1942 in chess

Chess events in brief

• 9–18 June 1942 - Salzburg 1942 chess tournament, Six Grandmasters' Tournament in the rooms of Mirabell Palace, organised by Ehrhardt Post, the Chief Executive of Nazi Grossdeutscher Schachbund, was won by Alexander Alekhine, followed by Paul Keres, Paul Felix Schmidt, Klaus Junge, Efim Bogoljubow, and Gösta Stoltz.
• 31 August 1942 - Vladimirs Petrovs was arrested under the infamous Article 58, for criticising decreased living standards in Latvia since the Soviet annexation of 1940. Petrovs was sentenced to ten years in a corrective labor camp. Finally, he had died at Kotlas on August 26, 1943, from an inflammation of the lungs.
• 14–26 September 1942 - a tournament purporting to be the first European Individual Chess Championship, organised by Post, was held in Munich. The main event was won by Alexander Alekhine, followed by Paul Keres, Jan Foltys, Efim Bogoljubow, Kurt Richter, Gedeon Barcza, Klaus Junge, etc. The Qualification Tournament won Gösta Danielsson ahead of József Szily.
• 28 September 1942 - Salo Landau tried to escape the Nazis by fleeing to Switzerland with his family, but they were caught in Breda, near the border with Belgium. He was sent to a concentration camp in Gräditz, Silesia, where he died sometime between October 1943 and March 1944, probably 15 November 1943. His wife and young daughter, whose hiding place was betrayed, were sent to Auschwitz, where they were gassed on October 12, 1944.

  Tournaments

• Moscow, won by Isaak Mazel ahead of Vladimirs Petrovs, 1941/42.
• Dresden won by Klaus Junge ahead of Rudolf Keller, 3–8 January 1942.
• Beverwijk, won by Max Euwe ahead of Nicolaas Cortlever, January 1942.
• Leeuwarden, won jointly by Arnold van den Hoek, Cortlever and Adriaan de Groot.
• Moscow won by Igor Bondarevsky ahead of Petrovs, February 17 - March 12, 1942.
• Warsaw won by Henryk Pogorieły ahead of Abram Szpiro, February - April 1942.
• Mar del Plata won by Miguel Najdorf ahead of Herman Pilnik and Gideon Ståhlberg.
• Buenos Aires, won by Stahlberg ahead of Pilnik.
• Buenos Aires, won by Pilnik ahead of Jacobo Bolbochán.
• Rio de Janeiro, won by Duarte ahead of João de Souza Mendes.
• Lima, won by José Andrés Pérez.
• Montevideo, won by Arturo Liebstein.
• Rostock won by Carl Carls ahead of Junge, start 29 March 1942.
• Regensburg won by Friedrich Nürnberg ahead of Georg Klaus, March 29 - April 5, 1942.
• Sverdlovsk won by Viacheslav Ragozin ahead of Petrovs, March 22 - April 11, 1942.
• New York City won by Isaac Kashdan and Samuel Reshevsky, 10–30 April 1942.
• Cottbus won by Efim Bogoljubow and Milan Vidmar, Jr., start 19 April 1942.
• Bad Elster won by Walter Niephaus ahead of Friedrich Sämisch, start 10 May 1942.
• Salzburg won by Alexander Alekhine ahead of Paul Keres, 9–18 June 1942.
• Bad Oeynhausen, won by Ludwig Rellstab ahead of Hans Müller and Klaus, 22 June - July 4, 1942.
• Leipzig won by Niephaus ahead of Junge.
• Brussels, won by Albéric O'Kelly de Galway.
• Sofia, won by Yury Toshev, July 19 - August 2, 1942.
• Budapest, won by Gedeon Barcza ahead of Géza Füster.
• Nørresundby, won by Bjørn Nielsen ahead of Jens Enevoldsen.
• Östersund won by Erik Lundin.
• Stockholm won by Folke Ekström and Stig Lundholm.
• Kuibyshev won by Isaac Boleslavsky ahead of Vasily Smyslov, July 27 - August 19, 1942.
• Washington, D.C., won by Reuben Fine.
• Ventnor City won by Daniel Yanofsky ahead of Jacob Levin.
• Dallas, won by Herman Steiner and Yanofsky, 22–30 August 1942.
• Munich, won by Alekhine ahead of Keres, 14–26 September 1942.
• Munich, won by Gösta Danielsson ahead of József Szily, 14–26 September 1942.
• Warsaw/Lublin/Krakow, won by Alekhine followed by Junge, Bogoljubow, Friedrich Sämisch, Rudolf Keller, Georg Kieninger, etc., 11–24 October 1942.
• Moscow, won by Smyslov ahead of Boleslavsky, November 1942.
• Berlin won by Carl Ahues ahead of Rellstab, start 5 December 1942.
• Prague, won by Alekhine and Junge, December 1942.

  Matches

• Hector Rossetto defeated Carlos Guimard in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
• Walter Cruz drew with Paulo Duarte in São Paulo, Brazil.
• Vladimir Makogonov beat Salo Flohr in Baku, Azerbaijan.
• Rudolf Teschner won against Friedrich Sämisch in Berlin, Germany.
• Samuel Reshevsky beat Isaac Kashdan in New York.

  Team matches

• 8–9 August, Sofia: Bulgaria vs. Croatia 5-11
• 23–24 August, Trenčianske Teplice: Slovakia vs. Croatia 8-8

  Births

• 26 March – Vlatko Kovačević, Croatian/Yugoslav GM
• 1 April – Ilse Guggenberger, Colombian WIM, many time Colombian Women's Champion
• 6 April – Shimon Kagan in Tel Aviv, Israeli IM
• 19 April – Michael Valvo in New York, American IM active in computer chess
• 12 May – Dragoljub Velimirović in Valjevo, Serbian/Yugoslav GM
• 17 June – Dusan Rajkovic, Yugoslavian/Serbian GM
• 19 August – Milan Vukic, Yugoslavian/Bosnian GM
• 11 November – Bill Goichberg, President of the United States Chess Federation
• 27 November – Vlastimil Jansa in Prague, Czech GM
• Larry Parr, American chess writer and editor

  Deaths

• Ilya Rabinovich evacuated from Leningrad but died of malnutrition in a hospital in Perm, Russia.
• Nikolai Riumin died in Omsk, Russia.
• Karl Wilhelm Rosenkrantz died in Latvia.
• Samuil Vainshtein died during the Siege of Leningrad.
• Henryk Friedman died probably in a Nazi concentration camp, General Government.
• Alexander Wagner died probably in Eastern Galicia, General Government.
• 23 February - Max Blümich died in Falkenberg/Elster, Germany.
• 7 March - Sergey Belavenets died in Novgorod, Russia. Killed in combat action. Moscow City Champion 1932, 1937, 1938.
• 8 March - José Raúl Capablanca died at the Mount Sinai Hospital, in New York City. World Chess Champion 1921-1927.
• 18 April - Leonid Kubbel died during the siege of Leningrad. Russian chess problemist.
• 29 April – Anatol Tschepurnoff died in Helsinki, Finland.
• 5 June - István Abonyi died in Budapest, Hungary.
• 8 July - Emil Zinner died in Nazi Majdanek concentration camp, General Government.
• 9 July - Julio Balparda died in Uruguay.
• August - Alexey Troitsky, founder of modern study composition, died of starvation in Leningrad, Russia.
• 16 August - Leon Rosen died in New York, USA.
• 20 August - Rudolf Spielmann died in Sweden.
• 21 August – Vladimir Sournin died in Baltimore, USA.
• 3 September - Leon Schwartzmann arrested in France, died in Auschwitz.
• December - Sergey Lebedev died in Russia.