Enrico Cecchelli

Our Italian chess friend Enrico Cecchelli, MD comes from San Remo and by his book "Sanremo 1930 - Il torneo dei giganti" certainly a youthful dream of his own, namely to erect an adequate monument to this chess gem, came true. It is known that only the small booklet "Das erste italienische Grossturnier, San Remo, 1930; der Rekordsieg Dr. Aljechins" by Chalupetzky/Toth from 1931 existed as a contemporary documentation. Enrico, himself a quite strong "master candidate" has collected the game analyses of those days but also added own discoveries; moreover the nearly 300 pages long book offers quite a lot of unknown photos, biographies of players and commentaries on the rounds.

(M.N.)

The author gave us the following information:

"One of the strongest tournaments ever, in which all the best players of the time took part (with the exception of Lasker and Capablanca ) and which was won by the World Champion Alekhine thanks to an insuperable performance. Sanremo 1930 together with Bled 1931 represents the pinnacle of this Great Champion's career and the ultimate display of his enormous talent. Many games of this tournament, which made Sanremo's name known to the whole world, have made chess history and are still considered (absolute) classics to be carefully studied."

PS (05/11/2007): This book got the Zichichi prize 2007 for the best chess book of the year by an Italian author. Congratulations on this award!