Paul Keres

Paul Keres (born January 7, 1916, in Narva, Estonia; died June 5, 1975, in Helsinki, Finland) was an Estonian chess grandmaster and one of the strongest chess players of all time, apart from the World chess champions. Many claim him to be the strongest modern player (since the line of official World Champions started with Steinitz in 1886) never to play in a world championship match. He was dubbed "The Crown Prince of Chess".

Quotes

"At the Warsaw team tournament in 1935, the most surprising discovery was a gangling, shy, 19-year-old Estonian. Some had never heard of his country before, nobody had ever heard of Keres. But his play at top board was a wonder to behold. Not merely because he performed creditably in his first serious encounters with the worlds greatest; others have done that too. It was his originality, verve, and brilliance which astounded and delighted the chess world." - Grandmaster Reuben Fine

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"I loved Paul Petrovitch with a kind of special, filial feeling. Honesty, correctness, discipline, diligence, astonishing modesty ? these were the characteristics that caught the eye of the people who came into contact with Keres during his lifetime. But there was also something mysterious about him. I had an acute feeling that Keres was carrying some kind of a heavy burden all through his life. Now I understand that this burden was the infinite love for the land of his ancestors, an attempt to endure all the ordeals, to have full responsibility for his every step. I have never met a person with an equal sense of responsibility. This man with internally free and independent character was at the same time a very well disciplined person. Back then I did not realise that it is discipline that largely determines internal freedom. For me, Paul Keres was the last Mohican, the carrier of the best traditions of classical chess and ? if I could put it this way ? the Pope of chess. Why did he not become the champion? I know it from personal experience that in order to reach the top, a person is thinking solely of the goal, he has to forget everything else in this world, toss aside everything unnecessary ? or else you are doomed. How could Keres forget everything else?" - Former World Champion Boris Spassky

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"I was unlucky, like my country." - Paul Keres, on why he never became world champion

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