Chess Champion

Last October in Amsterdam's Hotel Carlton, careful hands hoisted a huge white tomcat onto a small table set on a dais. Cautiously the beast sniffed at a checkered board, turned away disinterested. Soon afterward two bespectacled, scholarly-looking gentlemen sat down at the same table, studied the board for five hours, occasionally moved a figure on it.

Last week the younger, more methodical of the two. Dr. Max Euwe, was the new world chess champion. A mathematics teacher at the Girls' Lyceum in Amsterdam, he puzzled stolidly over his plays while Dr. Alexandre Alekhine fidgeted and squirmed in the chair opposite him, smoked countless cigarets, gulped countless cups of coffee. At first, Champion Alekhine's brilliant attack, bordering on the reckless, put him in the lead. On his 43rd birthday, after three weeks of play, he was leading, 5-to-2. Unworried, unhurried. Challenger Euwe drew closer. His opponent's moves, as recorded on a dummy board, offended attending chess experts who thought Alekhine's daring an open slight on the Dutchman's talents. Disconcerted by their caustic mumblings. Dr. Alekhine won a three-day respite from the Dutch doctor. When he returned to play, neither his rest nor his mascot cat, which sniffed the board before each game, could stave off Dr. Euwe's determined efforts. In the 25th game, Alekhine sacrificed two pawns in the opening, hoped to snare his opponent's queen. Watchful Dr. Euwe withdrew the piece from danger, forced Alekhine to resign, went into the lead for the first time. Two days later he won the 26th, then lost the 27th. The next two ended in draws.

Should Alekhine win the 30th and last game, he would tie the count, keep the title which he won eight years ago from Cuba's Jose R. Capablanca. Soon maneuvered out of position by Euwe, who attacked vigorously after a queen's gambit, Alekhine accepted his offer of a draw after 35 moves, rose from directly under Jacob Lyon's great canvas of The Riflemen of Capt. Jacob Pieterson Hooghkamer and Lieutenant Pieter van Rijn in the Military Casino (see cut), warmly congratulated his youthful successor. To the amateur winner went the championship, 15 1/2-to-14 1/2, and expense money; to Professional Alekhine, $6,800 plus a chance to challenge within six months.

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