The Clare Benedict Cup was a

chess tournament A chess tournament is a series of chess games played competitively to determine a winning individual or team. Since the first international chess tournament in London 1851 chess tournament, London, 1851, chess tournaments have become the standard ...

for national teams from Western and Northern Europe, which took place 23 times from 1953 to 1979.

Overview and History

Foundation

Clare Benedict Clare Benedict (1870–1961) was an American writer and patron. Biography Clare Benedict was born in Cleveland, Ohio, USA, in 1870. She was a distant relative of James Fenimore Cooper (her great-grandmother was his sister). She was wealthy and n ...

(1871–1961), author and patron, was originally from Cleveland, Ohio, but moved to Switzerland in 1945, where she founded the tournament. She was a distant relative of author James Fenimore Cooper. Benedict spent her twilight years on

Lake Lucerne __NOTOC__ Lake Lucerne (german: Vierwaldstättersee, literally "Lake of the four forested settlements" (in English usually translated as ''forest cantons''), french: lac des Quatre-Cantons, it, lago dei Quattro Cantoni) is a lake in central S ...

and met

Max Euwe Machgielis "Max" Euwe (; May 20, 1901 – November 26, 1981) was a Dutch chess player, mathematician, author, and chess administrator. He was the fifth player to become World Chess Champion, a title he held from 1935 until 1937. He served as ...

, 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.Richard Forster: Schachgesellschaft Zürich 1809 bis 2009. Chess Club, Zürich 2009,

Tournament Style

The Clare Benedict Cup was organized as a round-robin tournament, where everyone plays against each other. 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. 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

Participating Countries

Results

References

{{reflist Chess in Switzerland Chess in Europe Chess competitions 1953 in chess Recurring sporting events established in 1953 1953 establishments in Switzerland Recurring sporting events disestablished in 1979 1979 disestablishments in Switzerland