World Championship Tournament 1948 caricature

The 1948 World Chess Championship was a tournament held to determine the new World Chess Champion following the passing of the previous titleholder, Alexander Alekhine, in 1946. The tournament commenced in The Hague, Holland, and later continued in Moscow, USSR. Five players participated in the championship: Mikhail Botvinnik, Paul Keres, Max Euwe, Samuel Reshevsky, and Vasily Smyslov.In the caricature by B. Efimov, the championship resembles a medieval jousting match. Three Soviet knights—Botvinnik and Smyslov astride their trusty steeds, with Keres atop an elephant—face off against two Western contenders. American Samuel Reshevsky rides a chariot drawn by both horse and elephant, while Dutch player Max Euwe is lurking from the tower in the form of a chess rook. It is worth noting that in Russian, the bishop chess piece is called an elephant, explaining the exotic choice of transportation for some of the players.