Three-time Soviet Champion, Career Peak
In several other post-war events, however, Keres dominated the field. He won the exceptionally strong USSR Chess Championship three times. In 1947, he won at Leningrad, URS-ch15, with 14/19 (+10 =8 −1); the field included every top Soviet player except Botvinnik. In 1950, he won at Moscow, URS-ch18, with 11.5/17 (+8 =7 −2) against a field which was only slightly weaker than in 1947. Then in 1951, he triumphed again at Moscow, URS-ch19, with 12/17 (+9 =6 −2), against a super-class field which included Efim Geller, Petrosian, Smyslov, Botvinnik, Yuri Averbakh, David Bronstein, Mark Taimanov, Lev Aronin, Salo Flohr, Igor Bondarevsky, and Alexander Kotov.
Keres won Pärnu 1947 with 9.5/13 (+7 =5 −1), Szczawno-Zdrój 1950 with 14.5/19 (+11 =7 −1), and Budapest 1952 with 12.5/17 (+10 =5 −2), the latter ahead of world champion Botvinnik and an all-star field which included Geller, Smyslov, Gideon Stahlberg, Laszlo Szabo, and Petrosian. The Budapest victory, which capped a stretch of four first-class wins over a two-year span, may represent the peak of his career. The Hungarian master and writer Egon Varnusz, in his books on Keres, states that at this time, "The best player in the world was Paul Keres".
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