Budapest 1948

A strong international field gathered in the Hungarian capital in 1948, and the home favourite dominated it from the front: László Szabó won Budapest 1948 outright with 12/15, a point and a half clear of the twenty-five-year-old Svetozar Gligorić. It was one of a run of tournament victories — Hastings 1947/48, Budapest 1948, Hastings 1949/50 — that confirmed Szabó as Hungary's leading player in the years after the war.

◇A post-war field

Sixteen masters contested a single round-robin of fifteen rounds, 120 games in all, in a field that mixed Hungary's own with strong visitors from Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia. Alongside Szabó and Gligorić came Jan Foltys, the veteran wit Savielly Tartakower, Luděk Pachman, Gedeon Barcza, Petar Trifunović, József Szily and a young Pal Benko — a representative cross-section of the European masters who were rebuilding competitive chess in the immediate post-war years.

For Szabó the tournament fell in the middle of the strongest phase of his career. He had returned to the board after wartime service and was quickly re-establishing himself as one of the leading players outside the Soviet Union.

◇Szabó in command

Szabó finished on 12/15, a clear point and a half ahead of Gligorić on 10½, with Foltys third on 10 and Pachman and Tartakower sharing fourth on 9½. It was an outright victory with room to spare rather than a scramble at the finish.

The result sat in a purple patch of first prizes for Szabó, whose late-1940s form — bracketed by his two Hastings triumphs — marked him out as Hungary's foremost representative on the international circuit.