Everybody seems to be forgetting New York 1924, perhaps the strongest
chess tournament every played, with all three World Champions of that
era, Lasker, Capablanca and Alekhine, playing. All of the strongest
players in the world, except for Rubinstein (who was in decline)
played.

This event is discussed in "Masters of the Chessboard" by Richard
Reti, available now from Ishi Press.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/092389148X

Sam Sloan

samsloan wrote:
Everybody seems to be forgetting New York 1924, perhaps the strongest
chess tournament every played, with all three World Champions of that
era, Lasker, Capablanca and Alekhine, playing. All of the strongest
players in the world, except for Rubinstein (who was in decline)
played.

This event is discussed in "Masters of the Chessboard" by Richard
Reti, available now from Ishi Press.

http://www.amazon.com/dp/092389148X

Sam Sloan


Yes, Sam, we're all well aware of New York 1924. It's a poor example
in this case because it included three relatively weak players at the
bottom (Yates, Ed. Lasker, and Janowski) bringing down the average. (I
say "relatively" because the weakest of them would have been at least
three classes above you.) This was also true of San Antonio 1972 --
the top nine (out of 16) constituted a very strong tournament, but the
bottom three (Campos-Lopez, Saidy, and Smith), though quite
respectable players, were not in the same league as Karpov, Keres,
Petrosian and Portisch. On the other hand, New York 1927 and the
Piatigorsky Cups were very strong all the way down.

BTW, a better source for New York 1924 is the tournament book,
credited to Hermann Helms but notes by Alekhine. It's out of print,
but still available at a decent price on Amazon.