Chess study in the first half of the twentieth century

[Paul Cooksey]

My first reaction to reading in the thread about Golombek that had failed his university exams in the early 1930s was that he might have been neglecting his studies in favour of chess.

On reflection I am not sure that is a plausible theory. I am sure Botvinnik was working on chess in a professional manner at that time. But I do not think his methods were widely adopted until after the Second World War. I am unclear how much time strong players spent on chess or how they worked on it in the 20s and 30s.

Can anyone share anything worth reading on this topic?

[Christopher Kreuzer]

There might be two elements to this, worth looking at for the World Champions, and for the strong masters (today's top grandmaster).

(i) Chess preparation.
(ii) Physical preparation.

I do recall some talk about how Alekhine prepared for matches (when not drinking!), though Euwe out-prepared him it seems in their 1935 match.

See: Alexander Alekhine: Fourth World Chess Champion (Isaak Linder, Vladimir Linder, 2016).

Until publications like Informator appeared, what were the options for finding out what your opponents played, and 'preparing' for them? Maybe, as you imply, that was not really a thing until much later.

A related question: when did it become routine to publish bulletins of (i) entire tournaments after they had finished; and (ii) daily bulletins with the games that had been played?

I suspect some of this is bound up with changes in printing technology and information transmission. Until this could be done quickly and reasonably accurately, you were maybe reliant on newspaper reports and word-of-mouth, or simply watching what your future opponents were playing in earlier rounds.

If you mean simply self-improvement (sitting at a board, going over openings and improving endgame understanding), I would be interested in how much that was done, and whether skittles chess in a cafe or other location was seen as a hindrance to that.

[Neil Blackburn]

It depends on the players involved. Rubinstein for example was famous for spending many hours a day in chess. In the other hand Vidmar for example had a full time career so would have hardly studied at all. The information on potential opponents came from tournament books and magazines. As for daily bulletins, my guess would be that the Moscow tournaments of the 1930's may have had the first daily bulletins but that is just an educated guess.

[Roger de Coverly]

A related question: when did it become routine to publish bulletins of (i) entire tournaments after they had finished; and (ii) daily bulletins with the games that had been played?

Chess & Bridge had book on Hastings 1895 for sale. That may have been one of the first.
https://chess.co.uk/products/hastings-1 ... lr9ThFL7Ot

If the catalogue of the ECF's collection can be located, that would likely indicate other contemporary books or bulletins.

In terms of technology, a typewriter and some form of duplicating machine is all that's needed for daily bulletins.