It's hard to imagine anything more unlikely. Even assuming that Moscow could give orders to an English communist in the first place, it staggers the imagination to imagine them calling the World #82 player and say something like "Hello? If by some incredible chance you manage to get a winning position against the World #4 tomorrow... no, no, we don't want you to throw the game, but if you should somehow manage to have him beat, give him a draw."

I've read things in Pravda that were less ridiculous than that.

Much more likely that the split point was the result of personal feelings or more likely still, sheer gutlessness. Having a player so vastly superior to him on the ropes, and afraid of blundering and losing (and let's face it, chess history is full of games like that; take a look at Redolfi-Fischer, 1959 for a particularly painful example), especially since a loss from such a superior position really would be seen as a fixed result, he wimped out and took the half point while he could. It's a shame it decided the outcome of the tournament, though.

I didn't criticize his inegrity, I said he "wimped out". He could and should have kept playing for a win and very easily might have gotten one, but took the draw against the much stronger player.

But then I see what happened??

'Mild Winter' is more like it

January 1963 cover this game.

It was rumoured that Moscow had instructed Winter to lose this game.

"A preposterous slander."

It reads that these allegations were stated before the game. Botvinnik offered the draw and Winter was not 100% convinced he could win.

What if he should lose from the final position?

"Having regard to certain allegations which were flying around, a loss would have been disastrous to me."