Paul Keres
- December 9, 2025
Participant in the 1948 World Championship
Chessmetrics Ranking: World number two for a total of 52 months between 1943-1960
Tournament Career: Winner of 21 super-tournaments:
3-time winner of the USSR Championship
Winner of the AVRO tournament 1938
3-time winner of the Hastings International Chess Congress
Winner of the Piatigorsky Cup 1963
and many others…
Chess Olympiads: Seven team gold medals, five gold and one bronze individual medal
Why he deserved it:
The Estonian magician Paul Keres earned the nickname “Crown Prince of Chess” due to his frequent second-place finishes and the fact that he often came close to the top but never quite reached it. His name commanded great respect among other chess players, and he was a highly feared opponent, but he never ascended to the very top.
His first shining moment came in 1938 when he won the AVRO tournament, which featured eight players—the world’s top eight according to the consensus of the time and retrospective rankings. Keres had the same points as American Fine but had a better head-to-head score. Behind them were Botvinnik, Euwe, Reshevsky, Alekhine, Capablanca, and Flohr, four of whom were world champions. Based on this victory, Keres challenged Alekhine for the title, but negotiations were interrupted by the outbreak of World War II, and the match could not take place. After the war, Alekhine died, and Keres participated in the 1948 World Championship tournament, where he tied for third place with Reshevsky, behind Botvinnik, Smyslov, and ahead of Euwe.
After that, Keres participated in six consecutive Candidates Tournaments—and finished second in four of them. It was this series of second-place finishes that earned him the nickname.
Keres won over twenty super-tournaments, an impressive number for the time and more than most world champions of the era. In 1970, as a fading star, he participated in the USSR vs. World match, where he won his mini-match against Ivkov 3-1 on the last board. He was consistently ranked second (how fitting) and was a member of the top 5 from the 1930s to the late 1950s.
Best Games:
Paul Keres vs Alexander Alekhine
Margate 1937
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Miroslav Janeček graduated in English Philology at Palacký University Olomouc. Currently he works in Prague as a content editor for a large marketing company. His roots are in Opava - the historic and cultural centre of the Czech part of Silesia. That city is also the home of Slezan Opava, the chess club where Miroslav started to play chess, later went on to work as a youth coach and which he to this day proudly represents. As an aspiring chess publicist, he is the main author of articles on ChessDB.cz. In his free time, in addition to chess and writing, he also devotes himself to racket sports, history, and literature.