Good point. But although I don't know how adjournments were handled, it seems unlikely they played a critical role in the struggle for first. Bronstein-Stahlberg may have, though.

Of the games I discussed, the following were likely adjourned:

Bronstein vs Szabo, 1953 (Round 20)

Bronstein vs Stahlberg, 1953 (Round 22) (Bronstein probably thought he was lost at adjournment; if the adjournment wasn't played off for a long time, this may have affected him in the critical rounds)

Keres vs Kotov, 1953 (Round 22)

Boleslavsky vs Bronstein, 1953 (Round 23)

Reshevsky vs Geller, 1953 (Round 23)

Smyslov vs Reshevsky, 1953 (Round 25; not much suspense at adjournment for this one)

Bronstein vs Reshevsky, 1953 (Round 28)

My take on it is that "something" was going on behind the scenes, and not only in '53, and this tweaked Bronstein in some way. Perhaps this unhinged him competitively and in other ways. Just speculation.

Is it possible that the authorities really only wanted the Russian Smyslov and no other? Whatever happened in '51 behind the scenes, maybe they really didn't want a repeat, and they didn't want the Estonian either. Having Smyslov as their favorite, and seeing that they could do some things to try to make him the next challenger over a troublesome Ukranian, a stoic Estonian, and a hated American, they did so. This seems consistent with Bronstein's take.

<Further, the "authorities" are human, and also could make mistakes in judgement and execution.>

Amen!

As for the rest, of course Botvinnik was himself a Jew. The status of Jews seems to have waxed and waned in the Soviet era, but 1953 was (as far as I know) a particularly bad time, with the <Jewish doctors’ plot> and the campaign against <rootless cosmopolitans>, a term that might as well have come straight from <Mein Kampf>. (Do you ever get the sense, by the way, that Europe between, say, 1910 and the mid-1950s was simply insane?) So a particularly ferocious campaign against Jews might have hurt Bronstein, but it shouldn’t have helped the World Champion either.

Now, Keres. On the Keres-Smyslov game page I posted his own comments about that game; he blamed his defeat on his tendency to “stake everything on a single card.” Nothing about pressure. The comments are taken from a Batsford reprint, <The Quest for Perfection>; I think the original publication was in the 1960s. I wouldn’t expect him to be forthright about pressure if there was any, but I wouldn’t expect him to write so eloquently about the game either. (Sort of the same way I feel about Bronstein’s tournament book, incidentally; if the tournament was fixed and a fraud, why did he write such a wonderful book about it? It’s not like there weren’t other great tournaments he could have written about instead.)

I've raised this point many times before, but I think it's quite significant, so I'll raise it again. In 1952 the Soviet Union sent a team to the chess Olympiad for the first time ever. It was a big deal. (They sent a team to the sports Olympics for the first time too.) Botvinnik wasn’t on the team. I’ve read different things about what happened, but what makes the most sense is that the rest of the team wanted to put Keres rather than Botvinnik on first board. Rather than agree, Botvinnik quit. So the Soviets competed without him. (Keres actually did rather poorly on first board, scoring 6.5 out of 12 per Marmot PFL.)

<Bronkenstein> yes, I feel there is not so much of a consensus amongst the top leaders at times! This is why stories of the Illuminati are hard to believe: how can so many powerful people agree? Not saying it is not possible, but imagine it is quite difficult to maintain.

Not sure what Bronstein said regarding the source, but I felt that whatever happened in '53 was not coming from Botvinnik.

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sour... (part 1)

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sour... (part 2)

Other things from the article: Smyslov was indeed "preferred" to win in '53, though there is no confirmation that anything was done about it.

Botvinnik's orchestration of the rematch clause and the limit of the number of candidates from one country is... I don't know what to say. Ugly, maybe. Just plain ugliness. He is quoted by Averbakh as calling Bronstein, Petrosian and Averbakh "weak grandmasters." well, it seems Botvinnik did make the most of his position, and... I really have nothing positive to say.

Who was the FIDE president at the time? If it was Euwe, I guess his wanting to see Fischer have a shot at the WC made him think the Botvinnik rule is like some kind of chessic affirmative action.

http://www.chesspro.ru/_images/mate...

The president of Sport Committee was constantly threatening to David that he will not allow him to enter the playing hall (1944. USSR championship )next time he appears in that (simple green mechanical worker uniform) inappropriate outfit. ˝But it was the only one i had...˝ =) http://www.chesspro.ru/_images/mate...

Bronstein-Botvinnik draw (1945) seen through the caricaturist`s eyes. Bronstein changed his green uniform for the event : http://www.chesspro.ru/_images/mate...

˝Ratner (?) fell into the spider web of Bronstein`s cunning combinations˝ http://www.chesspro.ru/_images/mate...

David in SSSR 1946 team:
http://www.chesspro.ru/_images/mate...

How the caricaturists saw Botvinnik around these years =) http://www.chesspro.ru/_images/mate...

They had this to say after he chained few draws in 1947 championship: http://www.chesspro.ru/_images/mate...

Photo from the same championship: http://www.chesspro.ru/_images/mate...

The artificial USSR championship , called ˝The absolute˝ (as you might recall from the history books) to justify and distinguish it from the ˝normal˝ one in which Bondarevsky ( later on the Spassky`s second, man without whom Boris might never become the WC) and Lilienthal shared USSR champ title only few months prior to that.

Just for the flavor , I will try to translate first few lines of this mammoth text :

<˝Operation Absolute Championship˝

After 12th championship Botvinnik lived in shock for 2 months , and he had good reason : all his hopes for Match against Alekhine suddenly vanished! OFC , he could try to return the title in a year on the next championship , but he couldn`t wait that long. and who guaranteed that he will succeed ? His position seemed hopeless , when he came up with desperate idea :

˝In december I sent a letter to Snegirev (Chess Sportcommittee) , ironising the fact that the champion of the state , ie leader of USSR chess , will become the winner of the Bondarevsky-Liliental match (both of them are very talented players , but without signifucant chess achievements) , while Keres and me had such , and international BTW , achievements .

Snegirov knew himself , that such match has no value concerning the Alekhine`s challenger; He understood my sign , and started working - as always , silently but with great energy. How he persuaded the higher authorities , I have no clue , he didn`t talk too much about that , but in 2 months it was declared that 6 winners of the 1940. championship ...> Why exactly 6? Remember , Botvinnik was, accidentally, 6th...just an innocent remark ;) < ...will play for the title of ˝absolute˝ champion . The meaning of the word ˝absolute˝ was clear: the ˝absolute˝ USSR champ would play the match against Alekhine.˝...>

Keyword was ˝silent˝ , players had no idea what is happening until it was too late, and what is most important, nobody mentioned Botvinnik`s name in the process. He was diligently preparing , while :

<... Lilienthal remembers that he , relaxed by the promises ( by Snegirov? ) that he and Bondarevsky will be , without any match , declared the USSR champions , went traveling to Syberia: ˝Suddenly i recieved a letter from the president of Sportcommittee , Snegov , to immediatelly return to Moscow , to take part in so called absolute championship. I was shocked. I was very angry : I simply did not expect anything like that. Needless to say , i went totally unprepared ˝...> Keywords shocked , suddenly + unprepared =)

<...Young Bondarevsky told angrily to Keres one year later : ˝I was simply inexperienced...I should simply decline , and that`s it!˝...> BTW , decline in 1941 USSR ? keyword: inexperienced =)

<...Keres , accepting the participation , had no idea how high the stakes were. Neither previous nor this championship did he consider connected in any way with the world championship , and he payed dearly for being so naive. If up to that moment Keres was seen as the Alekhine`s challenger (he was placed above Botvinnik twice in important tournaments)...> key one being AVRO , considered ac the ˝candidates˝ by many <... after the ˝Absolute˝ Botvinik had every right to say ˝It is clear now who should challenge Alekhine˝...> And it was only the first of the cruel games that destiny played with Paul...keywords, cruel games + naive =(

PS You can compare the scoretables in first and second tournament to compare how successful ˝Operation Absolute˝ was for Botvinnik =)

PPS My English is not perfect , and Russian even worse than that , so the translation is prolly far from accurate @ some points.

It’s hard for me to square this story with Botvinnik occupying a very privileged place in Soviet chess, at least at that moment in time. All he would have had to do, if he really was as strong bureaucratically as he was supposed to be, was make a phone call or two, and Keres, Bronstein, and Smyslov would have abandoned their little rebellion in a hurry. ...>

You touch upon an interesting but much broader topic: The art of 'Reading Between the Lines'.

It is a quickly disappearing art, at least in Central/Eastern Europe, and thank god for that. It was closely coupled and practiced with the related, difficult to practice, and rather dangerous art of 'Writing Between the Lines'. Both were evolving arts, and never made it into a science; for obvious reasons. Imprecise arts! Yet, much of information was thus thankfully transferred to ears and eyes hungry for knowing.

To thoroughly explain 'Reading Between the Lines', one would need tomes. Fortunately, "The Wall", by Peter Sis

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wa...

makes it kind of understandable to children through one anecdote: "Which way, in this budding artist's rendition, does the wind blow?!"

Yes, just the likely accidental fact that the wind in a picture may be implying that the "wind is blowing from the West", could doom a publication, sometimes almost post-mortem.

But at other times, "wind from the East" could become a problem: Had somebody used a hot-air balloon to cross the Iron Curtain to West Germany, suddenly, 'wind from East' could be interpreted as an incitement for a mass exodus.

I talk lightly, but I am not kidding about the facts, nor former seriousness of the matter.

Presently, I am visiting my childhood 'hunting grounds'. After I'll finish this note, I will take a stroll by a small factory that older locals still call "Kniha" (Book). During the communist era, the place belonged to the main national publishing outfit (N.P. Kniha), but no book was ever produced there. Instead, the place was totally dedicated to burning of those hundreds of thousands of books where 'tainted' information was discovered only after the book was printed.

<You touch upon an interesting but much broader topic: The art of 'Reading Between the Lines'.>

I am familiar with the phenomenon, thankfully not from direct experience. But its explanatory power here is limited. In particular, it does not make Bronstein's (recent) allegations about the Geller game any more credible, unless we assume that the troika was irrational in a way wholly and obviously inimical to their own best interests. And given his failure to mention the game in his recent piece, it doesn't do anything to explain Bronstein vs Kotov, 1953 from Round 24. Still less does it explain why Bronstein wrote the book in the first place.

<bronkenstein> Thanks for those. I have to wonder, though, if (judging from your summary) the author of <Operation Match-Tournament> didn't let his indignation get the better of his judgment. Botvinnik, who finished 5-6, supposedly had his dreams of a match with Alekhine ruined by the 1940 championship, but Keres, who finished 4th, only a half-point further up, suffered no change in his status? Doesn't make sense, does it?

It also says that Keres was considered to have the best claim to challenge Alekhine up until the match tournament, and that he had no idea what was at stake in the "Absolute" championship. Putting aside for a moment the author's evidently low opinion of Keres' intelligence, it is clear that Keres himself did not think he was the top challenger to Alekhine even before the Absolute. In an article published at the beginning of 1941 in the American magazine <Chess Review> (before the match-tournament) Keres evaluated the chances of the six leading challengers (Keres, Botvinnik, Fine, Reshevsky, Euwe, and Flohr) and concluded that Botvinnik would have the best chance of beating Alekhine. He also makes clear that he does not regard himself as having priority. See summary below.

Samuel Reshevsky

The ˝Absolute˝ was definitely ˝artificial˝ ie premature , and definitely a surprise for many ( = too short, or no time to prepare) , number 6 is strange coincidence too , Botvinnik`s letter and reactions of other players speak much as well , and so on . Sport was elsewhere @ that moment .

Match against Alekhine was , as we all already know , just an illusion @ that point anyway , but no1 could know it then , and the deed remains ...

I'm no longer in management.

<...if the tournament was fixed and a fraud, why did he write such a wonderful book about it? It’s not like there weren’t other great tournaments he could have written about instead. ...>

Oh, how hard it was for an 'untried outsider' to get something, anything(!), into print behind the Iron Curtain.

The way things usually worked, for Bronstein it almost certainly was either this tournament or none at all. Given the opportunity to write about Zurich 1953, Bronstein was handed a big chance to become a chess journalist, a writer. It was an opportunity to either take or waste and forever hold peace.

The tournament was not completely <fixed> nor a complete <fraud.> It was merely manipulated.

Don't forget

1) Smyslov is supposed to be threatened by physical collapse (I don't believe that either, but such is Bronstein's story)

2) Smyslov was playing Reshevsky in Round 25 while Bronstein was playing Geller.

3) Keres is pretty much out of it by this point.

So the troika double-crosses the only Soviet besides Smyslov with a realistic shot of finishing ahead of Reshevsky? What if Reshevsky had defeated Smyslov in Round 25? You think that wasn't a possibility? Would you stake your livelihood on it, if you were on the troika?

BTW, according to the the SA 2nd edition, Bronstein's apartment was covered in chess material regarding Fischer.