At Helsinki 1935, he placed 2nd behind Paulin Frydman with 6½/8 (+6−1=1). He won at Tallinn 1936 with 9/10 (+8−0=2). Keres' first major international success against top-level competition came at Bad Nauheim 1936, where he tied for first with Alexander Alekhine at 6½/9 (+4−0=5). He struggled at Dresden 1936, placing only 8–9th with (+2−4=3), but wrote that he learned an important lesson from this setback. Keres recovered at Zandvoort 1936 with a shared 3rd–4th place (+5−3=3). He then defended his Estonian title in 1936 by drawing a challenge match against Paul Felix Schmidt with (+3−3=1).