Michael Botvinnik

Biography (1911–1994)

The sixth World Chess Champion (1948–1957; 1958–1960; 1961–1963), the "Patriarch of the Soviet Chess School". Botvinnik played for the Soviet Olympiad team from 1954 to 1964, and the team won gold medals each of those six times.Started to play chess at the very beginning of the Soviet “Chess fever” in 1924–25, Botvinnik became the chess master at 16 and the Soviet chess champion at 20. At the strongest international tournaments in the middle/end of 1930s, he entered the world chess elite. At the same time, he acquired the specialty of an electrical engineer and defended his thesis. His challenges to Alekhine for a match failed twice: in 1939/40 because of WWII and in 1946 because of Alekhine’s death. But in 1948 Botvinnik has won the match-tournament of five strongest World players and became the world champion. He later “loaned” his title twice (to Smyslov in 1957 and Tal in 1960), but returned it in rematches (1958 and 1961). After losing Petrosian (1963) Botvinnik focused on the problem of chess and the computer, trying to create an "electronic grandmaster"

Want chess advice?

# 1 / 5

Chess cannot be taught. Chess can only be learned

If you are going to make your mark among masters, you have to work far harder and more intensively, or, to put it more exactly, the work is far more complex than that needed to gain the title of Master

You need to play in competitions where opponents are a little stronger than you, otherwise you can fail and get psychologically injured

Chess is not only a game of pieces, but also of people – psychology matters

Memorization of variations could be even worse than playing in a tournament without looking in the books at all

On Botvinnik

We all consider ourselves students of Botvinnik, and future generations will learn from his games

Botvinnik was undoubtedly one of the greatest champions, a genuine innovator who created an entire era in chess. His style was one of deep strategy, based on serious opening and psychological preparation, fine technique and accurately regulated positional and combinative decisions

Botvinnik certainly was a new era in chess. I`d call him the first real professional, who understood that the result in chess depends not only on skillful playing. He was the first to reflect on complex preparing for competitions: not only openings, but also sleep, regimen, physical readiness – in that he was certainly a pioneer