Vera Menchik

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Vera Menchik bigraphy, stories - British-Czech chess player

Vera Menchik : biography

16 February 1906 – 27 June 1944

Vera Menchik ( 16 February 1906 – 27 June 1944) was a British-Czech chess player who gained renown as the world’s first women’s chess champion. She also competed in chess tournaments with some of the world’s leading male chess masters, defeating many of them, including future World Champion Max Euwe.

Women’s World Championships

She won the first Women’s World Championship in 1927 and successfully defended her title six times in every other championship in her lifetime, and only lost one game, while winning 78 and drawing four games.

  • 1927, she represented Russia in 1st WWCh in London winning 1st place with (+10 −0 =1).
  • 1930, she represented Czechoslovakia in 2nd WWCh in Hamburg winning 1st place with (+6 −1 =1).
  • 1931, she represented Czechoslovakia at 3rd WWCh in Prague winning 1st place with (+8 −0 =0).
  • 1933, she represented Czechoslovakia in 4th WWCh in Folkestone winning 1st place with (+14 −0 =0).
  • 1935, she represented Czechoslovakia in 5th WWCh in Warsaw winning 1st place with (+9 −0 =0).
  • 1937, she represented Czechoslovakia in 6th WWCh in Stockholm winning 1st place with (+14 −0 =0).
  • 1939, she represented England in 7th WWCh in Buenos Aires winning 1st place with (+17 −0 =2).

She won two matches against Sonja Graf for the Women’s World Champion title; (+3 −1 =0) at Rotterdam 1934, and (+9 −2 =5) at Semmering 1937. Sonja Graf was the second strongest women’s player in the world at the time and coached by the legendary Siegbert Tarrasch, but looking at both the games and the final result, their playing levels were completely different. Menchik was head and shoulders above any female chess player of her time.

This observation was supported by the fourth world champion Alekhine, who, writing about one of her victories against Sonja Graf in 1939, wrote that “it is totally unfair to persuade a player of an acknowledged superclass like Miss Menchik to defend her title year after year in tournaments composed of very inferior players”, the specific tournament in question being the seventh Women’s World Chess Championship.

Early life

The daughter of a Czech father and British mother, Vera Menchik was born in Moscow but, in the aftermath of World War I and the Russian Revolution, moved with her family to England in 1921. Her father taught her chess when she was nine and, in the year of her arrival in England at the age of fifteen, she won the British girls’ championship. The following year, she became a pupil of Géza Maróczy, considered one of the top chess masters of the early decades of the 20th century.

Notable chess games

Vera Menchik

  • A nice combination in an open position leaves Lazard without a bishop.
  • A sharp game with attacks on both sides of the board. At the end, Menchik is able to queen her advanced pawn.
  • The chess queen queens another passed pawn in a rook ending.

International tournament results

Starting in 1929, she participated in a number of Hastings Congress tournaments.

Here is a list of her results in Hastings, year by year;

  • Hastings 1929, 9th place out of 10 players, (+2 =3 -4)
  • Hastings 1931, tied for 5th-8th places out of 10 players, (+3 =2 -4)
  • Hastings 1932, tied for 6th-8th places out of 10 players, (+2 =3 -4)
  • Hastings 1933, 8th place out of 10 players, (+2 =1 -6)
  • Hastings 1934, 8th place out of 10 players, (+1 =4 -4)
  • Hastings 1936, tied for 9th-10th places out of 10 players, (+0 =5 -4)

The biggest and strongest tournament Menchik played in was the Moscow tournament of 1935, which featured World Champions Botvinnik, Capablanca, and Lasker, as well as a host of elite players and future GMs like Flohr, Ragozin, Spielmann, Levenfish, Lilenthal, etc. Here, Menchik finished in last place, 20th out of 20 competitors, with a score of (+0 =3 -16).

Other major international tournaments include Karlsbad in 1929, where she finished last, 22nd out of 22 players, with a score of (+2 =2 -17), and Lodz in 1938, where she finished 15th out of 16, with a score of (+1 =5 -9).