Mikhail Botvinnik

Mikhail Botvinnik
Full name	Mikhail Moiseyevich Botvinnik
Country	Soviet Union
Title	Grandmaster
World Champion	1948-1957 1958-1960 1961-1963

Mikhail Moiseyevich Botvinnik (IPA: [mʲixaˈiɫ̺ mʌiˈs̺ʲɛjɛvʲiʧʲ bʌt̺ˈvʲin̺n̻ʲik]; Russian: Михаи́л Моисе́евич Ботви́нник) (August 17 [O.S. August 4] 1911 - May 5, 1995) was a Russian International Grandmaster and long-time World Champion of chess. He is also one of the very few famous chess players who achieved distinction in other careers while playing top-class competitive chess (Botvinnik was an electrical engineer).

Botvinnik also played a major role in the organization of chess: he made a significant contribution to the design of the World Chess Championship system after World War II; and he was a leading member of the coaching system that enabled the Soviet Union to dominate top-class chess after World War II (one of his famous pupils was Garry Kasparov).

Botvinnik was the first world-class player to develop within the Soviet Union, which put him under political pressure but also gave him considerable influence within Soviet chess. From time to time he was accused of using that influence to his own advantage; but there are many conflicts in the evidence, some of which suggests that he resisted attempts by Soviet officials to intimidate some of his rivals.

Early years

Botvinnik, who was Jewish, was born in Kuokkala, Finland, near Vyborg (now Repino, Russia) the son of a dental technician. He first came to the notice of the chess world at the age of 14, when he defeated the world champion, José Raúl Capablanca, in a simultaneous exhibition. He had started playing only two years earlier.

Botvinnik vs Lasker in 1936

His progress was fairly rapid, mostly under the training of Soviet Master and coach Abram Model, in Leningrad. He qualified for his first USSR Championship in 1927, the youngest player theretofore seen at that level, and won the title of National Master at this tournament.

He won the Leningrad Masters' tournament in 1930 with 6.5/8. He followed this up the next year by winning the Championship of Leningrad by 2.5 points over former Soviet champion Peter Romanovsky.

Soviet champion

At the age of 20 Botvinnik won his first Soviet Championship at Moscow 1931, with 13.5/17. In the spring of that year, he graduated in Electrical Engineering from the Leningrad Polytechnical Institute, and stayed on there as a post-graduate student. In 1933, he repeated his Soviet Championship win, this time in his home city of Leningrad, with 14/19.

Botvinnik would go on to win a total of six Soviet Championships, adding further titles in 1939, 1944, 1945, and 1952. This is tied for the most ever with Mikhail Tal. His 1945 win was with an utterly dominant score of 16/18, one of the top tournament performances of all time.

Capablanca vs Botvinnik in 1936

First international successes

Botvinnik drew a 1933 match of 12 games, held in Leningrad and Moscow, against Salo Flohr, one of the world's top players. He then travelled to Hastings 1934-35, his first tournament outside the USSR, but could place only in a tie for 5th-6th places, with 5/9. He wrote in his first games collection book that he had arrived at Hastings only two hours before the first round began, a mistake he would not make again.

By age 24, Botvinnik was competing on equal terms with the world's elite, chalking up international tournament successes in some of the strongest tournaments of the day: First (equal with Flohr) at Moscow 1935, ahead of Emanuel Lasker and Capablanca; and First (equal with Capablanca) at the great Nottingham 1936 chess tournament, ahead of Euwe and Alekhine. For this victory at Nottingham, the first by a Soviet Master outside his own country, Botvinnik was decorated with the order of The Badge of Honour by the Soviet government. For Nottingham, Botvinnik arrived ten days before the tournament started.

Botvinnik drew a 1937 challenge match of 13 games against Grigory Levenfish, who had won the Soviet Championship at Tbilisi earlier that year; Botvinnik had not competed in that event .

World title challenger

The year 1938 brought the far-famed AVRO tournament in the Netherlands, which featured the world's top eight players, and was likely the strongest tournament yet seen to that stage. Some chess historians believe that it is the strongest ever held. The winner was supposed to get a title match with the World Champion Alexander Alekhine. Botvinnik placed third (behind Reuben Fine and Paul Keres). But the arrival of World War II prevented a World Championship match.

In 1941, Botvinnik won a match-tournament designating him the title of "Absolute Champion of the U.S.S.R". Botvinnik defeated Paul Keres and future world champion Vasily Smyslov, amongst other strong Soviet grandmasters such as Isaac Boleslavsky, Igor Bondarevsky, and Andor Lilienthal, to win the title. Chess historians debate whether this constitutes an official Soviet Championship title.

When the Second World War ended, Botvinnik won the first really strong post-war tournament, at Groningen 1946, with 14.5/19, half a point ahead of former World Champion Max Euwe. Smyslov was a strong third. Botvinnik also won the very strong Mikhail Chigorin Memorial tournament held at Moscow 1947.

World Champion

File:Botvinnik-Bronstein 1951.jpg

Botvinnik (left) competes with Bronstein for the World Championship in 1951

Botvinnik strongly influenced the design of the system which would be used for World Championship competition from 1948 to 1963. Viktor Baturinsky wrote, in his introduction to Botvinnik's own book Botvinnik's Best Games 1947-1970 (page 2), "Now came Botvinnik's turn to defend his title in accordance with the new qualifying system which he himself had outlined in 1946."

On the basis of his strong results during and just after World War II, Botvinnik was one of five players to contest the 1948 World Chess Championship, which was held at The Hague and Moscow. He won the 1948 tournament convincingly, with a score of 14/20, three points clear, becoming the sixth World Chess Champion.

Botvinnik then held the title, with two brief interruptions, for the next fifteen years, during which he played seven world championship matches. In 1951, he drew with David Bronstein over 24 games at Moscow, keeping the world title. In 1954, he drew with Vasily Smyslov over 24 games at Moscow, again keeping the title. In 1957 he lost to Smyslov by 9.5-12.5 at Moscow, but the rules allowed him a rematch without having to go through the Candidates' Tournament; so in 1958 he played a rematch at Moscow and won. In 1960 he was convincingly beaten by the young Mikhail Tal, by 8.5-12.5 at Moscow; but again he exercised his right to a rematch in 1961, and won, by 13-8 at Moscow. (Commentators agreed that Tal's play was weaker in the rematch, probably due to his health, but also that Botvinnik's play was better than in the 1960 match). Finally, in 1963, he lost the title to Tigran Petrosian, by 9.5-12.5 at Moscow. FIDE had by then altered the rules, and he was not allowed a rematch. The rematch rule was nicknamed the 'Botvinnik rule', because he twice benefited from it. After the 1963 loss, Botvinnik retired from World Championship competition, but continued with occasional ventures into top-level international and Soviet chess, mostly with success.

His longevity at the top level of chess is attributed to his exceptional dedication to study. Pre-match preparation and post-match analysis had not featured quite so prominently in the armoury of many of his predecessors, but this was Botvinnik's real strength. Technique over tactics, endgame mastery over opening traps. His adoption and development of solid opening lines in the Nimzo-Indian Defence, Slav Defence, English Opening and Winawer French Defence stood up to the severest scrutiny, and he was able to focus on a narrow repertoire of openings during his most important matches, frequently guiding the game into well chosen areas of preparation. There were many "secret" training matches against masters of the calibre of Salo Flohr, Yuri Averbakh, Viacheslav Ragozin, and Semion Furman. It was the unveiling, many years later, of the details of these matches that provided chess historians with a fascinating new insight into Botvinnik's reign.

Botvinnik's most important international tournament win during his years as World Champion was his shared title with Smyslov at the 1956 Alexander Alekhine Memorial at Moscow.

It is perhaps surprising that Mikhail Botvinnik is not widely regarded as a contender for the title of best player of all time. On the one hand, his achievements were undoubtedly impressive and it should be remembered that his main rivals, the younger Paul Keres, David Bronstein, Vasily Smyslov, Mikhail Tal and Tigran Petrosian were all formidable players in their own right. He also inaugurated a new trend with his deep opening preparation and training system.

On the other hand, critics point to his rare appearances in post-World War II tournaments while world champion, and his mediocre record in world title defence matches -- out of five title defences, he lost three matches (to Smyslov in 1957, Tal in 1960 and Petrosian in 1963), and struggled to draw the other two (against David Bronstein in 1951 and Smyslov in 1954). He did, however, win two world title matches as the challenger, beating the reigning world champions Smyslov in 1958 and Tal in 1961. While he was World Champion, he was essentially first among equals, based upon his record in title matches and in other major events.

There is also a popular perception that Botvinnik's play was based on correctness rather than the intuitive or the spectacular, an opinion not improved by accounts of his often gruff demeanour and seemingly cold, calculating personality when compared to the genial Bronstein and Tal.

Mikhail Botvinnik in 1933

Three factors contributed to his patchy record. Firstly, World War II broke out just as Botvinnik was entering his prime. Had the war not interrupted international chess competition, Botvinnik might well have challenged Alexander Alekhine to a world championship match in the early 1940s, and might therefore have won the title as many as eight years before he eventually claimed the crown in 1948. However, Alekhine remained a very powerful force as late as 1943, when he overwhelmed a good field at Prague with 17/19, 2.5 points ahead of Keres. Alekhine's play did drop significantly after that, however. Secondly, Botvinnik was one of the few world-class chess players who at the same time had a long and distinguished career in another field. He earned his doctorate in electrical engineering in 1951, the Soviet government decorated him for his achievements in engineering, and Fine has recounted stories which strongly imply that Botvinnik was as committed to engineering as he was to chess. Finally, previous world champions had been free to choose their challengers. When FIDE took control of the world championship in 1948, Botvinnik became the first world champion who was forced to play his strongest opponent every three years; even with this added challenge, Botvinnik still held the world title longer than any of the players who followed him, other than Garry Kasparov.

There are persistent rumours that other Soviet players were coerced or forced to "throw" games to allow Botvinnik to win or keep the World Championship. These rumours usually centre around Keres (who lost his first 4 games to Botvinnik at the 1948 Championship Tournament), and Bronstein (who seemed to prematurely resign the penultimate game of their 1951 Championship Match). These rumours, which have never conclusively been proven or disproven and continue to generate debate, are discussed further at the Paul Keres and David Bronstein articles respectively.

Allegations of Political Involvement

David Bronstein, in his 1995 book The Sorcerer's Apprentice, makes a number of allegations about Botvinnik's use of Soviet politics to bolster his position.

Botvinnik, as a staunch Communist, who had won his first Soviet championship at age 20, established himself as not only an outstanding player, but as the main Soviet Communist hope from the early 1930s to win the World Championship back from Alekhine, who was of Russian descent. Alekhine was of noble background, with a father who was a member of the Fourth Duma. He was one of the top players in the world at the time of the Russian Revolution of 1917, won the first official Soviet Championship in 1920, yet fled Moscow for good shortly afterwards in 1921. This was seen as a shameful repudiation of his homeland, and few crimes were more serious in Soviet eyes at that time. Botvinnik's Nottingham 1936 victory, the first by a Soviet Master outside his homeland, earned him the government's favour.

The head of the Soviet Chess Federation in the early-to-mid 1930s was Nikolai Krylenko, also the State prosecutor who had run the infamous Show Trials of the late 1920s and early 1930s. When Botvinnik lost for the third time (without winning) to Fedor Bogatyrchuk, Krylenko told Bogatyrchuk, "You will never beat Botvinnik again." That proved to be true as the two never played each other again.

Boris Verlinsky had won the 1929 Soviet Championship and was granted the first Soviet Grandmaster title for this achievement, yet he was later stripped of it, when it was thought more politically correct to make Botvinnik the first official Soviet GM (not the same thing as the FIDE Grandmaster title).

Botvinnik did not win the AVRO tournament of 1938, placing third behind Keres and Fine, yet soon afterwards began angling through the Soviet government channels for a match with Alekhine for the World Championship. Botvinnik did win the 1939 Soviet Championship with a dramatic last-round victory over runner-up Alexander Kotov. But he played relatively poorly in the very strong 1940 Soviet Championship, finishing in a tie for 5th-6th places, with 11.5/19, two full points behind Bondarevsky and Lilienthal. How would it look for him to be trying for a world title match, yet doing that poorly in his own national championship? With World War II underway by this time, and the strong possibility of little or no chess for some time in the future, Botvinnik seems to have prevailed upon the Soviet chess leadership to hold another tournament "in order to clarify the situation". This wound up being the 1941 Absolute Championship of the USSR, which featured the top six finishers from the 1940 event, playing each other four times. Botvinnik won this tournament convincingly, to reclaim his prominence.

The Nazi Germans invaded the USSR in late June, 1941. From 1941 to 1943, Botvinnik gave all of his time to his work as an engineer, visiting and testing power stations, as well as repairing insulations. By the beginning of 1943, he was able to take up chess again on a limited basis, studying and playing two days per week. He won the strong Sverdlovsk 1943 tournament, and played hors concours in the 1943 Moscow Championship, winning with 13.5/16.

Immediately following the end of the 1946 Groningen tournament, with Alekhine having died earlier that year, and with no set system for choosing the new world champion, Botvinnik personally invited Samuel Reshevsky, Reuben Fine, Max Euwe, Vasily Smyslov, and Paul Keres to join him in a tournament to decide the new world champion.

FIDE, the World Chess Federation, was set to take over the system for choosing the world champion, following Alekhine's death. One proposal then was to either declare former champion Euwe the new champion, or to hold a match between Euwe and Reshevsky, with the winner becoming the new champion. But at this stage, the Soviet chess organization was not even a member of FIDE, so how could they influence its decisions!? The Soviets joined FIDE in 1947, and their proposal for the new world championship format (the one originally put forth by Botvinnik the year before in an informal fashion at Groningen) was accepted. Fine eventually declined to play, but otherwise, this wound up being the format used in 1948 to select the new champion, who turned out to be Botvinnik.

Bronstein, in his book, writing in 1995, argues that certain other exceptionally strong players, who had emerged during the war years, perhaps could have been invited as well to the 1948 World Championship tournament, especially since Fine had withdrawn. He mentions Miguel Najdorf, Isaac Boleslavsky, Gideon Stahlberg and himself. Najdorf had defeated Botvinnik quite drastically at their first meeting, Groningen 1946.

Bronstein also criticized the timing and sequencing of the two 1948 major events. The World Championship tournament was held early in 1948, beginning in March, and then the Interzonal tournament (which Bronstein won) was held later the same year. Bronstein suggests that a fairer method would have been to reverse the order, with the top players from the Interzonal, held first, advancing to the World Championship tournament.

Bronstein's allegations are difficult to evaluate. Chess historian Taylor Kingston writes,

Bronstein in sum paints a very unflattering picture of Botvinnik: a petty, pompous egoist who reveled in his role as a tin god of Socialist Culture, and who had few if any scruples about reaching and maintaining himself on that pedestal. What to make of this? It could be dismissed as the catty cheap shots of a disgruntled has-been, and some of Bronstein's book does smack of sour grapes and fogeyism. Yet Bronstein has always been respected for his integrity, and the accuracy of his memory. Clearly on the Najdorf veto, either he or Botvinnik is wrong or lying... And it is clear that Bronstein and Botvinnik cannot both be taken at face value.

The notion that Botvinnik was an orthodox member of the Soviet system is refuted by the fact that he was one of only three grandmasters (Bronstein and Spassky were the others) who refused to sign a condemnation of Korchnoi's defection to the West.

Olympic controversy, and eventual selection

Somewhat controversially, Botvinnik, although World Champion at the time, was not selected in 1952 for the first Soviet team to challenge for the Chess Olympiad in Helsinki. This was apparently because of his relatively poor play just before that event. For example, in the 1951 Bronstein match, he had been expected beforehand by almost everyone to win easily, but the match was eventually drawn after a hard struggle. Then, in the 1951 Soviet Championship, he placed only fifth with 10/17; at the 1952 Geza Maroczy Memorial tournament in Budapest, he scored 11/17 for a tie of third to fifth places. Botvinnik also fared poorly in an internal Soviet training tournament in 1952, held prior to the Olympiad. Botvinnik notes in his book Botvinnik's Best Games 1947-70 that this 1952 Soviet Olympiad team decision was taken in a strange way, in a vote among team members where there was only one vote for the World Champion. Botvinnik regained his form and eventually won the 1952 Soviet Championship after a playoff match with Mark Taimanov. He includes several wins from that tournament over the 1952 Soviet team members in his book, writing "these games had a definite significance for me". The fact that he was not selected, despite his strong political influence, may have meant that this factor was waning around that time, along with Joseph Stalin's health (the Soviet dictator was to die the next year, 1953).

Botvinnik was selected for the Soviet Olympiad team from 1954 to 1964 inclusively, and performed strongly, helping his team to gold medal finishes each of those six times, according to the comprehensive chess Olympiad site olimpbase.org. At Amsterdam 1954 he was on board one and won the gold medal with 8.5/11. Then at home for Moscow 1956, he was again board one, and scored 9.5/13 for the bronze medal. For Munich 1958, he scored 9/12 for the silver medal on board one. At Leipzig 1960, he played board two behind Mikhail Tal, having lost his title match to Tal earlier that year. But he won the gold medal with 10.5/13. He was back on board one for Varna 1962, scored 8/12, but failed to win a medal for the only time at an Olympiad. His final Olympiad was Tel Aviv 1964, where he won the bronze with 9/12. Overall, in six Olympiads, he scored 54.5/73 for an outstanding 74.0 per cent.

Botvinnik also played twice for the USSR in the European Team Championship. At Oberhausen 1961, he scored 6/9 for the gold medal on board one. But at Hamburg 1965, he struggled on board two with only 3.5/8. Both times the Soviet Union won the team gold medals. Botvinnik played one of the final events of his career at the Russia (USSR) vs Rest of the World match in Belgrade 1970, scoring 2.5/4 against Milan Matulovic, as the USSR narrowly triumphed.

Late career

After losing the world title to Tigran Petrosian for the final time in Moscow in 1963, Botvinnik withdrew from the World Championship cycle. But he remained involved with competitive chess, appearing in several highly-rated tournaments and continuing to produce memorable games. He retired from competitive play in 1970 aged 59, preferring instead to occupy himself with the development of computer chess programs and to assist with the training of younger Soviet players, earning him the nickname of 'Patriarch of the Soviet Chess School'; the famous three K's (Anatoly Karpov, Garry Kasparov, and Vladimir Kramnik) were just three of the many future grandmasters to have studied under Botvinnik. He established his chess school in 1963. The young Kasparov in particular seems to have formed a close relationship with Botvinnik; his 2004 book On My Great Predecessors II dedicates several pages to Kasparov's own personal fond memories of his former tutor and friend. Kasparov's account, in which Botvinnik appears almost as a kind of father figure, goes some way towards providing a warm and human side to balance the previous public perception of Botvinnik's dour personality.

Botvinnik's autobiography, K Dostizheniyu Tseli, was published in Russian in 1978, and in English translation as Achieving the Aim (ISBN 0-08-024120-4) in 1981. A staunch Communist, he was noticeably shaken by the collapse of the Soviet Union and lost some of his standing in Russian chess during the Boris Yeltsin era. Botvinnik died of cancer in 1995.

Achievements in electrical engineering

Botvinnik was awarded the Order of the Badge of Honour for his work on power stations in the Urals during World War II (while he was also establishing himself as the world's strongest chess player), and in 1956 joined the Research Institute for Electrical Energy as a senior research scientist. In the 1950s he became interested in computers, at first mainly for playing chess but he later co-authored reports on the possible use of artificial intelligence in managing the Soviet economy.

References

• Winter, Edward G. (ed.) (1981). World chess champions. Pergamon. ISBN 0-08-024094-1. {{cite book}}: |author= has generic name (help)
• Hooper, David and Kenneth Whyld (1996). The Oxford Companion To Chess. Oxford University. ISBN 0-19-280049-3.
• Sunnucks, Anne (1970). The Encyclopaedia of Chess. Hale. ISBN 0709110308.
• Hartston, William R. (1986). Kings of Chess. Pavilion. ISBN 1-85145-075-0.

Further reading

• Chernev, Irving (1995). Twelve Great Chess Players and Their Best Games. Dover. ISBN 0-486-28674-6.
• Hurst, Sarah (2002). Curse of Kirsan: Adventures in the Chess Underworld. Russell Enterprises. ISBN 1-888690-15-1.
• Botvinnik, Mikhail (translated from the Russian by Stephen Garry) (1961,1981). One Hundred Selected Games. Dover. ISBN 0-486-20620-3. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |year= (help)
• Botvinnik, Mikhail (1972). Botvinnik's Best Games 1947-1970 (translated from the Russian by Bernard Cafferty). Batsford. ISBN 7134-0537-8.
• Kasparov, Garry (2003), My Great Predecessors, part II, Everyman Chess, ISBN 1-85744-342-X
• Thomas, R.M. (May 7, 1995). "Mikhail Botvinnik, Chess Champion and Teacher of Champions, Dies at 83". New York Times.

External links

• Mikhail Botvinnik player profile and games at Chessgames.com