Alexei Alekhine

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Alexei (Alexey) Alekhine (1888 – 1939) was a Russian chess master.

His father was a wealthy landowner, a Marshal of the Nobility and a member of the State Duma. His mother was an heiress of an industrial fortune. Both he and his younger brother, Alexander Alekhine, were taught chess by their mother.^[1]

Alexei played chess well and was able to draw Harry Nelson Pillsbury when American grandmaster gave a simultaneous blindfold display in Moscow in 1902. He tied for 4-6th in the Moscow Chess Club Autumn tournament in 1907, while Alexander tied for 11-13th. Alexei took 3rd at Moscow 1913 (Oldřich Duras won), and tied for 3rd-4th at Moscow 1915. He was an editor of the chess journal "Shakhmatny Vyestnik" from 1913 to 1916.^[2]

After the Bolshevik Revolution, he won at Moscow 1920. Then, Alexei took 3rd place in the tournament for amateurs in Moscow in October 1920, while his brother Alexander won the first USSR Chess Championship (All-Russian Chess Olympiad) there.^[3]

He remained in the Soviet Union and denounced his brother. Critics of Alexey Alekhine ought to remember his fate was joined with a state where the so-called rule of law was frequently, and repeatedly, enforced late at night by the rule of gun and knife.^[4]

He took 3rd at Petrograd (Saint Petersburg) 1923, took 12th at Moscow 1924, tied for 4-5th at Kharkov 1925 (the 2nd Ukrainian Chess Championship, Yakov Vilner won), took 11th at Odessa 1926 (UKR-ch, Boris Verlinsky and Marsky won), and took 8th at Poltava 1927 (UKR-ch, Alexey Selezniev won off contest).^[5]^[6] He won the championship of Kharkov in the Ukraine and served as the Executive Board member of the USSR Chess Federation. He was also the Secretary of the Ukrainian Chess Federation and the editor of the first Soviet chess annual, published in 1927.^[7] Finally, the NKVD killed him in August 1939.^[8]