Salo Flohr

Salomon Mikhailovich Flohr (November 21, 1908 – July 18, 1983) was a Czechoslovak and Soviet chess player and writer.

During 1924, he participated in simultaneous exhibitions by Richard Réti and Rudolf Spielmann, and he was still giving displays well into his seventies.

Flohr won the Kautsky Memorial tournaments of 1928 and 1929 which were held in Prague, and made his international debut at the Rohitsch-Sauerbrunn (Rogaška Slatina) tournament in Slovenia, where he finished second to Akiba Rubinstein in the latter's final success.

Flohr had also taken a job as a chess journalist; one of his first assignments was to cover the 1928 Berlin tournament, during which he continued to win money on the side by playing chess.

Flohr dominated many tournaments of the pre-World War II years, and by the late 1930s was considered a contender for the World Championship.

However, his patient, positional style was overtaken by the sharper, more tactical methods of the younger Soviet echelon after World War II.

Flohr had a troubled childhood beset by personal crises.

He was born in a Jewish family in Horodenka in what was then Galicia, Austria-Hungary (now in Ukraine).

He and his brother were orphaned during World War I when their parents were killed in a massacre, and they fled to the newly formed nation of Czechoslovakia.

Flohr settled in Prague, gradually acquiring a reputation as a skilled chess player by playing for stakes in the city's many cafés.

Flohr's playing ability peaked in the mid-1930s, when he became one of the world's strongest players and a leading contender for the World Championship.

Flohr also frequently visited England, regularly playing in the Hastings tournaments of the 1930s.

Flohr became a national hero in Czechoslovakia during the 1930s.

His name was used to sell many of the luxury products of the time, including Salo Flohr cigarettes, slippers and eau-de-cologne.

His form for his adopted country in the Chess Olympiads was equally impressive, according to the comprehensive Olympiad site olimpbase.org.

He made his debut at Hamburg 1930 on board one, scoring 14½/17 for the silver medal.

He finished first in 1931/32, 1932/33 and 1933/34, he finished in a tie for first place with Max Euwe and Sir George Thomas in 1934/35, and he was second behind Reuben Fine in 1935/36.

On home soil at Prague 1931, again on board one, he scored 11/18, and led Czechoslovakia to a team bronze medal.

Flohr beat Gösta Stoltz by 5½–2½ in 1931, and a year later he beat Mir Sultan Khan, the 1932 and 1933 British Champion, by 3½–2½.

Notable victories were at Bad Sliač in 1932, where he shared first place with Milan Vidmar; Scheveningen in 1933; Bad Liebenwerda in 1934 with 9½/11; Barcelona in 1935 where he tied for first with George Koltanowski; Moscow 1935 where he tied for first place with future World Champion Mikhail Botvinnik; Poděbrady in 1936 with the score of +10 −1 =6; and Kemeri in 1937 where he shared the top spot with Vladimir Petrov and Samuel Reshevsky.

During this period, he had several other notable high finishes, such as Bern 1932 (tied for second with 11½/15, after World Champion Alexander Alekhine); Zürich 1934 (tied for second with 12/15, again trailing Alekhine); and Pärnu 1937 (second behind Paul Felix Schmidt).

He tied a 16-game match against Euwe in 1932 (+3 −3 =10), and he tied a match against Botvinnik in 1933 (+2 −2 =8).

Flohr also defeated Johannes van den Bosch at The Hague in 1932 by 6–2.

He became champion of Czechoslovakia in 1933 and 1936 and played in many tournaments throughout Europe, generally finishing amongst the top three.

At Folkestone 1933, he again played board one, scored 9/14, helped Czechoslovakia win the team silver medal, and earned a bronze medal for himself.

In 1933, he won two matches in Switzerland, first over Oskar Naegeli by 4–2 at Bern, and then by 4½–1½ over Henri Grob at Arosa.

At Warsaw 1935, on board one he scored an undefeated 13/17 for another individual gold medal, and Czechoslovakia finished fifth.

Flohr had married in 1935.

He also won the Margate tournament of 1936 ahead of former World Champion José Raúl Capablanca.

Then at Stockholm 1937, once again on board one, he scored 12½/16 for a third individual gold medal.

In five Olympiads, he won two individual gold medals, a silver and a bronze.

His aggregate was 60/82, for a 73% score against the top players in the world.

Flohr enjoyed a fair amount of success in match play.

He played matches with two of his main rivals for the right to challenge reigning champion Alexander Alekhine.

By 1937, FIDE had nominated him as the official candidate to play Alekhine for the World Championship.

However, with World War II looming, it proved impossible for Flohr to raise the stake money in Czechoslovakia, so the plans were dropped.

The next year, Flohr was one of the eight elite players invited to the great AVRO tournament of November 1938.

He finished last, and this put an end to his chances of a World Championship match with Alekhine.

AVRO may have been the only time in chess history when the top eight players in the world contested an important tournament.

He was among the first recipients of the title International Grandmaster from FIDE in 1950.