The workers’ Olympics were a relatively short-lived but successful initiative in which workers from all over the world competed in all kinds of sports. In this third edition, a chess tournament was organised as a side event.

It was played on the bizarre number of five boards. Four teams started, but two more teams late-joined the competition after the first round. This first of the two is sometimes called a Prague team, but usually a Czechoslovakian. The second one is sometimes called a German team, and sometimes an Außig team. (Außig, now Ústí nad Labem in Czechia, is a city in Sudetenland and had a large German population in 1937.) I have stuck with the former, for no particularly good reason.

As these two teams missed the first round, they had to play an extra match on Saturday, July 31st after a long day which included the last round and adjourned games. I suspect, but have no evidence, that they might have agreed to quickly draw all there games, or perhaps even to not play at all.

The point system seems to have been slightly unusual.  Every match won was worth 10 points and every match drawn 5. The board points obtained were then added to this to arrive at the final score.

Below are the team compositions, but I have too little round-by-round results to give individual scores. Note that my sources are very inconsistent in their spelling of names. Many errors might be hiding here. In round three, German Schöpka played a board higher than Körbl, in rounds two and four a board lower. In round five he didn’t play and I don’t know about the match Czechoslovakia. Here are the round-by-round results insofar as I have them. They come from [1], the two only games I have come from [2].

Wanted

• The detailed results and indeed just the results of the matches.
• Almost all games.
• Many first names.

Sources

1. De Volksgazet 29/07-03/08/1937
2. Leidsche Courant 17/02/1938