71 Facts About Mikhail Botvinnik

Mikhail Botvinnik played a major role in the organization of chess, making a significant contribution to the design of the World Chess Championship system after World War II and becoming a leading member of the coaching system that enabled the Soviet Union to dominate top-class chess during that time.

Mikhail Botvinnik's pupils include World Champions Anatoly Karpov, Garry Kasparov and Vladimir Kramnik.

Mikhail Botvinnik was born on August 17,1911, in what was then Kuokkala, Vyborg Governorate, Grand Duchy of Finland, now the district of Repino in Saint Petersburg.

Mikhail Botvinnik's parents were Russian Jews; his father, Moisei Botvinnik, was a dental technician and his mother, Shifra Rabinovich, a dentist, which allowed the family to live outside the Pale of Settlement, to which most Jews in the Russian Empire were restricted at the time.

Mikhail Botvinnik's father forbade speaking Yiddish at home, and Mikhail and his older brother Isaak "Issy" attended Soviet schools.

At about the same time, Mikhail Botvinnik started reading newspapers, and became a committed communist.

Mikhail Botvinnik won his first two tournaments organized by the Assembly.

Mikhail Botvinnik was selected as one of his opponents, and won his game.

Mikhail Botvinnik was commissioned to annotate two games from the match, and the fact that his analyses were to be published made him aware of the need for objectivity.

When Mikhail Botvinnik finished the school curriculum, he was below the minimum age for the entrance examinations for higher education.

Mikhail Botvinnik wanted to study Electrical Technology at the Leningrad Polytechnical Institute and passed the entrance examination; however, there was a persistent excess of applications for this course and the Proletstud, which controlled admissions, had a policy of admitting only children of engineers and industrial workers.

In January 1929, Mikhail Botvinnik played for Leningrad in the student team chess championship against Moscow.

In 1935, Mikhail Botvinnik married Gayane Davidovna Ananova, of Armenian descent, who was the daughter of his algebra and geometry teacher.

Mikhail Botvinnik was a student at the Vaganova Academy of Russian Ballet in Leningrad and, later, a ballerina in the Bolshoi Theatre.

Mikhail Botvinnik commented that the field was not very strong, as some of the pre-Revolution masters were absent.

Mikhail Botvinnik stayed on at the Leningrad Polytechnical Institute to study for a Candidate of Sciences degree.

The highest-level chess officials in the Soviet Union opposed this on the grounds that Mikhail Botvinnik stood little chance against such a strong international opponent.

Mikhail Botvinnik used what he regarded as the first version of his method of preparing for a contest, but fell two games behind by the end of the first six, played in Moscow.

When describing the post-match party, Mikhail Botvinnik wrote that at the time he danced the foxtrot and Charleston to a professional standard.

Mikhail Botvinnik wrote that he did not make this mistake again.

Mikhail Botvinnik later reported to Krylenko that the 1935 tournament made it difficult to judge the strength of the top Soviet players, as it included a mixture of top-class and weaker players.

Mikhail Botvinnik advocated a double round-robin event featuring the top five Soviet players and the five strongest non-Soviet players available.

In early winter, 1936, Mikhail Botvinnik was invited to play in a tournament at Nottingham, England.

On returning to Russia, Mikhail Botvinnik discovered he had been awarded the "Mark of Honour".

Three weeks later, Mikhail Botvinnik began work on his dissertation for the Candidate's degree, obtaining this in June 1937, after his supervisor described the dissertation as "short and good", and the first work in its field.

Later in 1937, Mikhail Botvinnik drew a match of thirteen games against Levenfish.

Mikhail Botvinnik challenged Levenfish, writing that Krylenko, angered by Mikhail Botvinnik's absence from the tournament, ordered the match.

Mikhail Botvinnik won further Soviet Championship titles in 1939,1944,1945, and 1952, bringing his total to six.

In spring 1939, Mikhail Botvinnik won the USSR Championship, and his book on the tournament described the approach to preparation which he had been developing since 1933.

Mikhail Botvinnik took an early lead in the 1940 USSR Championship, but faded badly in the later stages, eventually sharing fifth place.

Mikhail Botvinnik attributed this to the unaccustomed difficulty of concentrating in a party-like atmosphere filled with noise and tobacco smoke.

Mikhail Botvinnik wrote to a friendly official, commenting that the champion was to be the winner of a match between Igor Bondarevsky and Andor Lilienthal, who had tied for first place, but had no achievements in international competition.

Mikhail Botvinnik's only child, a daughter named Olya, was born in Perm in April 1942.

Mikhail Botvinnik's work included wood-cutting for fuel, which left him with insufficient energy for chess analysis.

Mikhail Botvinnik obtained from Molotov an order that he should be given three days off normal work in order to study chess.

Shortly afterwards, Mikhail Botvinnik was urged to return to Moscow by the People's Commissar for Power Stations, an admirer and subsequent good friend.

On his return, Mikhail Botvinnik suggested a match with Samuel Reshevsky in order to strengthen his claim for a title match with Alekhine, but this received no political support.

The dispute ended in Mikhail Botvinnik's favor, and in the dismissal of a senior chess official, one of those to have opposed Mikhail Botvinnik's plan, who was a KGB colonel.

Mikhail Botvinnik opened negotiations with the British Chess Federation to host the match in England, but these were cut short by Alekhine's death in 1946.

Mikhail Botvinnik strongly influenced the design of the system which would be used for World Championship competition from 1948 to 1963.

In 1950, Mikhail Botvinnik was one of the inaugural recipients of the international grandmaster title from FIDE.

Mikhail Botvinnik held the world title, with two brief interruptions, for the next fifteen years, during which he played seven world championship matches.

Commentators agreed that Tal's play was weaker in the rematch, probably due to his health, but that Mikhail Botvinnik's play was better than in the 1960 match, largely due to thorough preparation.

Mikhail Botvinnik changed his style in the rematch, avoiding the tactical complications in which Tal excelled and aiming for closed positions and endgames, where Tal's technique was not outstanding.

Mikhail Botvinnik won the 1952 Soviet Championship.

Mikhail Botvinnik was selected for the Soviet Olympiad team from 1954 to 1964 inclusively, and helped his team to gold medal finishes each of those six times.

Mikhail Botvinnik played twice for the USSR in the European Team Championship.

Mikhail Botvinnik remained involved with competitive chess, appearing in several highly rated tournaments and continuing to produce memorable games.

Mikhail Botvinnik 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".

Mikhail Botvinnik kept actively working on the program until his death and financing the work from the money he made for the lectures and seminars he attended, despite prominent health problems.

The game was drawn, and Mikhail Botvinnik shared first place with Salo Flohr.

Mikhail Botvinnik sent an effusive telegram of thanks to Joseph Stalin after his victory at the great tournament in Nottingham in 1936.

Mikhail Botvinnik won this tournament convincingly, and thus reclaimed his position as the USSR's top player.

Averbakh claims that Mikhail Botvinnik's friends were behind FIDE's decision in 1956 to limit the number of players from the same country that could compete in the Candidates Tournament, and that this was to Mikhail Botvinnik's advantage as it reduced the number of Soviet players he might have to meet in the title match.

Mikhail Botvinnik asked to be allowed to play in the 1956 Candidates Tournament, as he wanted to use the event as part of his warm-up for the next year's title match, but his request was refused.

Averbakh claimed that Mikhail Botvinnik would agree to a postponement only if Tal was certified unfit by Moscow doctors, and that Tal then decided to play.

In 1963, Mikhail Botvinnik played his last world championship match against Tigran Petrosian, in a 22-game series.

Mikhail Botvinnik evaded this "request" by saying that he wanted to write his own letter denouncing Korchnoi.

The statistical rating system used in Raymond Keene and Nathan Divinsky's book Warriors of the Mind concludes that Mikhail Botvinnik was the fourth strongest player of all time: behind Garry Kasparov, Anatoly Karpov and Bobby Fischer but ahead of Jose Raul Capablanca, Lasker, Viktor Korchnoi, Boris Spassky, Vasily Smyslov and Tigran Petrosian.

In 2005, Chessmetrics' creator Jeff Sonas wrote an article which examined various ways of comparing the strength of "world number one" players, some not based on Chessmetrics; and Mikhail Botvinnik generally emerged as one of the top six.

FIDE did not adopt the Elo rating system until 1970, by which time Mikhail Botvinnik's strength had been declining for several years.

Mikhail Botvinnik became world champion at the relatively late age of 37, because World War II brought international competition to a virtual halt for six years; and he was 52 years old when he finally lost his title.

Mikhail Botvinnik generally sought tense positions with chances for both sides; hence his results were often better with the Black pieces as he could avoid lines that were likely to produce draws.

Mikhail Botvinnik had a strong grasp of long-term strategy, and was often willing to accept weaknesses that his opponent could not exploit in exchange for some advantage that he could exploit.

Mikhail Botvinnik was capable of all-out sacrificial attacks when he thought the position justified it.

Mikhail Botvinnik used almost exclusively pawn openings with the white pieces.

In 1963, Mikhail Botvinnik founded his own school within the Soviet coaching system, and its graduates include world champions Anatoly Karpov, Garry Kasparov and Vladimir Kramnik, and other top-class players such as Alexei Shirov, Vladimir Akopian and Jaan Ehlvest.

Mikhail Botvinnik was still playing a major teaching role in his late 70s, when Kramnik entered the school, and made a favorable impression on his pupil.

Mikhail Botvinnik was awarded the Order of the Badge of Honour for his work on power stations in the Urals during World War II.

Mikhail Botvinnik earned his doctorate in electrical engineering in 1951.

On September 7,1991 Mikhail Botvinnik was awarded an honorary degree in mathematics of the University of Ferrara for his work on computer chess.