Max Euwe: The Schoolteacher Who Became The Fifth World Chess Champion
Every World Chess Champion before him had given their life entirely to the game. Max Euwe gave it his lunch breaks and his school holidays. And it was still enough to beat the best player in the world.
A Boy Born for Two Things
Machgielis "Max" Euwe was born on May 20, 1901, in Watergraafsmeer, a suburb of Amsterdam. His parents were both devoted chess players, and they taught him the moves at the early age of 4.
The talent was obvious from the start. By 12, he was already a club player. By 20, he was champion of Holland. But professional chess had little attraction for him — he devoted himself instead to his studies, excelling in mathematics at the University of Amsterdam.
In 1924, he received his first appointment as a teacher of mathematics. In 1926, he earned his doctorate in pure mathematics. Chess, during all of this, could only be played in vacation time. And yet, even during those years, he managed to win a number of first prizes in English tournaments.
He was not a professional chess player. He was simply better than most of them.
The Man Behind the Champion
What the biographical note in his own 1938 book reveals — written while he was still World Champion — tells you everything about who Euwe was.
He was an accomplished aviator. He was a swimmer and a boxer. He had passed an actuarial examination and was licensed to teach bookkeeping alongside mathematics. He married in 1926 and had three daughters.
This was not a man who lived for chess. This was a man who happened to be extraordinary at chess, while also living a full, demanding, disciplined life in every other direction.
When he eventually won the World Championship in 1935, the book notes that even as champion, he knew no respite from his teaching duties — but nevertheless increased his chess activities tenfold. Books were written, lectures given, articles, columns and games constantly supplied to the newspapers.
Climbing the Ladder — 1927 Onwards
With his studies completed and his position secured, Euwe began taking a more active interest in serious chess from 1927. He began a series of matches against the world's leading players and became a grandmaster almost overnight.
Although he lost those early matches, it was always by such a narrow margin that critics agreed: his defeats were due to lack of tournament practice, not lack of ability. He was drawing level with the best players in the world while teaching school during the week.
In 1928, he won the World Amateur Chess Championship in The Hague. In 1932, he drew a match with Salo Flohr — one of the strongest players of the era. From that point until 1935, Euwe and Flohr were considered Alekhine's two most dangerous rivals among the younger generation.
He won twelve Dutch national championships in total — a record that still stands today, and one he achieved while holding a full-time job for his entire career.
The Upset That Stunned the World — 1935
In October 1935, Max Euwe challenged Alexander Alekhine for the World Chess Championship.
Nobody gave him a chance. The book written about his own games, published in 1938, states plainly: at the time of the 1935 match, Euwe was not conceded the ghost of a chance by the chess world's leading lights.
The match was played across 13 different Dutch cities — Amsterdam, The Hague, Delft, Rotterdam, Utrecht, Gouda, Groningen, Baarn, Hertogenbosch, Eindhoven, Zeist, Ermelo, and Zandvoort — over 80 days and 30 games. It remains one of the most unusual settings in World Championship history.
Alekhine started fast. He went three games ahead early. The chess world relaxed. Then Euwe found his game.
After a feverish struggle — as his own book describes it — he emerged victor with a lead of one game. Final score: 15½ to 14½. He won 9 games, drew 13, and lost 8.
The chess world was stunned. A part-time player, a schoolteacher with three daughters at home, had just become the fifth World Chess Champion in history.
The Rematch — 1937
Alekhine, humiliated, immediately demanded a rematch. Euwe agreed — and in the two years between the matches, Alekhine transformed himself. He gave up alcohol and cigarettes, prepared with ruthless seriousness, and came back a different player.
The 1937 rematch was also held in the Netherlands. Euwe actually made a better start than in 1935 — but had a catastrophic run in the second set of five games, losing four and drawing one. He never recovered. Alekhine won decisively and reclaimed the title.
Euwe accepted the result with grace. He had held the crown for two years. He remained one of the strongest players in the world for another decade — competing at the highest level well into the 1950s. And he never stopped contributing to chess in every way he could.
Facts That Nobody Tells You
The Man Who Wrote 70 Chess Books
Euwe wrote more chess books than any other World Champion in history — over 70 in total. In the preface to his 1938 book From My Games, 1920–1937, he wrote in his own words about his approach to annotation and instruction, explaining that the difficulty of avoiding a subjective attitude when looking at one's own games is compensated by the greater ease of getting to the heart of the matter. The book contains 75 annotated games from 1920 to 1937, including six from his World Championship match against Alekhine.
His most celebrated titles include:
Former Soviet grandmaster Gennady Sosonko used Euwe's 1927 book Practische Schaaklessen as a teaching textbook at the Leningrad House of Pioneers, calling it one of the best chess books ever written.
And in the very year he won the World Championship — 1935 — he also wrote a chess book for children, in Dutch, with a title that roughly translates as Uncle Jan teaches his nephew to play chess. He never forgot the beginners. He wrote for everyone.
The Man Who Saved Fischer vs Spassky
As FIDE President, Euwe's most important moment came in 1972. Bobby Fischer — erratic, demanding, threatening to pull out of the match at every stage — needed someone to hold the whole situation together. That person was Euwe.
He interpreted the rules flexibly, handled Fischer's impossible demands with patience and quiet authority, and ensured the match in Reykjavik went ahead. Fischer became World Champion. The chess boom that followed transformed the game globally. Euwe made it possible.
Boris Spassky — the man Fischer defeated — had personally nominated Euwe for the FIDE presidency. He said Euwe was the man for the job. He was right.
What He Left Behind
Max Euwe was not the most naturally gifted player of his era. He was not the most creative or the most feared. But he may have been the most complete human being to ever hold the title of World Chess Champion.
He was a mathematician who used logic where others used instinct. A teacher who brought chess to classrooms. A writer who put 70 books into the hands of players who wanted to improve. An administrator who stood up to the Soviet Union, protected defecting grandmasters, and made sure Bobby Fischer got his chance to change the world.
Anatoly Karpov said simply: Euwe's entire life is an example of selfless devotion to chess.
Every time a chess player picks up a book to understand the game better — there is a good chance Euwe wrote it. Every time a tournament runs fairly, without political interference — that is the standard Euwe set. Every time a talented outsider gets a chance to compete at the highest level — that is the world Euwe fought to create.
Max Euwe died on November 26, 1981, in Amsterdam. He was 80 years old. In the heart of the city he loved, there is a square named after him — the Max Euweplein — with a large chess set and a statue of the man himself, standing where his city still remembers him.
There is a square in Amsterdam named after him — the Max Euweplein — with a giant chess set and a statue standing in the open air. Children play on the pieces. Tourists walk past. Most of them do not know who he was.
But the chess players know. And in every classroom where a student opens a Euwe book for the first time, in every tournament that runs cleanly and fairly, in every game where a logical plan beats a brilliant gamble — he is still there.
Read Euwe in His Own Words
Euwe wrote more chess books than any other World Champion. Judgment and Planning in Chess by Max Euwe is still considered one of the finest chess instruction books ever written — clear, logical, and timeless.
His Greatest Games — Study Them Yourself
You can find all of these on chessgames.com
- Euwe vs Alekhine — World Championship 1935, Game 26 (Amsterdam)
- Euwe vs Alekhine — World Championship 1935, Game 2 (Amsterdam)
- Botvinnik vs Euwe — Leningrad 1934
- Euwe vs Geller — Zurich Candidates 1953
- Euwe vs Capablanca — Carlsbad 1929
- Euwe vs Reshevsky — Nottingham 1936
- Euwe vs Botvinnik — Nottingham 1936
- Euwe vs Alekhine — Zurich 1934
- Euwe vs Flohr — Amsterdam 1932, Game 1
- Alekhine vs Euwe — World Championship 1937, Game 14 (The Hague)
Take Your Chess Further
Euwe proved that discipline and logic beat raw talent every time. If this article made you want to approach chess more seriously — TacticArena is a free chess platform coming soon with daily puzzles, weekly cash prize tournaments, coaching, and a full academy. Join the waitlist and be the first to know when we launch.
Every World Chess Champion before him had given their life entirely to the game. Max Euwe gave it his lunch breaks and his school holidays. And it was still enough to beat the best player in the world.
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