Paul Keres, along with Soviet rival Mikhail Botvinnik, Vasily Smyslov, Max Euwe and Samuel Reshevsky contested the title in a tournament split between The Hague in the Netherlands and Moscow.

“Keres became a national hero for Estonians,” writes Leonard Barden, who believed that the Soviet authorities forced him to play badly at the 1948 World Championship tournament. Most of the ...