On December 15th, 1935 Max Euwe won the 30th and decisive game of his first match with Alexander Alekhine, to become the 5th World Chess Champion. Many Dutch media paid tribute to the fact that this month it was exactly 75 years ago, and of course the Max Euwe Centrum in Amsterdam didn’t forget about it either.There were lots of activities on Saturday, December 18th at the Max Euwe Square in the heart of Amsterdam. According to schedule, at 10.30 the World Champion himself, Viswanathan Anand, would give a lecture about Euwe. Then from 12.00 to 14.00 a first rapid game between Anish Giri and Jan Smeets (the last two Dutch champions) would be played, followed by simuls by Anand, Giri and Smeets from 14.00 till 17.00, and then from 17.00 till 19.00 the second rapid game between Giri and Smeets.
However, things went a little bit different. Anand, not the first time this year, had travel issues. After the London Chess Classic he would fly to Amsterdam on Friday the 17th, but as you might know many, many flights were cancelled that day because of the heavy snowfall. So was Vishy’s flight. The World Champ decided to take the train to Brussels, stay the night there and then take an early train to Amsterdam on Saturday morning.
Seeing the risk that Anand wouldn’t be able to come to Amsterdam at all, the organizers decided to get Anish Giri to Amsterdam already on Friday. The young Dutch GM thus spent the night in Hotel American, in the room of the World Champion. On his arrival, a little note said: ‘Welcome, Mr Anand.’
Because the Dutch railways weren’t well prepared for the snow either, Anand’s morning train had a two-hour delay and so he finally arrived at the Max Euwe Square around 12.30. By then the chess fans had enjoyed an improvised, two hour lecture and blitz session by Giri & Smeets, and free coffee and tea. Outside it was cold but very pretty, inside the big, wooden ‘tent’ gave a nice, grandcafe-like atmosphere.
Read more here.
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