Chess Goddesses

Vera Menchick

Vera was born in Moscow in 1906. Her father was Czechoslovakian, her mother, British. The family moved to England when Vera was 15, where she first attracted attention by winning the British girl's championship. After World War I, Hungarian Grand Master Geza Maroczy moved to Hastings and became Vera's coach. FIDE established the first world championship for women in 1927, which Vera promptly won, with 10 wins and one draw in eleven games. She won every women's world championship held thereafter: 1930, 1931, 1933, 1935, 1937, 1939. In 83 games played in these seven championships, she lost only one.

We will never really know how good Vera was. She was killed in a bombing raid in 1944, at the age of 38. However, she was clearly the best woman player of her time, better than most men and the equal of some of the great male players. She played and beat Max Euwe, Samuel Reshevsky, C.H. Alexander, Frederick Yates, Edgar Colle, Karel Opocensky, Sir George Thomas and Sultan Kahn. In 1929, Vera was invited to the Carlsbad International Tournament which included such players as Jose Capablanca, Savielly Tartakover, Aron Nimzowitsch and Max Euwe.

She did not have a good result in that tournament, finishing tied for last place with several players. However, she played and beat Max Euwe (twice). Among her best results were a second place finish with Akiba Rubinstein at Ramsgate, one-half point behind Capablanca and ahead of her tutor, Maroczy, and George Koltanowski. She finished second in London in 1932, third in Maribor 1934 and third in Yarmouth in 1935.

Vera was a great inspiration to many women chess players around the world, including the American women players she met across the chess board, and apparently so inspired women in the Soviet Union during a 1935 trip to Moscow that the next year saw almost 5,000 women competing in qualifying tournaments for the Soviet championship - a legacy that resulted in the womenÕs world chess champion title being held by a series of Russian players from the time the championship was reinstituted in 1950 until 1962.

Information on Vera Menchik obtained from Women in Chess, Players of the Modern Age, John Graham, (McFarland & Company, Inc., 1987). For an entertaining recounting of Vera Menchik's various triumphs against the greatest male players of her era, please visit The Vera Menchik Club.