Hall of Fame #22: Paul Keres (The Crown Prince of Chess)

However hopeless the situation appears to be there yet always exists the possibility of putting up a stubborn resistance. - Paul Keres
Chess Quotes - Strategy
[A note for regular readers of this Hall of Fame series: The intro has not changed much. Feel free to jump to the
Table of Contents
or even to the
Biography
.]
[A note for my new readers: I believe it is useful to read the full introduction your first time. Cheers!]
This blog is a celebration that leverages an outstanding concept of GMs Nielsen and Gustafsson, but offers my unique takes and different material. The two GMs produced videos and multiple lessons regarding their top 50 chess players of all time. Although I freely accept their rankings and provide a link (below) to their work, my focus is different, and I try to provide a fresh take.
Something new? How about something old that most won't have seen?
Keres caricature page 11 of Destino (Barcelona), 25 January 1964
How does my work differ? Well, first off, I'm not a titled player. Second, I wrote brief biographies for each player and offer limited discussion and pictures of some of their works (if they wrote). Third, I started adding comparisons of their playing record versus peers in their era. Fourth, if they were eminently quotable, I'll throw in a few of those! I may have found occasion to add quotes from other famous (or even unknown) chess names regarding the Hall of Famer. Fifth, I'll toss in the occasional caricature😏.
Analyze with KIMPLODES
does lines! (files, ranks, diagonals)
Sixth, and most difficult, I will include at least two games
analyzed by the individua
l,
if such games exist
. After all, the greatest of the great should be able to explain what they were thinking during a game, shouldn't they? (Spoiler alert: perhaps, except when there is no evidence that they ever had analyses published. Also, many of them analyzed games, but the ones available to me only offer some alternative lines, with symbolic indications but no textual explanations.)
Plus, I attempt to provide links to other relevant materials regarding these grandmasters of the game.
We've reached
#22!
Back to Top
Table of Contents
Biography
How Strong Was He?
Writings
Quotes
Annotated Games
Other Links of Interest
👍🏻👍🏻
Concluding Thoughts
Other Blogs in my HoF Series
Biography
Estonian GM, International Correspondence CC, 5-time Estonian CC, 3-time Soviet CC, author, former #2 worldwide
Hall Of Fame - 22: Paul Keres
Paul Keres
, 7 January 1916 – 5 June 1975, was an Estonian GM, five-time Estonian CC, three-time Soviet CC, and renowned chess writer. Keres sharpened his skills as a teenager by playing hundreds of correspondence games and in 1935 he won the International Correspondence CC. Although FIDE lists his peak rating and ranking at 2615 and #11 in the world in 1971, if you look at ChessMetrics evaluations his peak rating would have been 2786 and he was #2 in the world a total of 52 months between July 1943 and July 1960.
Many consider he and Korchnoi the prime contenders as the strongest players never to ascend the throne as World CC. Had it not been for the outbreak of WWII, he might have beaten a declining Alekhine after Keres tied for first in the 1938 AVRO Tournament, claiming first over Reuben Fine because he won their individual matchups 1W-0L-1D. Instead, he earned lifetime sobriquets as "Paul the Second", "The Eternal Second", and "The Crown Prince of Chess." The "Second" refers to the fact he placed second in four Candidates. Keres was clearly World CC caliber, defeating former World CC Max Euwe in a closely contested match that concluded in January 1940 by a score of +6-5=3.
Keres represented the Soviet Union in seven consecutive Olympiads, earning seven team golds to go with five individual golds and a bronze. Prior to WW-II and the Soviet occupation of Estonia, he played for his native nation in four Olympiads, earning a gold, silver, and bronze on board one, and a team bronze medal in 1939.
Keres died surprisingly young, suffering a heart attack at age 59. Over 100,000 attended his funeral in Estonia.
A bronze statue was unveiled in his birth town on the 100
th
anniversary of the birth of this Estonian hero. Other post-humous accolades included his selection as Estonia's Sportsman of the 20
th
Century and the World Chess Federation naming 2016 "The Year of Paul Keres."
How Strong Was He?
Based on the rating lines shown for Botvinnik and Fischer, the statistics indicate that Keres never approached their peak strengths. However, there were certainly years where he was their equal or better. In some ways a particularly interesting aspect of this chart shows Smyslov's rating not deviating that greatly from Keres from 1942 onward. As we all know, Smyslov became the World CC in 1957.
Here's the stat that matters: "
He has the seventh highest Chessmetrics 20-year average, from 1944 to 1963, behind five World Champions and Victor Korchnoi.
" Now that's impressive.
Time to take a look at his lifetime record against top players. This should be interesting as he is one of only three players who defeated nine World CCs during their career (Korchnoi and Beliavsky are the other two). It strikes me that number is approachable as Carlsen has already defeated everyone who held the title this century, and the crown seems to be more fungible since he abdicated.
50% means a lot more than most of my readers might initially appreciate. Even World CCs don't necessarily perform much better than that over the course of a long career. Don't forget that were usually weaker in their earlier and later years when results would not have been up to their peak standard.
The number I found most interesting was his 59% score against Korchnoi (Kortschnoj) over the course of their careers. Paul eked out an advantage over the other player listed as one of the two greatest players never to have gained the throne.
Writings
His exploits continued in the world of writing where he co-authored the brilliant
The Art of the Middlegame
(#77 on
100 Best Chess Books of All Time
) with Alexander Kotov and solo ventures
Practical Chess Endings
and a deeply annotated collection of his own games
The Grandmaster of Chess
(GM Yasser Seirawan and IM Jeremey Silman both list that three-volume set among their personal favorites in a Silman blog
The Best Chess Books Ever
). All three have long been considered mandatory reading for would-be masters of the game. Would that reading them conferred mastery--I'd be in there since I do have all those books and played through each.
Meanwhile, IM Danny Rensch lists Keres'
Practical Chess Endings
on his book list for students and IM David Preuss joins many others, including Silman, who list
The Art of the Middlegame
as one of their favorites. Source:
The Best Chess Books Ever
Keres also wrote several opening treatises, usually in German, and he co-founded the Riga magazing
Shakhmaty
.
Quotes
Even the best grandmasters in the world have had to work hard to acquire the technique of rook endings.
Chess Quotes - Endings
Though I have several of his books, I elected to go with what I could find "in the wild."
In the endgame, an error can be decisive, and we are rarely presented with a second chance.
In complicated positions, Bobby Fischer hardly had to be afraid of anybody.
A player can sometimes afford the luxury of an inaccurate move, or even a definite error, in the opening or middlegame without necessarily obtaining a lost position. In the endgame ... an error can be decisive, and we are rarely presented with a second chance.
Chess Quotes - Endings
Chess is a test of wills.
Chess Quotes - Chess
An innovation need not be especially ingenious, but it must be well worked out.
Chess Quotes - Strategy
The older I grow, the more I value pawns.
Chess Quotes - Pawns
Here's the position seen above for you to solve. It's monstrously difficult, I cut it short, and I left out many variations. It's on p. 159 of the book seen. Maybe I should have included the Szabo - Keres game seen in the left column of that page...but Keres lost.
Here is what others had to say about Keres.
Play the move that forces the win in the simplest way. Leave the brilliancies to Alekhine, Keres and Tal.
Chess Quotes - Strategy
In 1928 I visited Pärnu where I played a simul. During the simul a dark-haired, 12-year old boy demanded my whole attention. I always had to stop at his board for a long time to think. But in vain, all my attempts to save the game failed. The boy received the deserved applause and asked me modestly whether we could play some blitz games. I left Pärnu with the firm conviction that I had played with a player who would once be a star among the very best. IM Vladas Mikenas;
Vlastimil Hort: Remembering Paul Keres | ChessBase
[When asked why Keres never became World CC.] Well, I believe that Keres failed in this respect because he lacked the killer instinct. He was too mild a person to give his all in order to defeat his opponents. He took everything, including his chess, philosophically. Keres is one of the nicest people that I have ever had the pleasure of meeting. With his friendly and sincere smile, he makes friends easily. He is good-natured and kind. Yes, he loves chess, but being a human being is his first consideration. Samuel Reshevsky,
The Crown Prince of Chess
Annotated Games
The kind of overly deep analysis that often suits my desires. It's not useful for all. Not even for me at times.
Given these are fifty of the greatest players of all time, how were they as annotators? Well, for those who wrote books we could truly explore that question in depth. But to keep the playing field even, I had been including only games taken from a DB. Why that limitation? Well, I didn't want to burden myself with transcribing comments from a book into a pgn file. Or increase my debt burden by buying books of those who did not yet offer free access to books released to the public domain. Besides, far easier and faster to look for annotated games in an online database.
Eventually, I changed my position on that for the reasons given in
#41: Jan Timman
. There was nothing useful in the DBs I explored. So, books were now in. Then
#35: Vasyl Ivanchuk
forced me to revisit my thinking yet again! No DB analyses, no obscure sites providing analysis, no books available to me. Sigh. Roll the tape and go for a video review of the action!!
Fortunately, I did manage to find several games with annotations by Reuben Fine.
Karu, Aivi - Keres, Paul, Correspondence game, 1931 - 32
I found no insightful data on Aivi Karu beyond this Keres game. Here was the most insightful note from Edo:
Di Felice has 'Karu, Aivi' in the Tartu Club Jubilee tournament in 1935. Chessgames.com also has a game between Aivi Karu and Keres in Tartu in 1935, as well as correspondence games against Keres. A search of Estonian newspapers of the period 1920-1950 for 'Aivi Karu' finds nothing. However, Eesti Maleelu of 1 Jun. 2016 (p.11) lists Arnold Karu in the tournament at Narva in 1928-1929, and an Arnold Karu edited a chess column in Päewaleht at least from the 31 Aug. 1925 issue (p.5), and won a tournament in 1943, according to Postimees of 15 Jan. 1943 (p.2). I am guessing that Di Felice and chessgames.com have this wrong.
Edo Ratings, Karu, A.
A Queen's Gambit, Albin Counter-Gambit (1. d4 d5 2. c4 e5!?) that Keres apparently played several times against Karu in correspondence games. On move three, White gifted away most of their advantage in a rarely played sideline; the main move is played almost fifty times more frequently. In the game, White suffered eternally from the problem of how to develop their kingside, missing their best chance to retain the advantage of the first move as early as move twelve, a mistake. Keres does a great job diagnosing White's essential difficulty and how Black took advantage.
A fast game, only 25 moves per side. Lively tactics and excellent analysis by Paul the Second.
Game Hort, Vlastimil - Keres, Paul, EU-chT 02nd Final, 1961.06.23
Vlastimil Hort
, 12 January 1944 – 12 May 2025, was a Czechoslovak and later German GM. His official ELO peak is cited as 2620 in January 1977, placing him #6 worldwide. ChessMetrics estimates his actual peak as 2725 in three different months between the January and July 1977 rating lists. A five-time Czechoslovak CC, he defected to West Germany in 1985, going on to win five West German CCs.
Hort reached the Candidates once in his career. The day after losing a very close match to Spassky in the Candidates, Hort set what was then a world record for a simultaneous exhibition against 600 players. “He explained that he gave the exhibition in order to get the loss against Spassky out of his head.”
Hort played in fourteen Olympiads, the last three for Germany. Hort is a Chess 960 Senior World CC, a title he secured in 2006.
A sideline of the Ruy Lopez appears on the board and by move fourteen a position is reached that, as Keres states, offers Black excellent play. White's play is a bit insipid, and by move 24 he had a strategically lost position. However, some inaccuracies by Black allowed White to obtain a strong passed d-pawn by move 34 and the outcome was very much in the air. All in all, an exciting rush to the time control on move forty. Unfortunately for White, they moved too quickly on their first move after the time control. It's an odd position, worthy of your viewing. White has two queens, a rook, and a bishop, versus two rooks, a bishop, and a pair of passed pawns. Now I'll turn you over to the game and Paul Keres' analysis.
I love Keres closing statement. I include it below because I realize some folks will be too busy to read all his comments.
This game isn't flawless, but in terms of content, it's so unique that it deserves to be included in this collection.
Okay, to answer my early question, was Paul Keres an excellent annotator and analyst? Oh, yeah! This is a guy you can learn from. You should read some of the comments to that effect that I extracted from a
@simaginfan
blog in the below section.
Other Links of Interest
Care for a journey down memory lane? Just pick your path!
Care for a journey down memory lane? Just pick your path! The whole purpose of this section is to address some obvious questions that might pop into your head. How come Kevin didn't talk about this? Or that? Not to mention the other thing! Well, just call me lazy! Or you could appreciate the fact I'm limiting the word count that is imposed on you😏.
Nonetheless, in the series I'll be using this little section to provide links to more fulsome discussions that revolve around some well-known and lesser-known facets of the featured chess giant. That will range from videos to links to other chess.com blogs, usually by Top Bloggers. Enjoy or skip, it's your call, as always.
Paul Keres - Wikipedia
Paul Keres (1916-75) by Edward Winter
Top Blogger
@simaginfan
wrote this in 2018.
My favorite game Of. Number 2. Paul Keres
Top Blogger
@simaginfan
wrote this in 2023.
Keres Hits The World Stage. A Game I Recognised!
I found it particularly interesting as Keres' let people into his after-the-event thoughts regarding his first international tournament. There are also some great photos of young Paul.
Top Blogger
@simaginfan
wrote this in 2021.
Paul Keres At Munich 1936. An Amazing Game Plus Some Bonus Ones!
I'll quote part of his blog
Above all, his amazing honesty and capacity for self criticism stood out. Many players simply lie when talking about their games - Alekhine was notorious for it, and he is far from alone. Keres never did. If a move by his opponent surprised him when it was played, he said so! There was no false Staunton type praise for his opponents, just genuine respect and admiration. at times he almost sounds shocked that he was able to beat them. No Capablanca type ego. No Nimzovich style 'look at how brilliant I am'. etc. Just a very humble and honest man. I admired him more for that than for the brilliance of his chess.
GM
Julio_Becerra
The Crown Prince of Chess
. Written in 2011. Multiple puzzles and some nice stories.
NM
Sam Copeland presents a Keres' brilliancy played against William Winter at the 1935 Olympiad
@Spektrowski
presents a blog that offers Keres' analysis of an adjourned position. Keres takes the reader on a journey into a GM's lab where they ponder difficult endgames.
Remembering Paul Keres | ChessBase
shows where Keres lived, Estonian stamps and coins with his image,
Paul Keres "special" in ChessBase Magazine #199 | ChessBase
Eighteen players present their favorite Keres' games, with annotations. Unfortunately, it costs about $20...if it's even still available.
Outstanding: Paul Keres at the Chess Olympiad 1954 | ChessBase
presents two excellent games from the 1954 Olympiad.
Chess Masterpieces: Keres vs. Winter, 1935
Practical chess endings : Keres, Paul, 1916-1975 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
allows you to borrow this fine endgame book, though you do have to log in.
Paul Keres - World Chess Hall of Fame & Galleries
As is usual, there's very little shown at this website. But the plaque is nice enough.
Paul Keres | Top Chess Players - Chess.com
Concluding Thoughts
chesschamps.info
That's it for the 29
th
installment of my own take on chess.com's 50 greatest players of all time. Hope you enjoyed the blog. The good GMs below have a full selection of videos and puzzles dedicated to each of the fifty.
Until the next time. 😊
Donate on DonateOpen
Slowly providing links to all my blogs at this site. There are categories (e.g., Trapping Pieces, Analysis, Writing, …) so material is easier to find. No, you do NOT need to donate.🙄🥱 It's just easier to find my blogs.
If you enjoy reading "greatest of" lists then you might also enjoy chess.com's
Every Chess 'Player Of The Decade' (From Morphy To Magnus)
.
Sources for this information
included
chess.com, wikipedia.com, ChessBase, FIDE, individuals' websites, YouTube.com, news articles, books, and other sources. Plus, my faulty memories. I mixed, matched, cut, and pasted so much that separation is implausible, and I apologize for misattributions. Particularly with quotes which are found in a thousand repositories, not to mention book covers, t-shirts, and the rantings of chess coaches of whom I've had more than a few thanks to Chess University and
@AttilaTurzo
(my primary instructor and co-author of three books, for different chess strengths, we are writing on how to analyze during a game and after.)
Other Blogs in my HoF Series
HoF #50: "The Stormy Petrel"
HoF #49: Karjakin–"The Minister of Defense"
HoF #48: Portisch–"The Hungarian Botvinnik"
HoF #47: Polugaevsky–"The Great Poluga"
HoF #46: Kamsky–"London's King"
HoF #45: Maróczy–"The Bind"
HoF #44: Leko–"The Cement Meister"
HoF #43: Winawer (The French King)
HoF #42: Najdorf–"Happy-Go-Lucky"
HoF #41: Jan Timman (The Best of the West!)
HoF #40: Mikhail Chigorin (Father of the Russian School of Chess)
HoF #39: Boris Gelfand (The Piece Twirler)
HoF #38: Efim Geller (The Giant Killer)
Hall of Fame #37: Harry Pillsbury
Hall of Fame #36: Carl Schlechter (The Viennese Drawing Master)
Hall of Fame #35: Vasyl Ivanchuk (Chuckie)
Hall of Fame #34: Siegbert Tarrasch
Hall of Fame #33: Levon Aronian (The Armenian Lion)
Hall of Fame #32: Reuben Fine
Hall of Fame #31: Efim Bogoljubov
Hall of Fame #30: Samuel Reshevsky (The Boy Prodigy)
HoF #29: Bent Larsen (The Great Dane)
Hall of Fame #28: Charles De Labourdonnais
HoF #27: Johannes Zukertort (Artist of the Chessboard)
Hall of Fame #26: Adolf Anderssen (the Immortal & Evergreen guy)
Hall of Fame #25: David Bronstein (A True Chess Artist)
Hall of Fame #24: Howard Staunton
Hall of Fame #23: Akiba Rubinstein