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Tim Krabbé:

Max Euwe was legendary for being unassuming, approachable and helpful. Still, the following story is amazing. I found it in today's column by Johan Hut in Gooi- en Eemlander (and four other papers) - he had found it in a posting by Gert Pijl on one of the more popular Dutch chess sites, Utrechtschaak.

In 1953, a 10- or 11-year old boy (not Pijl himself) sent a letter to Euwe, asking him for the autographs of all the 15 participants of the behemoth (30 rounds, 2 months) Candidates Tournament in Switzerland where Euwe was going to play. It is hard to imagine a world-famous sportsman doing anything else than, at the very most, send a photo, or a card, with his own autograph, but ten days after the last round had been played (he could barely have had time to put his hat on the rack), Euwe replied with a letter, with the coveted autographs.

Sir,

Enclosed are the requested autographs.

If Dutch sports glory is of concern to you - and judging from your interested letter I may assume so - I would like to seriously advise you to refrain from requests like the one made to me, in the future. Asking for one autograph is one thing, but you do not have any idea what a burden a command like the one given by you, constitutes for a player.

Sincerely,

In other words, Euwe had felt bound to do what the boy, totally unknown to him, had asked. He didn't like to do it, it was a burden, he let the boy know he had asked too much, but what can you do? As Hut remarks, the crux is the word command - but the Dutch word Euwe used, opdracht, does not have a clear-cut English translation. It is stronger than a request, but perhaps not as strong as an order or a command. An opdracht is given by somone higher in rank or in status; teacher to pupil, parent to child, boss to worker.
And so the former World Champion went around, asking for autographs.

As Hut, too, observes, there is something strange with the autographs. In the left column, we recognize (helped by the tournament book, which has pictures with autographs), from top to bottom: Petrosian - Kotov - Stahlberg - Smyslov - Averbakh - Reshevsky - Gligoric. And in the right column: Taimanov - Euwe - Szabo - Boleslavsky - Najdorf - Keres - Bronstein. Fourteen players - but there were fifteen candidates. You'd almost think the boy could have written: "Hey Mr. Euwe, you call that a reply? There were fifteen players, so fifteen autographs is what I want." One autograph is indeed missing - Geller's. It's not hard to see why. In their game in round 2, Euwe, who was in great form until his age (52) started to weigh, thrashed him in a beautiful, still famous game.
Opdracht is opdracht, but apparently even for Euwe, there was one consideration more important than the wish of an autograph-collecting schoolboy - the reverence you owe a fellow-sportsman after a bad loss.


Geller - Euwe, Candidates, Switzerland 1953
1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.e3 c5 5.a3 Bxc3+ 6.bxc3 b6 7.Bd3 Bb7 8.f3 Nc6 9.Ne2 O-O 10.O-O Na5 11.e4 Ne8 12.Ng3 cxd4 13.cxd4 Rc8 14.f4 Nxc4 15.f5 f6 16.Rf4 b5 17.Rh4 Qb6 18.e5 Nxe5 19.fxe6 Nxd3 20.Qxd3 Qxe6 21.Qxh7+ Kf7 22.Bh6 (see diagram) Rh8 23.Qxh8 Rc2 24.Rc1 Rxg2+ 25.Kf1 Qb3 26.Ke1 Qf3 and White resigned.



Vir: http://www.xs4all.nl/~timkr/chess2/diary_16.htm