1952 World Students

[Colin Patterson]

Can anyone confirm where the 1952 World Student (pre-Olympiad) tournament was held?

As I understand it, this was a small unofficial event, effectively a forerunner of the official Student Olympiads, which came under the auspices of FIDE from 1954.

According to Kazic in International Championship Chess (Batsford 1974) the host city was Liverpool. Golombek's Encyclopedia agrees.

However, I have just read in Averbakh's Centre-Stage and Behind The Scenes (p.107) that the event was held in Scotland. Seems odd, as the author has the other details of the event correct, i.e. Bronstein and Taimanov were joint winners.

[AustinElliott]

Bronstein certainly refers it as being in Liverpool in his famous 200 Open Games, and I think in The Sorcerer's Apprentice as well.

[JustinHorton]

Of course it's possible that Averbakh thought he was in Scotland.

Spanish TV news reported the last Ryder Cup as being played in Scotland.

[David Sedgwick]

The late David Malcolm, for many years President of the Insurance Chess Club, was at the event and he said that it was in Liverpool.

He told me an amusing story. He met Taimanov at a social function and they discovered that they had a common language in German. This sent Taimanov's KGB minder into a complete panic, as he didn't speak German.

It's pure speculation on my part, but I wonder if the event could possibly have been held in the then Liverpool Scotland parliamentary constituency, located around Scotland Road, Liverpool.

[Colin Patterson]

Thanks everyone. An interesting possible explanation from David.

[John McKenna]

After the first students' (many studying only chess) international in Liverpool in 1952, which was won jointly by Bronstein & Taimanov, it was changed into a team event for under-30s, later lowered to under-27s.
From 1978 (the year an England team first won) it was re-styled as the World Youth Team Championship and the age limit reduced, again, to under-26. Any advance on that?

[Roger de Coverly]

After the first students' (many studying only chess) international in Liverpool in 1952, which was won jointly by Bronstein & Taimanov, it was changed into a team event for under-30s, later lowered to under-27s.

OlimpBase has quite a lot of material http://www.olimpbase.org/ but you have to find the link on the site.

Whilst the Soviet Union and satellites treated it as a youth competition, in England it was regarded as a BUCA responsibility rather than BCF and confined to university students or post graduates, although the lines got blurred as the potential England teams got younger, so you had those still at school, or between school and university being selected.