Editing Alexander Alekhine (section)

==Biography==

===Early life===
Alekhine was born into a wealthy [[Russians|Russian]] family in Moscow, Russia, on October 31, 1892.<ref>{{cite book |author1=Litmanowicz, Władysław |author2=Giżycki, Jerzy |title=Szachy od A do Z |publisher=Wydawnictwo Sport i Turystyka, Warszawa |year=1986 |pages=16|language=pl}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last=Winter |first=Edward |title=Archive 28 - "When was Alekhine born?" |url=http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/winter28.html#4739._When_was_Alekhine_born_C.N. |website=Chess Notes |access-date=2008-05-20 |archive-date=2019-08-24 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190824213051/http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/winter28.html#4739._When_was_Alekhine_born_C.N. |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Kotov |first=Alexander Alexandrovich |title=Alexander Alekhine |publisher=Fizkultura i sport |year=1973 |page=8|language=ru}}</ref> His father, Alexander Ivanovich Alekhin, was a landowner and Privy Councilor to the conservative legislative Fourth [[Duma]].<ref name="DenkerParr">Denker 1995</ref> His mother, Anisya Ivanovna Alekhina (born Prokhorova), was the daughter of a rich industrialist. Alekhine was introduced to chess by his mother, his older brother [[Alexei Alekhine|Alexei]], and his older sister Varvara.{{sfn|Linder|Linder|2016|loc=Chapter 1: Life and Destiny}}

===Early chess career (1902–1914)===
[[File:Aliochin A.A. 1909 Karl Bulla.jpg|thumb|upright=0.90|right|Alekhine in 1909]]
Alekhine's first known game was from a [[correspondence chess]] tournament that began on December 3, 1902, when he was ten years old. He participated in several correspondence tournaments, sponsored by the chess magazine ''Shakhmatnoe Obozrenie'' ("Chess Review"), between 1902 and 1911. In 1907, he played his first [[List of chess terms#O|over-the-board]] tournament, the Moscow chess club's Spring Tournament. Later that year, he tied for 11th–13th in the club's Autumn Tournament; his elder brother, [[Alexei Alekhine|Alexei]], tied for 4th–6th place. In 1908, Alexander won the club's Spring Tournament, at the age of 15.{{sfn|Linder|Linder|2016|loc=Chapter 2: Matches, Tournaments, Rivals}} In 1909, he won the All-Russian Amateur Tournament in [[Saint Petersburg]].<ref>{{cite web |last=Popovsky |first=Alexey |title=All-Russian Amateurs Tournament- Peterburg 2-27.2.1909 |url=http://al20102007.narod.ru/nat_tour/1909/petr1909.html |website=Russian Chess Base |access-date=2021-01-23 |archive-date=2021-01-23 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210123054531/http://al20102007.narod.ru/nat_tour/1909/petr1909.html |url-status=live }}</ref> For the next few years, he played in increasingly stronger tournaments, some of them outside Russia. At first he had mixed results, but by the age of 16 he had established himself as one of Russia's top players.<ref name="Fine1952WorldsGreatChessGames">[[Reuben Fine]], The World's Great Chess Games, 1952</ref> He played first board in two friendly team matches: St. Petersburg Chess Club vs. Moscow Chess Club in 1911 and Moscow vs. St. Petersburg in 1912 (both drew with [[Eugene Znosko-Borovsky|Yevgeny Znosko-Borovsky]]).<ref>Bartelski, Wojciech. [http://www.olimpbase.org/ OlimpBase :: the encyclopedia of team chess > Non-cyclic > Friendly matches] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200923141037/http://www.olimpbase.org/index.html?http%3A%2F%2Fwww.olimpbase.org%2Fyouth%2Fstud_history.html |date=2020-09-23 }}. ''OlimpBase''.</ref> By the end of 1911, Alekhine moved to St. Petersburg, where he entered the Imperial Law School for Nobles. By 1912, he was the strongest chess player in the St. Petersburg Chess Society. In March 1912, he won the St. Petersburg Chess Club Winter Tournament. In April 1912, he won the 1st Category Tournament of the St. Petersburg Chess Club.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Popovsky|first=Alexey|title=Tournament of 1 category- St.Petersburg March-April 1912|url=http://al20102007.narod.ru/nat_tour/1912/peterb12.html|website=Russian Chess Base|access-date=2021-01-23|archive-date=2021-01-18|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210118234900/http://al20102007.narod.ru/nat_tour/1912/peterb12.html|url-status=live}}</ref> In January 1914, Alekhine won his first major Russian tournament, when he tied for first place with [[Aron Nimzowitsch]] in the [[Russian Chess Championship|All-Russian Masters Tournament]] at St. Petersburg.<ref>{{cite web|author=Alexey Popovsky|title=All-Russian Tournament- Peterburg 23.12.1913-17.1.1914|url=http://al20102007.narod.ru/ch_urs/1913/ch_rus13.html|access-date=2021-01-23|website=Russian Chess Base|archive-date=2021-01-26|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210126223949/http://al20102007.narod.ru/ch_urs/1913/ch_rus13.html|url-status=live}}</ref> Afterwards, they [[Draw (chess)|drew]] in a mini-match for first prize (each won a game).<ref name="KhalifmanAlekhine1935To1946">Khalifman 2002</ref> Alekhine also played several matches in this period, and his results showed the same pattern: mixed at first but later consistently good.

===Top-level grandmaster (1914–1927)===
In April–May 1914, another major [[St. Petersburg 1914 chess tournament]] was held in the capital of the Russian Empire, in which Alekhine took third place behind [[Emanuel Lasker]] and [[José Raúl Capablanca]]. By some accounts, [[Tsar]] [[Nicholas II of Russia|Nicholas II]] conferred the title of "[[Grandmaster (chess)|Grandmaster of Chess]]" on each of the five finalists (Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, [[Siegbert Tarrasch]], and [[Frank Marshall (chess player)|Frank Marshall]]). (Chess historian [[Edward Winter (chess historian)|Edward Winter]] has questioned this, stating that the earliest known sources supporting this story are an article by Robert Lewis Taylor in the June 15, 1940, issue of ''[[The New Yorker]]'' and Marshall's autobiography ''My 50 Years of Chess'' (1942).)<ref name="KCAK">Winter 1999, p.315-316</ref><ref name="Chess Omnibus">Winter 2003, p. 177–178</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.chesshistory.com/winter/winter38.html|last=Winter|first=Edward|title=5144. Tsar Nicholas II|website=Chess Notes|access-date=2019-11-19|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160612035631/http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/winter38.html|archive-date=2016-06-12|url-status=dead}}</ref> Alekhine's surprising success made him a serious contender for the [[World Chess Championship]].<ref name="Fine1952WorldsGreatChessGames"/> Whether or not the title was formally awarded to him, "Thanks to this performance, Alekhine became a grandmaster in his own right and in the eyes of the audience."<ref>Kalendovský 1992, p.122</ref> In July 1914, Alekhine tied for first with Marshall in Paris.<ref name="Soltis1994FJMarshall">Soltis 1994</ref>

====World War I and post-revolutionary Russia====
In July–August 1914, Alekhine was leading an international [[Mannheim 1914 chess tournament|Mannheim tournament]], the 19th [[DSB Congress]] (German Chess Federation Congress) in [[Mannheim]], Germany, with nine wins, one draw and one loss, when World War I broke out. Alekhine's prize was 1,100 marks (worth about 11,000 [[euro]]s in terms of purchasing power today).<ref>{{cite web |title=Das unvollendete Turnier: Mannheim 1914 |url=http://www.chessbase.de/nachrichten.asp?newsid=5003 |publisher=ChessBase |date=20 December 2005 |access-date=2008-05-30 |language=de |archive-date=2012-02-05 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120205184818/http://www.chessbase.de/nachrichten.asp?newsid=5003 |url-status=live }}</ref> After the declaration of war against Russia, eleven "Russian" players (Alekhine, [[Efim Bogoljubov]], [[Fedor Bogatyrchuk]], [[Alexander Flamberg]], [[N. Koppelman (chess player)|N. Koppelman]], [[Boris Maliutin]], [[Ilya Rabinovich]], [[Peter Romanovsky]], [[Peter Petrovich Saburov|Pyotr Saburov]], [[Alexey Selezniev]], and [[Samuil Weinstein]]) were interned in Rastatt, Germany. On September 14, 17, and 29 of 1914, four of them (Alekhine, Bogatyrchuk, Saburov, and Koppelman) were freed and allowed to return home.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.chesscafe.com/text/mannheim.txt |title=Manheim 1914 The Legend |access-date=2008-06-05 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081211035736/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/mannheim.txt |archive-date=December 11, 2008}}</ref> Alekhine made his way back to Russia (via Switzerland, Italy, London, Sweden, and Finland) by the end of October 1914. A fifth player, Romanovsky, was released in 1915,<ref>{{cite book |last=Romanov |first=Isaak Zalmanovich |title=Petr Romanovsky |publisher=Fizkultura i sport |year=1984 |page=20 |language=ru}}</ref> and a sixth, Flamberg, was allowed to return to Warsaw in 1916.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/winter04.html |title=3540. The internees |access-date=2008-05-30 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080509083259/http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/winter04.html |archive-date=9 May 2008 |url-status=live}}</ref>

When Alekhine returned to Russia, he helped raise money by giving simultaneous exhibitions to aid the Russian chess players who remained interned in Germany. In December 1915, he won the Moscow Chess Club Championship. In April 1916, he won a mini-match against [[Alexander Evensohn]] with two wins and one loss at [[Kiev]], and in summer he served in the Union of Cities (Red Cross) on the Austrian front. In September, he played five people in a blindfold display at a Russian military hospital at [[Tarnopol]]. In 1918, he won a "triangular tournament" in Moscow. In June of the following year, after the Russians forced the German army to retreat from [[Ukraine]], Alekhine was charged with links with [[White movement]] counter-intelligence and was briefly imprisoned in [[Odessa]]'s death cell by the Odessa [[Cheka]]. Rumors appeared in the West that he had been killed by the [[Bolshevik]]s.{{sfn|Linder|Linder|2016|loc=Chapter 1: Life and Destiny}}

====1920–1927====
When conditions in Russia became more settled, Alekhine proved he was among Russia's strongest players. In January 1920, he swept the [[Moscow City Chess Championship|championship of Moscow]] (11/11), but was not declared champion because he was not a resident of the city. In October 1920 he won the All-Russian Chess Olympiad in Moscow (+9−0=6); the tournament was retroactively called the [[1920 USSR Chess Championship|first USSR Championship]]. His brother Alexei took third place in the tournament for amateurs.<ref name="chessarchAlexey">{{cite web |last=Lissowski |first=Tomasz |date=1999 |title=Alexey, Brother of Alekhine |url=http://www.chessarch.com/archive/0009_alexey/alexey.shtml|url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080419053022/http://www.chessarch.com/excavations/0009_alexey/alexey.shtml |archive-date=19 April 2008 |access-date=2008-05-20 |website=Chess Archaeology}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last=Popovsky |first=Alexey |title=I Championship of USSR- Moscow 4-24.10.1920 |url=http://al20102007.narod.ru/ch_urs/1920/ch_urs20.html |access-date=2021-01-22 |website=Russian Chess Base |archive-date=2016-06-04 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160604115920/http://al20102007.narod.ru/ch_urs/1920/ch_urs20.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

In March 1920, Alekhine married Alexandra Batayeva. They divorced the next year.<ref>{{cite book |last=Shaburov |first=Yuri |title=Alexander Alekhine. Nepobezhdyonny champion |trans-title= Alexander Alekhine. Unbeaten champion. |publisher=Golos |year=1992 |page=104 |isbn=5-7055-0852-2}}</ref> For a short time in 1920–21, he worked as an interpreter for the Communist International ([[Comintern]]) and was appointed secretary to the Education Department. In this capacity, he met a Swiss journalist and Comintern delegate, [[Annelise Rüegg]], who was thirteen years older than he was, and they married on March 15, 1921. Shortly after, Alekhine was given permission to leave Russia for a visit to the West with his wife. He never returned. In June 1921, he left his second wife in Paris and went to Berlin.<ref name="WallAlekhine"/>{{unreliable source?|failed=y|date=December 2013}}

In 1921–1923, Alekhine played seven mini-matches. In 1921, he won against [[Nikolay Grigoriev]] (+2−0=5) in Moscow, drew with [[Richard Teichmann]] (+2−2=2) and won against [[Friedrich Sämisch]] (+2−0=0), both in Berlin. In 1922, he won against [[Ossip Bernstein]] (+1−0=1) and [[Arnold Aurbach]] (+1−0=1), both in Paris, and [[Manuel Golmayo]] (+1−0=1) in [[Madrid]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.thechesslibrary.com/files/ShortMatchesOf20thCentury.htm |title=Short Matches of the 20th Century |access-date=2008-05-20 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070928140535/http://www.thechesslibrary.com/files/ShortMatchesOf20thCentury.htm |archive-date=September 28, 2007}}</ref> In 1923, he won against [[André Muffang]] (+2−0=0) in Paris.<ref name="AlekhineMyBestGames1908to1937"/>

From 1921 to 1927, Alekhine won or shared first prize in about two-thirds of the many tournaments in which he played. His ''least'' successful efforts were a tie for third place at Vienna 1922 behind [[Akiba Rubinstein]] and [[Richard Réti]], and third place at the [[New York 1924 chess tournament]], behind ex-champion [[Emanuel Lasker]] and world champion [[José Raúl Capablanca]] (but ahead of [[Frank Marshall (chess player)|Frank Marshall]], [[Richard Réti]], [[Géza Maróczy]], [[Efim Bogoljubov]], [[Savielly Tartakower]], [[Frederick Yates (chess player)|Frederick Yates]], [[Edward Lasker]], and [[Dawid Janowski]]).<ref name="KhalifmanAlekhine1935To1946"/> Technically, Alekhine's play was mostly better than his competitors'&mdash;even Capablanca's&mdash;but he lacked confidence when playing his major rivals.<ref name="Fine1952WorldsGreatChessGames"/>

Alekhine's main goal throughout this period was to arrange a match with Capablanca.<ref name="Fine1952WorldsGreatChessGames"/> He thought the greatest obstacle was not Capablanca's play but the requirement under the 1922 "London rules" (at Capablanca's insistence) that the challenger raise a purse of US$10,000 (~$162,000 in 2022 terms<ref>{{Cite web |title=Your Results in Table Format |url=https://www.measuringworth.com/calculators/uscompare/result.php?year_source=1922&amount=10000&year_result=2022}}</ref>), of which the defending champion would receive over half even if defeated.<ref name="WinterCapablancaVsAlekhine1927"/> Alekhine in November 1921, and Rubinstein and Nimzowitsch in 1923, challenged Capablanca but were unable to raise the $10,000.<ref name="chessmaniacCapablancaOnlineTribute">{{cite web |title=Jose Raul Capablanca: Online Chess Tribute |url=http://www.chessmaniac.com/2007/06/jose-raul-capablanca-online-chess.php |date=2007-06-28 |publisher=chessmaniac.com |access-date=2008-05-20 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080513151615/http://www.chessmaniac.com/2007/06/jose-raul-capablanca-online-chess.php |archive-date=13 May 2008 |url-status=live}}</ref>{{better source needed|date=January 2021}} Raising the money was Alekhine's preliminary objective; he even went on tour, playing simultaneous exhibitions for modest fees day after day.<ref name="ScottishChessAlekhine1923">{{cite journal |title=Alekhine and Love: Greenock, 1923 |author=Linklater, J. |journal=Scottish Chess Magazine |issue=189 |date=March 1989 |url=http://www.chessscotland.com/history/Alekhine_visit.htm |access-date=2008-05-20 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090214032034/http://www.chessscotland.com/history/Alekhine_visit.htm |archive-date=2009-02-14}}</ref> In New York on April 27, 1924, he broke the world record for simultaneous blindfold play when he played twenty-six opponents (the previous record was twenty-five, set by [[Gyula Breyer]]), winning sixteen games, losing five, and drawing five after twelve hours of play. He broke his own world record on February 1, 1925, by playing twenty-eight games blindfold simultaneously in Paris, winning twenty-two, drawing three, and losing three.<ref name="WallAlekhine"/>{{unreliable source?|failed=y|date=December 2013}}

In 1924, he applied for the first time for a residence privilege in France and for French citizenship while pursuing his studies in the [[University of Paris|Sorbonne]] Faculty of Law to obtain a [[Doctor of Philosophy|PhD]]. There is no record that he completed his studies there, but he was known as "Dr. Alekhine" in the 1930s.<ref>{{cite web |title=World Chess Champion and Favourite of Hans Frank? |author=Christian Rohrer |translator=Emily Pickerill |publisher=University of Stuttgart, Institute of History |date=29 June 2021 |access-date=11 January 2023 |url=https://elib.uni-stuttgart.de/bitstream/11682/11576/1/2021_Rohrer_Alekhine.pdf |page=19}}</ref>

His French citizenship application was postponed because of his frequent travels abroad to play chess and because he was reported once in April 1922, shortly after his arrival in France, as a "bolshevist charged by the Soviets of a special mission in France". Later in 1927, the [[French Chess Federation]] asked the Ministry of Justice to intervene in Alekhine's favor to have him lead the French team in the first Nation tournament to be held in London in July 1927. Nevertheless, Alekhine had to wait for a new law on naturalization which was published on 10 August 1927. The decree granting him [[French nationality law|French nationality]] (among hundreds of other appliers) was signed on 5 November 1927 and published in the [[Journal officiel de la République française|Official Gazette of the French Republic]] on 14–15 November 1927, while Alekhine was playing Capablanca for the World title in Buenos Aires.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://alekhine-nb.blogspot.fr/p/facts.html |title=Alekhine's naturalization files |access-date=2013-10-09 |archive-date=2013-10-14 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131014010335/http://alekhine-nb.blogspot.fr/p/facts.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=1927-11-14 |title=Journal officiel de la République française. Lois et décrets |url=https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k6529751g |access-date=2023-11-23 |website=Gallica |language=EN}}</ref>

In October 1926, Alekhine won in [[Buenos Aires]]. From December 1926 to January 1927, he beat [[Max Euwe]] 5½–4½ in a match. In 1927, he married his third wife, Nadiezda Vasiliev (née Fabritzky), another older woman, the widow of the Russian general V. Vasiliev.{{sfn|Linder|Linder|2016|loc=Chapter 1: Life and Destiny}}