On March 24, 1946, the 4th world chess champion, Alexander Alekhine, passed away. He was the first – and still the only – champion to die while holding the title. To select a new champion, a powerful quintuple round-robin was held in The Hague and in Moscow. The 5 strongest players of the era took part in a grueling two-month, 25-round tournament, one of the most important events in the history of chess. It produced a new world champion, Mikhail Botvinnik, and was the start of a new FIDE regulated era.

This splendid account of an epic championship includes a review of all previous encounters between the participants, background information, as well as all the games of the tournament, deeply annotated by Euwe.

You are invited to follow Mikhail Botvinnik, Vassily Smyslov, Sam Reshevsky, Paul Keres and Max Euwe as they battle for the title and the chess world starts its journey through the post-World War II era and the beginning of the Soviet hegemony.