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| Dec-18-15 | | sneaky pete: My guess is that Botvinnik didn't sign that infamous letter, not so much out of respect for Korchnoi, but mainly because of his dislike for Petrosian, who no doubt initiated and wrote the wretched thing. The "Letter of Grandmasters", published in Petrosian's weekly <64>, 1976 issue 38, page 2, was signed by Averbakh, Antoshin, Balashov, Beliavsky, Boleslavsky, Bondarevsky, Vaganian, Vasiukov, Gaprindashvili, Geller, Gipslis, Gurgenidze, Gufeld, Kotov, Krogius, Kuzmin, Lutikov, Petrosian, Platonov, Polugayevsky, Romanishin, Savon, Smyslov, Suetin, Taimanov, Tal, Tukmakov, Flohr, Furman, Kholmov and Tseshkovsky. Karpov didn't sign it, because he had his own letter on the same page of that same issue of <64>. "The decision of V. Korchnoi to betray the Fatherland has deeply touched and saddened me. [...] I share the indignation of the Soviet society regarding the unworthy behaviour of Korchnoi and support the decision of the Soviet Chess Federation to strip him of his sporting titles and deny him the right to represent the Soviet Chess School in the international arena." The bio here states Gulko gained the GM title in 1976. Shortly before this letter was published, he played in th Biel Interzonal. No doubt he was asked to sign, but refused. Another GM that didn't sign was Lilienthal, who returned to Hungary that same year. |
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Dec-18-15
 | | keypusher: <Everett
Concerning the 1974 match: Bronstein writes quite a bit about this match in Secret Notes. He actually helped Korchnoi to prepare from games 19-21 (+2 =1). Some of the help Korchnoi was supposd to receive mysteriously disappeared once the match started... And just as mysteriously, Korchnoi no longer wanted help from Bronstein, save for long walks and chats not even concerning chess, after game 21. Bronstein also wrote, when making general suggestions to Korchnoi before the match, that Korchnoi should play the French since Karpov "did not know how to play against the IQP" when he stuck with the Tarrasch 3.Nd2 response.>Very interesting -- Karpov played some famous games with 3.Nd2 before the match, and I would have thought he was really strong against the IQP. Evidently Bronstein saw deeper. |
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| Dec-18-15 | | BUNA: <sneaky pete: My guess is that Botvinnik didn't sign that infamous letter, not so much out of respect for Korchnoi, but mainly because of his dislike for Petrosian, who no doubt initiated and wrote the wretched thing.> I'd doubt that Petrosian initiated the letter. Soviet officials weren't keen on grassroots action in such politicized matters. The letter came from the soviet chess federation or the sports committee. It was publicized not only in "64", but also in the general sports paper "Sovietsky sport". |
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Dec-18-15
| | keypusher: <BUNA: <sneaky pete: My guess is that Botvinnik didn't sign that infamous letter, not so much out of respect for Korchnoi, but mainly because of his dislike for Petrosian, who no doubt initiated and wrote the wretched thing.> I'd doubt that Petrosian initiated the letter. Soviet officials weren't keen on grassroots action in such politicized matters. The letter came from the soviet chess federation or the sports committee. It was publicized not only in "64", but also in the general sports paper "Sovietsky sport".> I believe Petrosian was editing "64" at the time. He wasn't exactly grassroots. |
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| Dec-18-15 | | BUNA: <keypusher: I believe Petrosian was editing "64" at the time. He wasn't exactly grassroots.> And Dirk Jan Ten Geuzendam is the editor of "New in chess". ;)
Korchnoi seems to blame Baturinsky and Averbakh, both chief executives of the soviet chess federation at the time.
> http://www.litmir.co/br/?b=188044&p...
Maybe sneaky pete mixed up the "open letters". In 1974 after losing his match to Karpov Korchnoi in some interview to the soviet press complained about the chess federation backing Karpov. In an "open letter" some grandmasters rejected Korchnois explanation for his defeat. That's the one that Petrosian allegedly initiated, at least according to Korchnoi.
Compared to the other letter this was a minor matter. |
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Dec-18-15
| | keypusher: <BUNA> Thanks, you are clearly more knowledgeable about this than I am. |
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| Dec-18-15 | | Everett: <Very interesting -- Karpov played some famous games with 3.Nd2 before the match, and I would have thought he was really strong against the IQP. Evidently Bronstein saw deeper.> It is easy, and prudent, to not completely trust Bronstein in some areas, but regarding chess itself he seemed pretty spot on most of the time. |
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| Dec-18-15 | | Petrosianic: <BUNA>: <I'd doubt that Petrosian initiated the letter.> So would I. Korchnoi's defection was an enormously big thing. Comparable to Solzhenitsyn, or even worse. Korchnoi was a household name in a country that was so big on chess. There's no way that the official response to his defection came from some magazine editor. |
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| Dec-19-15 | | Howard: Still remember Korchnoi's making the cover of "Chess Life and Review" in September, 1976! It also made Page 2 of our local paper when that happened. No small thing ! |
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| Mar-09-16 | | socratos: he is better when playing english opening. but the best game is against capablanca match. |
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Jun-26-16
 | | brankat: <..he is better when playing English opening...> Botvinnik was better when playing any opening. |
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Aug-17-16
 | | TheFocus: Happy birthday, Mikhail Botvinnik. |
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Oct-20-16
 | | thegoodanarchist: < Everett: <Very interesting -- Karpov played some famous games with 3.Nd2 before the match, and I would have thought he was really strong against the IQP. Evidently Bronstein saw deeper.>
It is easy, and prudent, to not completely trust Bronstein in some areas, but regarding chess itself he seemed pretty spot on most of the time.> LOL, yes, I agree! Bronstein in "chess itself" seemed pretty spot on <most> of the time. Seems to be a common theme amongst those folk contending for the Chess World Championship, IMO. |
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Dec-21-16
 | | HeMateMe: Sting
Russians
<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHy...> |
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Dec-22-16
 | | Gypsy: <"Slightly shortsighted, [Botvinnik] stoops over his score sheet and devotes his entire attention to recording the move in the most beautifully clear script; one feels that an explosion would not distract him and that examined through a microscope not an irregularity would appear. When he wrote down 1.c2-c4 against me, I felt like resigning.
"
--- C.H.O'D. Alexander >
A great quote of the day. But it had to be <1... c7-c5> that occurred on the board; those two never opened with 1.c4 but played the Sicilian twice. |
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| Dec-22-16 | | Nerwal: <But it had to be <1... c7-c5> that occurred on the board; those two never opened with 1.c4 but played the Sicilian twice.> C H Alexander vs Botvinnik, 1936 (with the quote in descriptive notation) |
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Mar-10-17
 | | zanzibar: I don't know if this has been posted before, but it's some glorious old footage - with a heavy Soviet CCP slant (e.g. May Day parades with tanks, etc.). Still Botvinnik is featured, as may be other notables: <A film about chess "Thirteen Champions"> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uik... (ru) (You can use CC and auto-translate to get a rough idea of the narration) |
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Mar-10-17
| | keypusher: <zanzibar> Wow! You find so much great stuff. Thank you for sharing. |
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Apr-04-17
| | keypusher: Here, by the way, is a better version of Botvinnik's picture: http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/n... We can see that the cg photo is reversed. The Getty site says the picture is from Moscow in 1951, but I assume that's incorrect. I would guess the game was played sometime in the 1950s in the West, perhaps at the showroom of a rug merchant. But I can't identify the game. |
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Apr-04-17
| | keypusher: There are some Soviet publications in the foreground, too. |
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Apr-04-17
| | zanzibar: <keypusher> an eagle-eye would have noticed the left-most square being white in the <CG> photo, indicating the photo was reversed. The big pile of magazines are "Chess in the USSR". (Шахматы в СССР aka Shakhmaty v SSSR) Not sure what the other periodic is though. Probably could date the game from the periodicals though. I had a hard time getting a clear view of the high resolution image with all the embedding. Here it is: http://media.gettyimages.com/photos... The caption locates the date and place - Moscow 1951. Let me see if I can use the doubled-pawns on the c-file (and maybe the rook on h2) to find the exact game with SCID: Nope - no luck.
That configuration of White pieces (P/c4,5,f3,g4; R/h2; K/e4) doesn't show up in <MB> or <RUSbase>. Might be a practice game. It doesn't look as if they were recording the moves, right? . |
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| Jun-22-17 | | GM Igor Smirnov: Mikhail Botvinnik was the World Champion for about 13 long years, and there are definitely a lot of things that one can learn from him. Learn the "Botvinnik’s winning method" now - http://chess-teacher.com/affiliates... |
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| Jun-22-17 | | Howard: Speaking of Botvinnik, Short has a column about him in the latest issue of NIC (#4). Just came in the mail today. |
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| Jun-22-17 | | morfishine: Whats incredible is that Botvinnik lost the title twice and re-attained it twice What persistence!
***** |
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| Jun-25-17 | | Howard: Short definitely didn't approve of that, though ! |
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