Max Euwe was the fifth world chess champion, taking the title from Alexander Alekhine in their 1935 match in the Netherlands and losing it back to Alekhine in their 1937 rematch. The two-year reign is the shortest of any classical champion’s, but the achievement — a part-time amateur defeating the strongest active player of the era — remains one of the most unexpected results in championship history.
Euwe was, throughout his career, a mathematics professor by profession. He held a PhD from the University of Amsterdam and taught at a Rotterdam secondary school for much of his playing career. He prepared for the 1935 match against Alekhine the way an academic prepares for an oral defence: he read every published Alekhine game, mapped his opponent’s repertoire by hand, and identified the lines where Alekhine was strongest and where he was weakest. He then trained specifically against the strong lines and arranged to steer the match into the weaker ones.
The match itself was thirty games long, of which Euwe won nine, lost eight, and drew thirteen. The 15.5-14.5 final score was the narrowest margin a championship had ever been decided by — and it remained one of the closest matches until Karpov-Korchnoi 1978. Alekhine, who had been drinking heavily throughout the match, blamed his loss on his condition. Euwe declined to comment on the matter.
The 1937 rematch was not close. Alekhine, sober and well-prepared, recovered the title with a 15.5-9.5 score. Euwe later said he had expected this outcome. He had never thought of himself as the strongest player in the world — only as the player who had been best-prepared on that particular day in 1935.
His contribution to chess after his playing career was institutional. He served as president of FIDE (the international chess federation) from 1970 to 1978, during which time he managed the 1972 Fischer-Spassky match, the post-Fischer crisis, and the rise of the Karpov era. Without his diplomatic work the title might have lapsed entirely in the mid-1970s. He died in 1981, still active in chess administration to the end of his life.