The Clare Benedict Cup was a chess tournament for national teams from Western and Northern Europe, which took place 23 times from 1953 to 1979.

Overview and History

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Foundation

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Clare Benedict (1871–1961), author and patron, was originally from Cleveland, Ohio, but moved to Switzerland in 1945, where she founded the tournament.[1] She was a distant relative of author James Fenimore Cooper.

Benedict spent her twilight years on Lake Lucerne and met Max Euwe, who helped Clare in finding Alois Nagler (a Swiss chess player) and the Chess Society of Zurich, the ideal partners who appreciated her vision of a peaceful nations tournament in an exalted and sophisticated atmosphere.[2][3]

Tournament Style

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The Clare Benedict Cup was organized as a round-robin tournament, where everyone plays against each other.[3] Each team was made up of four players plus a substitute. They played using only five boards at the first tournament in 1952. In the original rules it stated that six teams participated. However, in recent years this has increased to up to eight teams. The teams were first evaluated by game points.[3]

In 1954 in Zurich, they changed the tournament style from the teams playing against each other to a single player tournament consisting of 12 players. The German Grandmaster Lothar Schmid took first place followed by Erwin Nievergelt from Switzerland and finally ex-champion Max Euwe.

Participating Countries

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Country Participations Wins Hosts
  Belgium 02 00 00
  Denmark 04 01 01
  Germany 21 12 02
  England 18 02 02
  France 02 00 00
  Italy 10 00 00
  Netherlands 21 05 00
  Norway 01 00 00
  Austria 23 01 01
  Scotland 01 00 00
  Sweden 02 00 00
  Switzerland 23 01 15
  Spain 17 01 02

Results

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# Year Host City 1st Place 2nd Place 3rd Place
1 1953 Mont Pèlerin   Netherlands   Austria   Switzerland
2 1955 Mont Pèlerin   Netherlands   Switzerland   Austria
3 1956 Lenzerheide   Germany   Netherlands   Italy
4 1957 Bern   Germany   Netherlands   Austria
5 1958 Neuchâtel   Switzerland   Spain   Germany
6 1959 Lugano   Germany   Spain   Austria
7 1960 Biel   Germany   England   Switzerland
8 1961 Neuhausen   Austria   Germany   England
9 1962 Bern   Germany   Spain   England
10 1963 Luzern   Germany   Netherlands   England
11 1964 Lenzerheide   Germany   Netherlands   Austria
12 1965 Berlin   Germany   Spain   Netherlands
13 1966 Brunnen   Netherlands   Spain   Germany
14 1967 Leysin   Germany   Spain   England
15 1968 Bad Aibling   Germany   Netherlands   England
16 1969 Adelboden   Netherlands   Switzerland   Germany
  England
  Spain
17 1970 Paignton   Spain   England   Germany
18 1971 Madrid   Netherlands   England   Spain
19 1972 Wien   Germany   Netherlands   Spain
20 1973 Gstaad   Germany   England   Denmark
21 1974 Cala Galdana   England   Germany   Switzerland
22 1977 Kopenhagen   Denmark   England   Sweden
23 1979 Cleveland   England   Germany   Netherlands

References

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  1. ^ Di Felice, Gino (2016). Chess Competitions 1971-2010. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland. ISBN 978-1-4766-6207-7.
  2. ^ Richard Forster: Schachgesellschaft Zürich 1809 bis 2009. Chess Club, Zürich 2009, ISBN 9783033019171
  3. ^ a b c Wojciech Bartelski & Co (2018). "Clare Benedict Chess Cup". OlimpBase. Retrieved 30 January 2019.