Paul Keres and Correspondence Chess
Among the strongest players of the world, Paul Keres was one who, even though for almost 3 decades was one of the top players of the world, unfortunately did not become World Champion.
Keres was born in Estonia, part of earlier USSR, in 1916 and first learnt about Chess from his father and elder brother. He quickly became a strong sharp tactical player. Due to the shortage of chess literature, Keres used to copy every chess game he found and soon accumulated almost 1000 hand-written games.
One very important factor that helped him to improve his Chess when he was in high school was his playing Correspondence chess extensively. His friend Markus Villemson (an International Correspondence chess player) introduced him to this format and soon Keres got hooked onto this in a big way.
It is estimated that he played more than 1500 games of Correspondence Chess, and at some point, is said to have more than a hundred games going on simultaneously. Correspondence chess enabled Keres to gain a vast amount of practical experience against strong players. Also, his famous analysis and calculation skills can be attributed to Correspondence games.
In 1935, at the age of 19, Keres won the prestigious Internationaler Fernschachbund (IFSB) international correspondence chess championship.
Later on, we all know what a very strong Grandmaster Keres became and won several International Events, beating the strongest players of the World.
Below I present a game played against another famous Correspondence chess player, Eduard Dyckhoff, in which both players play brilliant moves and finally the game ends in a Draw after a titanic battle.
Let us look at another game, a short but brilliant win: