Samuel Reshevsky

Participant in the 1948 World Championship

Chessmetrics Ranking: World Number One for a total of 14 months between 1942-1953

Tournament Career: winner of 11 super-tournaments:

3-time winner of the U.S. Championship (+ 5 additional U.S. titles in other formats or with weaker fields)

winner of the Kemeri 1937 Chess Tournament, Hastings International Chess Congress 1937/38, Havana 1952 Chess Tournament

and several others…

Chess Olympiads: gold and bronze team medals, individual bronze medal

Why he deserved it:

Samuel Reshevsky emerged on the top chess scene in the 1930s and had a long-standing rivalry with Reuben Fine for the position of the best American player. After World War II and the death of Alekhine, both star Americans were invited to the 1948 World Championship. While Fine declined the invitation, Reshevsky attended the tournament and tied for third place with Keres, behind Botvinnik and Smyslov and ahead of Euwe. Two years later, due to political tensions at the start of the Cold War, he declined the first Candidates Tournament in Budapest, but he participated in the next one in 1953 in Zurich, tying for second place with Bronstein and Keres behind the winner Smyslov. He only qualified for the Candidates once more in 1967, where he lost in the quarterfinals to Korchnoi.

Reshevsky was repeatedly ranked as the world number one according to historical rankings during the 1940s and 1950s. He won many tournaments ahead of star colleagues, such as his victory at the traditional event in Hastings, celebrated ahead of Keres, Fine, and Flohr. Perhaps his greatest victory was Kemeri 1937, where he tied with Petrov and Flohr, surpassing Alekhine, Keres, Fine, and Tartakower.

Reshevsky had a great rivalry not only with Fine but also with Fischer, who was more than thirty years younger. The two did not get along well, and Reshevsky, as a practicing Jew, certainly did not appreciate Fischer’s anti-Semitic views.

Best Games:

Samuel Reshevsky vs. José Raúl Capablanca

Margate 1935