern chess had been established since around 1475, the first tournament (in the sense of structured competitions) was in Leeds in 1841. There was a knockout tournament in London in 1849 and a tournament in Amsterdam in 1851. The first international chess tournament was held in London in 1851. The London 1851 tournament took place during the Great Exhibition , and would serve as
5168-541: Is Vera Menchik... She played against me and she is very strong." Master-level players who lost to Menchik were said to be "members" of the "Vera Menchik Club", a term that was used by both these high-level players and the press. This concept originated at the Carlsbad tournament in 1929 when Albert Becker suggested the idea as a means of ridicule after Menchik lost her opening-round game. He also suggested players who drew against Menchik be deemed "candidate members". Before
5320-535: Is awarded to the team that has the best overall performance across the open and women's divisions. Russia won this trophy six times, China – three times, India and Ukraine – two times each. The table contains the Open teams ranked by the medals won at the Chess Olympiad (not including the online or unofficial events), ranked by the number of first-place medals, ties broken by second-place medals, etc. The table contains teams ranked by total number of medals won at
5472-403: Is often not an issue, as the tied players often split prizes equally, in case of necessity (for trophies, qualifications to other tournaments, etc.), there are a few ways to achieve tiebreak. In no particular order: Tournament organizers specify the tie-breaking rules (if any) on the entry form. Single-elimination style or knock-out style are also sometimes used for chess tournaments. In fact,
5624-402: Is often quite complicated due to some nontrivial constraints: Swiss tournament pairings were traditionally done by hand using cards. Today, tournament organizers usually use software. Due to the high percentage of draws and the small granularity of the scoring system which is entirely based on final results, it is common for players to have the same score as the tournament finishes. Although it
5776-602: Is reduced when every player plays everyone else. Rating categories are sometimes used to separate players of different levels into different round-robin groups. The World Chess Federation , the Australian Chess Federation and the United States Chess Federation all use different categorization scales to distinguish player ability. Most round robin tournaments use the traditional 1-½-0 scoring system. In recent years, however,
5928-638: Is simply based on the presence or absence of the world's ten highest-ranked players at the time, and does not involve rating numbers. According to this system, the Vienna 1882 chess tournament would compare in strength to Linares 1993 . A time control is a mechanism in tournament play that allows each round of the match to finish in a timely fashion so that the tournament can proceed. The three main types of time controls used in chess tournaments are blitz , standard , and compensation . In blitz chess (also known as sudden death chess) each player starts with
6080-482: Is the longest in chess history, ahead of the next-longest 16-year reign of Nona Gaprindashvili from 1962 to 1978 and the 13-year reign of Maia Chiburdanidze from 1978 to 1991. Emanuel Lasker , the World Chess Champion for 27 years from 1894 to 1921, was the only player with a longer reign as world champion. Alexander Alekhine was also world champion for 17 years, split between two reigns. Menchik
6232-467: The 29th Chess Olympiad in 1990, there were 127 member countries. The Chess Olympiads were held at irregular intervals by FIDE until 1950; since then, they have been held regularly every two years. The first chess engine (a chess playing computer program ) to beat a person in tournament play was the Mac Hack Six , in 1967. Soon after, tournaments were created just for chess computers. In 1970,
Chess Olympiad - Misplaced Pages Continue
6384-665: The 36th Chess Olympiad in 2004, two players refused to provide urine samples and had their scores cancelled. Four years later, Vasyl Ivanchuk was not penalized for skipping a drug test at the 38th Chess Olympiad in 2008, with a procedural error being indicated instead. In 2010, a FIDE official commented that due to the work of the FIDE Medical Commission, the tests were now considered routine. In November 2015, FIDE president Kirsan Ilyumzhinov announced they are working with WADA to define and identify doping in chess. Each FIDE-recognized chess association can enter
6536-654: The French Defence (1.e4 e6). She regularly defended against 1.d4 with the Queen's Gambit Declined (1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6). The French Defence was the opening most associated with Menchik. She gave a lecture on this opening at the Hastings Chess Club as early as 1928. Hugh Storr-Best, a player who took lessons with Menchik, stated that the French Defence was the focus of her instruction on playing with
6688-578: The Olympic Games . The first Olympiad was unofficial. For the 1924 Olympics an attempt was made to include chess in the Olympic Games but this failed because of problems with distinguishing between amateur and professional players. While the 1924 Summer Olympics was taking place in Paris, the 1st unofficial Chess Olympiad also took place in Paris. FIDE was formed on Sunday, July 20, 1924,
6840-613: The World Chess Hall of Fame in 2011. She was the 16th inductee and the first woman to be inducted. When FIDE began hosting the Women's Chess Olympiad in 1957, they named the championship trophy for the gold medal team the Vera Menchik Cup. FIDE commemorated the 50th anniversary of her death by making 1994 the "Year of Vera Menchik". Menchik has been featured on postage stamps in a few different countries, including
6992-411: The 1931 British Championship. The Major section was held in conjunction with the national championship, which she still could not enter because of her lack of citizenship, and was for high-level international players. Menchik won the section with an undefeated score of 9/11, one point ahead of Edward Jackson. Two of her seven wins came against Jackson and Harry Golombek . The year after Menchik defended
7144-478: The 1960s, chess computers have occasionally entered human tournaments, but this is no longer common. Most chess tournaments are organized and directed according to the World Chess Federation (FIDE) handbook, which offers guidelines and regulations for conducting tournaments. Chess tournaments are mainly held in either round-robin style , Swiss-system style or elimination style to determine
7296-572: The British Championship, her only appearance at the event. She scored an even 5½/11 to finish in seventh place out of twelve. She drew all of the players who placed above her except for Golombek. Menchik defended her world championship title for the last time in 1939 in Buenos Aires. The tournament was played as a 20-player round-robin. Menchik's nine-year win streak of at least 59 games at these tournaments came to an end when she
7448-500: The British women's champion Edith Price in two matches, and then the world by winning the inaugural Women's World Chess Championship in 1927. Menchik began competing in master-level tournaments in 1928. Following her first big success at Ramsgate in 1929 when she shared second place with Akiba Rubinstein , she was regularly invited to these elite events for the next decade, including the local Hastings Congress . Her best result in
7600-717: The Caplin Menchik Memorial in London in 2022, named for Menchik and the sponsor Caplin Systems. The inaugural edition was a ten-player women's round-robin tournament designed to give lower-titled and untitled players the opportunity to earn norms for the Woman International Master (WIM) and Woman Grandmaster (WGM) titles. It was the first memorial tournament for Menchik that England hosted since an open tournament in Maidstone in 1994 for
7752-433: The Chess Olympiad (not including the online or unofficial events) in the Open event (since 1927) and Women's event (since 1957), ranked by the number of first-place medals, ties broken by second-place medals, etc. Boldface denotes active chess players and highest medal count among all players (including these who not included in these tables) per type. The table shows players who have won at least 7 team medals in total at
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#17327688927807904-703: The Chess Olympiads. The best individual results in order of overall percentage are: Chess tournament Today, the most recognized chess tournaments for individual competition include the Candidates Tournament and the Tata Steel Chess Tournament . The largest team chess tournament is the Chess Olympiad , in which players compete for their country's team in the same fashion as the Olympic Games . Since
8056-648: The Christmas Congress. Her next-best result came the following year when she finished in joint sixth place. Most of Menchik's other biggest successes in the early 1930s also happened in England. She became the Hastings Club champion for the first and only time in 1930. The following year, she had one of the most significant tournament victories of her career, winning the Major Open section at
8208-690: The Czech Republic in 1996. Various memorial tournaments have been held in Menchik's honour. In the 1960s, the Hastings Chess Club hosted a junior tournament for at least a few years for local players under age 15 at the insistence of an anonymous donor. The DPP chess club in Prague in the Czech Republic has hosted the Vera Menchik Memorial, an annual or biannual open rapid tournament that began in 2016 and has been held five times as of 2022. The English Chess Federation began hosting
8360-534: The Hastings Chess Club in 1923, starting with an intra-club match between the ladies team and a team of third class players. She first represented Hastings in the Sexton Cup inter-club competition that June, playing on the 28th and final board. A few months later in September, she began playing at the county level for East Sussex on the 39th board out of 60. The most significant tournament she entered that year
8512-545: The Hastings Premier tournament was in 1931/32 when she defeated future world champion Max Euwe and Mir Sultan Khan . Late in her career, Menchik won a lone Women's World Championship match against Sonja Graf , the next-leading female player of her era. Menchik was active up until her death in 1944, when she was killed in a German air raid that destroyed her home during the Second World War . Menchik
8664-484: The International Master title in the club included Conel Hugh O'Donel Alexander , Albert Becker, Stefan Fazekas , Josef Rejfíř, Lajos Steiner, George Thomas, and William Winter , among others. Menchik also faced many master-level players who were never considered for any FIDE titles, typically because they had already died before FIDE began awarding titles. Edgard Colle and Mir Sultan Khan were members of
8816-468: The International Master title, and Rudolf Spielmann . On New Year's Day the next year, Menchik made a draw against Euwe at the Christmas Congress, their last encounter. The Moscow tournament in 1935 was similar to Carlsbad in 1929 in terms of the size and in that it featured many of the world's top players. It was also an opportunity for Menchik to return to her hometown. She did not fare well, scoring 1½/19 with no wins and three draws. Her best game result
8968-409: The Laws of Chess. Most chess tournaments are held in either round-robin style, Swiss-system style or single-elimination style. In round-robin tournaments , each participant plays every other participant an equal number of times. Round-robin tournaments involving four participants are known as "quads" or "foursome". Round-robin tournaments are often used for small groups because the element of luck
9120-432: The London Girls' Championship, where she won the first two editions with perfect scores in 1926 and 1927. There were over 30 photographers from the press present on the day of the opening ceremonies at the inaugural edition primarily to report on Menchik. She also had the opportunity to speak on BBC Radio . Her sister finished in joint second and runner-up at these two championships. In-between these tournaments, Menchik won
9272-497: The Major-level reserve section at the Christmas Congress, her first notable tournament victory at a high-level open tournament. The following year at the tournament at the end of 1927, she defeated Abraham Baratz , a game recognized as her first victory over an established master. Menchik's biggest triumph in 1927 was becoming the inaugural Women's World Champion at age 21. The International Chess Federation (FIDE) hosted
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#17327688927809424-551: The Premier level, achieving an even score of 4½/9 to finish in joint seventh place out of ten. Alexander Alekhine , the World Champion at the time, commented, "She is without a doubt a phenomenon, and her victory over [Fred] Yates in the first round will be historical." Menchik also made her Premier debut in the reserve section of the Hastings Christmas Congress that year, and regularly played in
9576-684: The Ukrainian part of the Russian Empire, but later lived in Moscow. The initial three champions were the top three finishers at the 1949/50 Women's World Championship tournament to decide Menchik's successor. Rudenko did not dominate the tournament in the way Menchik always did as her winning score of 12/15 was lower than any of Menchik's percentage scores, even though Rudenko defeated both of her closest competitors. None of these three champions were regarded as being as good as Menchik, albeit it
9728-499: The Vera Menchik Club, eight of them were candidate members, six played Menchik but never lost or drew against her in two games each on average, while the remaining nine never faced her. The inaugural GM members were: Max Euwe (+2–1=1), Jacques Mieses (+5–3=6), Samuel Reshevsky (+1–1=0), and Friedrich Sämisch (+1–0=0), where Menchik's records against each player are given in parentheses. The inaugural GM candidate members of
9880-481: The Vera Menchik Club, which included six players who received the Grandmaster (GM) title or the honorary equivalent. The trophy for the winning team at the Women's Chess Olympiad is named the Vera Menchik Cup in her honour. Vera Mencikova was born on 16 February 1906 in Moscow to Olga ( née Illingworth ) and František Menčík, who were English and Czech respectively. She had a younger sister Olga who
10032-535: The West London Chess Club. When chess lessons became less popular during the war, another way Menchik earned money was by giving lessons in the card game bridge . Menchik was generally well-liked for her personable character and her interest in other people. Her popularity was one of the reasons she regularly received invitations to tournaments. Menchik, like most other players of IM-strength, did not aim to be fully dedicated on chess compared to
10184-488: The Women's World Championship title a third time in 1933 in Folkestone , England, she was challenged to an informal four-game match by Sonja Graf , a German player she had never played against who also regularly competed in open tournaments. The match was hosted by Max Euwe in his home. Graf won the first game with the black pieces before Menchik recovered to win the last three games and the match. Graf's performance
10336-423: The Women's World Championship tournaments. The 1931 edition was the first of four consecutive world championships in which she had a perfect score, a run that spanned 45 games in total. Menchik's best results at the Hastings Christmas Congress came in the early 1930s. At the 1930/31 edition, she defeated Max Euwe, the winner of the tournament. Euwe was already well-established as one of the best chess players in
10488-408: The Women's World Championship trophy. Menchik won the match convincingly by a score of 11½–4½ (+9–2=5). While Graf had an even 4/8 score with the white pieces, she lost her first seven games with the black pieces. Graf did not come close to challenging Menchik at the 1937 World Championship either, finishing in joint third place with 9/14 in her tournament debut, five points behind Menchik. Two of
10640-570: The Year of Vera Menchik. Because of the circumstances of Menchik's death, few of her awards have survived. The Hastings Chess Club displays Menchik's gold medal that honours her long reign as Women's World Champion. The medal had been in the possession of her sister's husband. The New York Times featured Menchik in their obituary series Overlooked in September 2022. Menchik married Rufus Henry Streatfield Stevenson in October 1937 when she
10792-405: The arbiter at all times. A player must make their own move before offering a draw , and must not stop their own clock and start their opponent's clock before they have made the offer. If a player does not make a move before offering a draw, the opponent can request a move before considering the draw offer (which cannot be retracted). No conditions may be attached to a draw offer. If a player claims
10944-530: The attack. Nonetheless, they would not have known whether they had enough time to reach either shelter. These flying bombs were guided missiles that the German Luftwaffe launched from occupied land across the English Channel for several months from 13 June just two weeks before Menchik's death through October. They had an intermediate range of 160 miles, but were too imprecise to be aimed at
11096-472: The best interest of the competition, but must not interfere with the game otherwise. If a rule is broken, the arbiter may choose from a number of penalties including the following: The arbiter may also expel offending spectators from the venue. Spectators are also forbidden to use mobile phones at any time in the playing area, and may be expelled for it. Member federations are allowed to ask FIDE authorities to give an official decision about problems relating to
11248-419: The best players in the world. She had considered joining the club for over a year before finally doing so. Menchik's first coach at the club was James Drewitt, the club champion that year. In the later part of the year, she began taking private lessons with Géza Maróczy , a Hungarian who later became one of the inaugural players to be awarded the Grandmaster (GM) title in 1950. This coaching made her one of
11400-559: The black pieces. Menchik credited James Drewitt with improving her understanding of closed openings, while crediting Maróczy with improving the theory aspects of her game. Golombek commented that Menchik "knew her theory very well: openings as well as endgames". Menchik was undoubtably the best female chess player before the Second World War. She was the inaugural Women's World Chess Champion from 1927 until her death in 1944. Her nearly 17-year reign as Women's World Champion
11552-850: The city after taking a coaching position at the Empire Social Club there in 1931. Stevenson worked as a pharmacist and was a prominent chess administrator who had some experience as a competitive chess player, having won the Kent County championship. He served as the honorary secretary of the Southern Counties Chess Association for 26 years and later became the honorary secretary of the British Chess Federation beginning in 1938. In these roles, he started county competitions, raised funds, and sought to welcome less experienced players into
11704-585: The closing day of the 1st unofficial Chess Olympiad. FIDE organised the first Official Olympiad in 1927 which took place in London. The Olympiads were occasionally held annually and at irregular intervals until World War II; since 1950 they have been held regularly every two years. As a sporting federation recognized by the IOC, and particularly as a signatory to the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) conventions, FIDE adheres to their rules, including
11856-478: The club were Salo Flohr (+0–7=3), Ernst Grünfeld (+0–0=2), Andor Lilienthal (+0–1=2), Géza Maróczy (+0–1=3), Miguel Najdorf (+0–0=2), Akiba Rubinstein (+0–1=1), Saviely Tartakower (+0–3=2), and Milan Vidmar (+0–1=2). Other members of the club included two players awarded the Honorary Grandmaster title by FIDE, namely Eero Böök (+1–0=0) and Harry Golombek (+1–4=4). The players who received
12008-533: The club who are generally recognized to be GM-strength. Reginald Michell and Fred Yates were members of the club generally recognized to be IM-strength that Menchik defeated multiple times. George Thomas was Menchik's most frequent opponent among master-level players and she had a positive score against him of +10–6=13 in their known results. When Menchik first arrived in England, male chess players greatly outnumbered female chess players, particularly in competitions. Women primarily competed against other women, and it
12160-505: The competition. Double-elimination tournaments work in the same way as single-elimination tournaments except that a player loses eligibility to take first prize after two losses. Since chess is believed to have a first move advantage for white , to ensure fairness, the players have to face each other in an equal number of white and black games. For example, in the Chess World Cup , players face off each other in two games, except
12312-505: The end of the 1850s, chess tournaments had been held in Berlin, Paris, Manchester , New York City, San Francisco, Birmingham , and Vienna . By the end of World War II there were 24 international chess tournaments per year, and by 1990 there were well over a thousand. An attempt was made in 1924 to include chess in the Olympic Games . However, because it was very difficult to distinguish between amateur and professional chess players ,
12464-470: The event was called off. While the 1924 Summer Olympics was taking place in Paris, the 1st unofficial Chess Olympiad took place separately from the Olympics, but also in Paris. The Fédération Internationale des Échecs (FIDE) was formed on the closing day of the first unofficial Chess Olympiad. FIDE organized the first official Chess Olympiad in 1927 in which there were 16 participating countries. By
12616-483: The few surviving awards was a damaged gold medal Menchik had received to honour her then twelve-year reign as world champion in 1939. Menchik was an annual participant in the Hastings Christmas Congress , which comprised different-level round-robin sections, for most of her career. Key: Score is the number of points scored divided by the number of games, where a win ( W ) is 1 point,
12768-415: The field for around twenty years, "Both mentally stimulating and mentally calming medication have too many negative side effects". Players such as Artur Yusupov , Jan Timman and Robert Hübner either refused to play for their national team or to participate in events such as the Chess Olympiad where drug tests were administered. All 802 tests administered at the 2002 Olympiad came back negative. However, in
12920-399: The final with four games. Resolving ties is absolutely crucial in this format, with the modern rule generally following: 1. The players play a number of rapid games (2 or 4) until ties are broken. 2. If the players are tied, they keep playing pairs of blitz games until ties are broken, or until a set number of pairs are played (usually 1 or 2 pairs, although it can be up to 5 pairs). 3. If
13072-456: The first Chess Olympiad in July 1927 and decided to have a women's tournament in conjunction with the event. The event organizers wanted and were able to convince FIDE to retroactively declare the winner of the women's tournament the first FIDE Women's World Champion. The tournament was a 12-player round-robin featuring representatives of eight European countries. Menchik won the tournament with
13224-636: The first North American Computer Chess Championship (NACCC) was held in New York City, and in 1974, the first World Computer Chess Championship (WCCC) was held in Stockholm . Kaissa , a chess program of the Soviet Union was named the world's first computer chess champion. In 1995, the first World Computer Speed Chess Championship was held in Paderborn , Germany for blitz chess . For
13376-420: The first Women's World Chess Champion . Judit Polgár from Hungary is the only player who won Chess Olympiad medals in both competitions – two gold medals in the women's event ( 1988 , 1990 ) and two silver medals in the open event ( 2002 , 2014 ). * In 1976, the [REDACTED] Soviet Union , other Communist countries and Arabic countries did not compete for political reasons. FIDE organized
13528-421: The first biography about Menchik. Bykova stated that Menchik's visit to Moscow was the inspiration for her taking a serious interest in the game. The Soviet Union was successful in becoming the leading country in women's chess after Menchik's death. They began holding women's championships in 1932 and after Menchik's appearance in Moscow in 1935, there were 5000 women competing to qualify for these championships
13680-446: The first international chess tournament was held in single-elimination style. In single-elimination tournaments, the loser of a game is immediately eliminated from winning the first prize. In most single-elimination chess tournaments there is a chance for players to compete for positions other than first. Players are normally given seeds based on their rating in order to prevent the highest ranked players from facing each other early in
13832-402: The first move. The player or the arbiter may end the game at any time after the player's opponent has overstepped their time limit. If a timed-out clock remains unnoticed, the game will continue as normal. If the game needs to be interrupted, the arbiter shall stop the clock. Due to most tournaments having increment or delay as well as digital clocks being more precise, digital chess clocks are
13984-552: The first two times in 1930 and 1931 at the Olympiads in Hamburg and Prague respectively. She won both editions, each of which was played as a double round-robin featuring the same five players. She scored 6½/8 in 1930 and a perfect 8/8 in 1931. In the 1930 edition, she won by 1 point, having drawn a game against the runner-up Paula Wolf-Kalmar and lost a game to the third-place finisher Wally Henschel , her only loss at any of
14136-495: The following cross table shows the result of the Hastings 1895 chess tournament : From this table, it can be seen that tournament winner Pillsbury lost to Chigorin, Lasker and Schlechter; drew with Blackburne, Walbrodt and Marco; and won his remaining 15 games. In Swiss-system tournaments, results are usually displayed on a round by round basis. There are variants to the way Swiss tournaments are displayed, such as listing wins by
14288-399: The following year. Over a span of nearly 40 years, Soviet players won the next 15 Women's World Championships, which were reorganized primarily as matches after Lyudmila Rudenko won the vacant title in 1950. The majority of that success was by Georgian players Gaprindashvili and Chiburdanidze. Only Bykova and Olga Rubtsova , the champions from 1953 to 1962, were Russian. Rudenko was born in
14440-554: The game in algebraic chess notation . If, however, a player reaches less than five minutes on their clock, and does not have an increment of thirty seconds or more, they are excused from recording the remaining game moves until the game has been completed. At the conclusion of the game, both players must sign each other's score sheets and turn them to the event organizer if instructed to do so. In fast chess games , players are not required to record moves, as it would take away from important thinking time. The score sheets must be visible to
14592-519: The game. He was also a news editor and subscriptions manager for British Chess Magazine . While her husband was an editor, Menchik influenced the magazine to include more coverage of women's chess tournaments and other topics related to women's chess. Menchik and Stevenson were married for a little over five years until his death in February 1943. By 1940, his health had already began to deteriorate. Menchik and Stevenson were believed to have had
14744-685: The game. Advances in chess engines also allow for casual viewers to evaluate the position in real time; for this reason tournament broadcasts commonly include a 30-minute delay. FIDE has rules for disabled players, with the aim of facilitating competition on an equal footing with able-bodied players. Although the Blind Chess Olympiad is the most significant chess event for the blind and visually impaired , players in either group can participate at most standard tournaments including international ones. In some cases, specially designed chessboards with raised squares and pegs are used to aid
14896-418: The impoverished residents from the lower floors of their building. Menchik switched her education from a private girls' school to a Soviet public school, and her father's mill was seized. At her new school, the students started a chess club in her last year in Moscow. Menchik joined the club and played her first tournament there at age 14 with other students and teachers, none of whom were women or girls. Although
15048-471: The letter "W", losses by the letter "L" and draws by the letter "D". Additional symbols may also be used, such as indicating wins by forfeit with "X", losses by forfeit with "F", half point byes (i.e. byes requested by the player) with "H", full point byes (unpaired due to odd number of players) with "B" etc. The following table shows the result of the 1991 Women's Interzonal Tournament in Subotica , Serbia,
15200-404: The main Premier section the following year. Although Menchik had ties to England, Czechoslovakia, and Russia, she was never fully recognized as belonging to any of these countries. She could not become a British citizen until 1937. Even though she represented Czechoslovakia in her most successful years, she did not speak Czech and was rarely able to visit the country. The Moscow tournament in 1935
15352-407: The main Premier tournament thereafter until 1937. "After 15 rounds it is certain that [Menchik] is an absolute exception in her sex. She is so highly talented for chess that with further work and experience at tournaments she will surely succeed in developing from her present stage of an average player into a high classed international champion. She indisputably has attained her three points against
15504-545: The majority of the world's top players and those of GM-strength. The two strongest events of Menchik's career in Carlsbad and Moscow were both located in the two other countries where she had ties. At these tournaments, Menchik took the opportunity to visit her father at the former and visited various attractions in the city at the latter, factors that may have contributed to her last-place finishes at these events. Some of Menchik's other recreational interests were seeing plays and films, playing tennis, and modelling clay. Menchik
15656-604: The mid-1930s were the Czechoslovakian Championship and the international section of the British Championship. In the Czechoslovakian Championship, she finished in joint last place with four others who scored 4½/11 in the 1933 tournament in Mnichovo Hradiště. Menchik's next Czechoslovakian Championship was in 1936 in Poděbrady, where she finished in thirteenth place out of eighteen with a score of 7/13 and
15808-723: The most notable open international tournaments Menchik in which participated in the 1930s were in Maribor in Yugoslavia and in Moscow. The Maribor tournament in August 1934 was one of Menchik's biggest successes in open international tournaments. Menchik finished in third place out of nine with a score of 5/8 behind only Vasja Pirc and Lajos Steiner , both of whom would be named inaugural International Masters by FIDE in 1950. The players she finished ahead of included Josef Rejfíř , Lajos Asztalos , and Milan Vidmar Jr. , who all received
15960-559: The most successful open tournament of her career in the Kent Congress at Ramsgate , a Scheveningen team event between a British team and a foreign team, each with seven players. Menchik played on the foreign team, which also included former World Champion José Raúl Capablanca and her former coach Maróczy. The British team included Thomas and Yates. The foreign team won the tournament by a wide margin, and Menchik scored an unbeaten 5/7 (+3–0=4) to share second place on her team and in
16112-437: The next dominant women's champions after Menchik, owing to both of them holding the title for over a decade and their success in open tournaments. They were the first and second women respectively to receive the Grandmaster title. Because Vera Menchik was the easily the best female chess player, her passive positional playing style led to the stereotype that women could not be good attacking tactical players. In modern chess,
16264-481: The online olympiads in 2020 and 2021 following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic . Russia and India were subsequently declared joint winners after several Indian team members experienced connectivity issues due to a global outage of Cloudflare servers in 2020 Online Chess Olympiad . The 2022 event was originally planned to be held in Minsk , Belarus , but it was rescheduled to Moscow , which originally
16416-511: The only female chess players at the time to partake in formal training. Menchik was only able to work with Maróczy until early 1924 when he left England to go to the United States. At this point, she resumed training with Drewitt. Although she only trained with Maróczy for a short time, she credited him with inspiring her to try and compete at a higher level. Menchik began competing regularly in chess tournaments in her first few months at
16568-611: The open section was rewarded $ 30,000, while the winners of lesser sections were rewarded subsequently smaller amounts. Other chess tournaments, such as the World Chess Championship , also reward the winners with a title, such as "World Chess Champion". Lesser tournaments sometimes replace monetary rewards with book prizes or trophies . Vera Menchik Vera Francevna Mencikova ( Russian : Вера Францевна Менчик , Vera Frantsevna Menchik ; Czech : Věra Menčíková ; 16 February 1906 – 26 June 1944),
16720-502: The opening columnist and games editor for Chess magazine during the Second World War. Also during the war, Menchik became the director of the British National Chess Centre in London in September 1939. She held the position for about a year until the building was destroyed by a fire when the German Luftwaffe bombed London during The Blitz early in the Second World War. After this bombing, Menchik joined
16872-406: The opposite stereotype exists and it is believed that the strongest female chess players tend to have attacking styles. These more aggressive styles became associated with Gaprindashvili and later Judit Polgár , the latter of whom is widely acknowledged as the best female chess player in history. Polgár herself is also capable of a more long-term strategic style of play. Menchik was inducted into
17024-541: The player will receive a half-point, as if they had drawn the game. A player who wins by forfeit or default will also be granted one point. Players are not allowed to take any action that will bring the game into disrepute. For example, deliberate attempts at cheating by sneaking a captured piece back on to the board can be punished by this rule, rather than the rules dealing with illegal moves. Players can not make any use of any outside information. This includes advice, notes, and analysis of another chess board. During play,
17176-564: The players are still tied, a single deciding game (Armageddon) will be used, with Black receiving draw odds (draw count as a win) in exchange for White having time advantage (typically 5 vs 4 minutes). The Scheveningen system, first used in Scheveningen , Netherlands in 1923, involves two teams, each member of one team playing against each member of the other team. Typically each team has between 6 and 12 players, and both individual and team prizes may be awarded. Results are reported using
17328-407: The players' board, although relaying moves was still done manually. In the early 2000s, autosensory boards were introduced, allowing moves to be relayed instantaneously, but are not commonly used due to their cost. In elite tournaments, besides cameras on the players' boards, there are also chess commentators – strong chess players who comment on the game and explain the thought processes and plans of
17480-407: The preferred choice of equipment in tournaments. If it is found that the starting position of the pieces was incorrect, the game must be cancelled and restarted. If it is found that an illegal move has been made, the game must return to the position directly before the irregularity. For the first illegal move by a player, the arbiter shall give two minutes extra time to his opponent. If a player makes
17632-408: The rules of the game, but there are also sections specifying how tournaments are organized and regulated. A chess clock is a clock with two separate time displays of which only one display can be running at a time. The player with the black pieces will initiate their opponent's timer at the start of the game. Thus the player with the white pieces will have their timer running first, and will make
17784-414: The same as regular scoring for the purposes of Elo rating . Full-point byes are received when a player is excluded from a round because of an extra player. Thus, in tournaments with an odd number of players, a different player will receive a full-point each round. A full-point bye is equal in points to a normal win. Half-point byes can be requested by a player who will be unavailable for a round. If accepted,
17936-430: The same tournament, chess journalist Hans Kmoch also mocked Menchik by stating he would "go on stage as a ballerina" if Menchik scored more than three points. Becker himself became the first member of the club when he lost to Menchik in the third round. Although Menchik only scored exactly three points in Carlsbad, Kmoch expressed regret over his declaration and his behavior in light of Menchik's performance midway through
18088-549: The same, they would have shared first place. The 1939 Women's World Championship was the last time Menchik was able to leave Britain due to the Second World War , which began during the tournament. She was still able to play in some tournaments in England. She had a good result at the London Easter Congress in 1940 in which she finished in third place with a score of 6/9, behind only Golombek and Paul List , and ahead of Thomas. Two years later, Menchik played
18240-429: The strong masters, but it is little known to the public that she has also attained superior positions against Euwe , Treybal , Colle and Dr. Vidmar . She was beaten by Dr. Vidmar only after a nine hour match. It is the chess world's duty to grant her every possibility for development." — Alexander Alekhine , the reigning World Champion, praising Menchik's performance at Carlsbad in 1929 During 1929, Menchik had
18392-504: The strongest tournaments had been classified category XXI. The Zurich Chess Challenge 2014 , held from 29 January to 4 February 2014, was the first ever category XXIII tournament, with an average Elo rating of 2801. The 2014 Sinquefield Cup , held from 27 August to 7 September, was the second category XXIII tournament, with an average Elo rating of 2802. To gauge tournaments held before 1970, Jeff Sonas devised an unofficial class system, intended to roughly correspond to categories. This
18544-424: The time lost in physically making a move and ensuring that a player can avoid having an ever-decreasing amount of time remaining. The winners of chess tournaments are often rewarded with monetary prizes. Often, the chess tournament draws its prizes from a prize fund , dispensing rewards for all the winners in each section. For example, the 2008 World Open chess tournament had a prize fund of $ 400,000. The winner of
18696-516: The tournament also included international players. In-between those tournaments, Menchik fared better at the 1935 Major Open at the British Championship in Yarmouth, scoring 7/11 to finish in third place behind Samuel Reshevsky and Adolf Seitz . She won her game against the tournament winner Reshevsky, who lost on time and had a perfect score in the rest of the tournament. Menchik also defeated Graf, who finished in joint seventh place with 5/11. This
18848-618: The tournament overall with Akiba Rubinstein , who previously had a chance to challenge for the World Championship. She was a ½ point behind Capablanca and a ½ point ahead of Maróczy. Menchik's performance drew widespread attention and resulted in her regularly receiving invitations to play international tournaments in the years to come, the first two of which were in Paris and Carlsbad in Czechoslovakia later that year. The 22-player Carlsbad event featured nearly all of
19000-476: The tournament that any player Menchik defeated would be deemed a member of the "Vera Menchik Club". Despite Menchik's low score, Alekhine reaffirmed that she demonstrated talent and potential. At her next tournament in Barcelona, Menchik finished in eighth place out of fifteen participants, narrowly earning one of the prizes allocated to the top eight. Menchik defended the Women's World Championship title for
19152-519: The tournament was not completed, Menchik would have finished in second or third place. She stated that the tournament "gave birth to [her] sporting spirit". Not long after, Menchik left Russia in 1921 amidst her parents splitting up and their family having already been forced to move into a different home. She and her sister stayed with their mother and moved to Hastings on the southeastern coast of England to live with their maternal grandmother Marie, who had already left Moscow for Hastings because of
19304-448: The tournament. The notion of the club grew in popularity after the tournament and was routinely mentioned in the press thereafter. Max Euwe and George Thomas, both of whom had negative scores against Menchik, were each declared to be "president" of the club by the press or other master-level players on different occasions. Out of the inaugural 27 players to be awarded the Grandmaster title by FIDE in 1950, four of them were members of
19456-409: The visually handicapped, while a tournament assistant can be used to help players with other physical handicaps. FIDE uses tournament results to determine whether a player has qualified for a title , such as Grandmaster . For a number of years, starting in 1970, FIDE classified tournaments in categories according to the average Elo rating of the participants, as part of the calculation of whether
19608-706: The war. Meanwhile, her father moved back to Bohemia to live in his childhood home in Bystrá nad Jizerou . When Menchik arrived in England, she could only speak Russian. She began to focus more on chess in part because she did not need to know English well to play. Menchik joined the Hastings Chess Club in March 1923 at age 17. The club was highly-renowned, having already begun to host the Hastings International Chess Christmas Congress , an annual tournament that featured some of
19760-411: The world and ultimately became World Champion a few years later in 1935. Her victory over Euwe attracted global press coverage. Menchik next faced Euwe at the following edition and won again. She also defeated Mir Sultan Khan , who finished in fourth place, at the same tournament. Overall, Menchik scored 4/9 to earn joint fifth place out of ten at that 1931/32 tournament, the best result of her career at
19912-423: The world's top players. Although Menchik did not fare well at either tournament, finishing in second-to-last and last place respectively with scores of 3/11 and 3/21, she notably won games against Edgard Colle in Paris and both Albert Becker and Friedrich Sämisch in Carlsbad. Sämisch was one of the inaugural players to receive the Grandmaster title. The victory over Becker came after he had suggested earlier in
20064-618: The year, the Sussex Chess Association formally recognized Menchik as a first class player before she made it to the semifinals of the county championship. Menchik ended 1925 by playing the Major section of the Christmas Congress, the first time there was a female player in that section. She finished in joint last with three others, despite drawing against four of the five players who came in second place through joint fifth place. Menchik began to receive media attention prior to
20216-424: Was a Russian-born Czechoslovak chess player who primarily resided in England. She was the first and longest-reigning Women's World Chess Champion from 1927 to 1944, winning the championship eight times primarily in round-robin tournaments. In an era when women primarily competed against other women, Menchik was the first and only woman competing in master-level tournaments with the world's best players. Menchik
20368-474: Was a draw against Salo Flohr , who finished in joint first place with Mikhail Botvinnik . This draw was well-received by the Moscow public, in part because it helped the Soviet player Botvinnik finish in joint first instead of second to Flohr. Menchik attributed her general poor results at the tournament to spending her free time exploring the city. Other international tournaments Menchik participated in during
20520-473: Was a first class section of the 1923/24 Hastings Christmas Congress, which was above the level of second class at which she had been playing in the prior months and two levels below the renowned highest international level. Although she finished in joint seventh place out of ten players with a score of 3½/9, she made a draw against Edith Price , the two-time reigning British women's champion . A year later, Menchik began facing Price regularly to determine who
20672-463: Was age 31 and he was age 59. She changed her name to Vera Stevenson , but still used her birth name in competitions. Stevenson had previously been married to Agnes Lawson , another high-level chess player who competed in the Women's World Championship tournaments, until her death in 1935. During Menchik's marriage, she lived with her husband in London, having already moved to the Bayswater area of
20824-593: Was born a year or two later and also became a chess player. Her mother and father both worked for estate owners who were members of the Russian nobility . Her mother was a governess who acted as a private tutor for the owners' children while her father was the manager of their estates. Her mother's parents already lived in Russia, where her mother's father Arthur worked as a cotton manufacturer. Vera's father came to Russia in 1904 after an invite from his uncle to work as
20976-485: Was born in Moscow to a Czech father and English mother. She began playing chess competitively in school at age 14 not long before the Russian Revolution led her family to leave Russia and move to England in 1921. She joined the Hastings Chess Club in 1923, where she began training with James Drewitt and Géza Maróczy . Menchik established herself as the best female player in the country in 1925 by defeating
21128-449: Was difficult to make a proper comparison because all three were at least age 40 when they became champion and because none of them competed against the top male players. Rudenko was the first woman to receive the International Master title in 1950. Bykova and Rubtsova also were awarded the IM title when they became the Women's World Champion. Gaprindashvili and Chiburdanidze were regarded as
21280-476: Was good enough for the two to discuss the possibility of a match for the Women's World Championship in London. It never materialised, however, in part because Graf hurt her reputation by losing a match 0–6 to Paul Heuäcker, who was better regarded as a chess composer than a competitive chess player. After Menchik's fourth Women's World Championship title defence in 1935 in Warsaw, Menchik and Graf finally did play
21432-453: Was held to a draw in Round 11 by Milda Lauberte . The next round, Menchik nearly lost to Graf but was able to recover and win the game even though Graf at one point had a winning endgame. After another draw in the following round, Menchik did not lose or draw any of her remaining games and won the tournament with a score of 18/19, two points ahead of Graf. Had Graf won their game and all else was
21584-407: Was host of the 2020 Olympiad, which was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic . However, due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine , FIDE made a statement in February 2022 that the tournament will not take place in Russia and will be shifted to Chennai , India . This trophy was created by FIDE in 1997 and named after Nona Gaprindashvili , the former women's World Champion (1962–1978). The trophy
21736-447: Was killed on 26 June 1944 when her house in south London was destroyed in a direct hit by one of the earliest V-1 flying bomb attacks during the Second World War. Her sister and her mother were also killed in the attack as the entire family had sought shelter in the basement of their home. They had the option to hide in a bomb shelter in their backyard or a shelter underneath the nearby Clapham North tube station , both of which survived
21888-472: Was not a higher-level player. On the other hand, Alekhine and Capablanca, the two World Champions who played against her the most often, did not see such a deficiency and believed she had more potential. Menchik played chess with a calm demeanor at the board. She was described as sitting "all game with her hands in front without even moving a muscle in her face." Gideon Ståhlberg , one of the inaugural grandmasters, praised her sportsmanship, saying, "Vera Menchik
22040-454: Was relaxed in both her wins and losses. When an opponent won a good game, she was the first to congratulate him." Menchik's passive style of play was regarded as resembling her passive personality. Menchik had a preference for playing 1.d4 (the Queen's Pawn Game ) with the white pieces over other first moves. With the black pieces, she commonly defended against 1.e4 (the King's Pawn Game ) with
22192-416: Was still common for chess clubs to not allow women to join. There were some women competing at the second-class level, and the very best were competing at the first-class level. At the Hastings Christmas Congress in particular, Menchik was the first player to go past the first-class level and play in the Major section in 1925, subsequently reaching the reserves of international-level Premier section in 1928 and
22344-528: Was still competing right up to her death in 1944. Her team had qualified for the semifinals at the Southern Counties Chess Union Championship, her last tournament, but died the day before her next game was scheduled to take place. Menchik was a positional player. Chess author E. G. R. Cordingley described her style of play as, "Her game was characterised by solid position-play, with the definite aim of bringing about
22496-474: Was the better player. Both of them finished in second place in their respective sections at the first class level in the 1924/25 Hastings Christmas Congress. They played a playoff to decide the top first class woman, but the game ended in a draw. Because of this draw as well as Menchik being unable to compete in the British Women's Chess Championship because she wasn't a citizen, Price challenged Menchik to
22648-497: Was the dominant female chess player before the war, winning at least 59 games in a row at the Women's World Championship tournaments. Highlights of her successes against male players included two victories and a positive score against Euwe and a positive score in 29 known games against George Thomas , who received the International Master (IM) title. Master-level players that Menchik defeated were said to be members of
22800-570: Was the first and only woman accepted as a master in the period she was competing. The closest any other woman came to challenging Menchik while she was Women's World Champion was Sonja Graf, the only other woman primarily competing in high-level open tournaments at the time, albeit not at as high of a level as Menchik. Graf established herself as a capable competitive player in 1931 when she began working with Eduard Dyckhoff and Siegbert Tarrasch . Graf had an attacking tactical playing style completely opposite to Menchik's passive style. Menchik had
22952-420: Was the only time Menchik played Graf in an open tournament. After Menchik got married in 1937, she was able to become a British citizen and represent England in competitions. She participated in a 1938 match between Britain and Holland, drawing both her games on the eighth board out of ten against Willem Mühring . Britain won the match by one point. Later that year, Menchik became the first woman to compete in
23104-525: Was the only time she was able to return to Russia after leaving. After Menchik's death, none of the countries she represented made a strong effort to sustain her legacy. The country that sought to carry on her legacy the most in the near-term was the Soviet Union. Part of the reason Menchik was invited to the Moscow tournament was the hope that her appearance in the event would help bolster Soviet women's chess. A little over two decades later, Soviet player and former Women's World Champion Elisaveta Bykova wrote
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