*: [1] gives the final scores as here, but these do not correspond to the total points scored for Delforge and Maxia.

For the second time, an official NATO chess championship was organised. It consisted of an individual seven round Swiss tournament, where players from the same country were not paired against each other. According to [2], the tournament directors were Otto Graf von Ibenfeldt and Wolfgang Berger. The same source mentions that the top four scores for each country were added to obtain a country classification (see below). I do not know what tie-breaks were used. The Belgian team finished on an unremarkable 6th place, but there was an individual highlight for Deleyn, who edged out Reite and Hoffmann on Buchholz.

My main source is [1], which gives all the games including dates, but without first names. It also gives the individual final standings. Unfortunately, the total points obtained from the games do not correspond to the final score for Delforge and Maxia. They would if Maxia had won that game, but the final position is absolutely drawn, as indeed [1] says it was. What happened here? I have a theory, but it’s rather wonky. Since the game Delforge-Maxia lasted 151 moves, it was almost certainly adjourned at some point. This posed a problem for the tournament directors in the pairings of the second round. My guess is that they assumed Maxia would win, likely because he was a piece up at that point. Perhaps they didn’t update their standings when the game had ended in a draw or — and this is admittedly quite far fetched — perhaps the game was only finished when tournament had already finished.

Wanted

• What’s with the game Delforge-Maxia?
• Some first names.

Sources

1. The second NATO chess championship [via [2]]
2. The NATO chess website