AMAZING CHESS PLAYERS SERIES — MIKHAIL BOTVINNIK 1911 TO 1995
Let’s discuss from the start of the legend MIKHAIL BOTVINNIK.
Mikhail Botvinnik is the man who for almost 15 years held the title of a World Chess Championship from 1948 to 1963.
Being the 6th World Chess Champion, he was the experimental chess player who played with ‘Iron Logic’ to take advantage of the weakness of the opponent. Having authored a number of books, he displayed himself as a confident chess player who loved to play safely with the strong endgame and perfect calculations. He considered as a strong player who could play overextended matches he didn’t find it embarrassing to learn from younger renowned players and experiment with the techniques. Let’s know more about this person who proves to be a person with remarkable abilities.
Childhood and Early Life:
Born to Russian Jewish dentist parents in Kuokkala village in Grand Duchy of Finland of Russian Empire modern day’s Repino in Russia on 11th of August 1911 Mikhail Botvinnik studied in a Soviet school.
Mikhail and his 3 years older brother, Issak or Issy, and their ailing mother who died in 1952 of brain hemorrhage lived a very poor life after his father left them for a second marriage in 1920.
Reading newspapers from the age of 9 he was captivated by the fundamentals of Communism which he followed for the rest of his life, at the age of 12, he developed a liking for chess after he took some lessons from his brother’s friend on a homemade chess set and went on to win the school championship in 1924.
After joining the Petrograd Chess Assembly which later on changed into a club he won the first two chess Tournaments of his life. Winning the Simultaneous exhibition match against Jose Raul Capablanca in Moscow Chess Tournament in 1925 he took a step further and in 1926 was able to get to the final of the Leningrad Championship. At the age of 16, in 1927, he competed in the USSR championship to win the National Masters title becoming the youngest player of that time. He is trained by Abram Model who was a Russian Chess Master and a Mathematics teacher in Leningrad, they both evaluated the Winawer Variation of French Defence and used it for future matches. In 1930, Botvinnik continued his journey as a strong Chess player by scoring 6 ½ / 8 to win the Leningrad Master’s Tournament while in 1931, he won by 2 ½ points against Peter Romanovsky in the Championship of Leningrad. Starting his education in the Electrical Engineering field from the Leningrad Polytechnical Institute in 1929, he completed his post-graduation in 1932 achieving his dream education while competing simultaneously in chess. He received financial support from his brother during this time proved which was significant in accelerating the steady growth in a career in chess as a player for Botvinnik.
we will discuss the career details in the upcoming blog.
For more details stay conneted.
