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USSR Absolute Championship (1941) Taking place in the cities of Leningrad and Moscow, the winner of this Match - Tournament was going to be the challenger for Alexander Alekhine's world title. The USSR Absolute Championship of 1941 was brought about by the results of the 12th USSR Championship (1940) . Following the Russo-German Non Aggression Pact of August 1939, the Soviet Union annexed the Baltic States of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia as well as the eastern parts of Poland. This meant that players like Keres, Petrov and Mikenas were eligible to play in the 12th Soviet Championship. As Andre Lilienthal had been granted Soviet citizenship, he was eligible to compete as well. The hall in which the 12th Championship was held had excellent acoustics so the players suffered with noise from the audience. Botvinnik, who was leading after nine rounds, felt his performance was being affected by these conditions and he ended up in shared fifth and sixth places with Boleslavsky behind Bondarevsky and Lilienthal who were joint first, Smyslov third and Keres fourth. After receiving a letter from Botvinnik and working behind the scenes, chess organiser (and keen Botvinnik supporter) Vladimir Nikolayevich Snegiryov persuaded the authorities that a Match - Tournament of the first six place-getters would be a fairer determination of the Champion (and hence Challenger for Alyekhin), rather than the proposed winner of the Bondarevsky-Lilienthal Match play-off. So the Match - Tournament was a twenty-round affair, with the first ten rounds held in the Tauride Palace (1) in Leningrad and last ten rounds played in the Hall Of Columns in Moscow. It started on the 23rd of March and ran until the 29th of April. Botvinnik ran out the convincing winner. Leningrad (1-10) and Moscow (11-20), Soviet Union (Russia), 23 March - 29 April 1941 -- 1 -- -- 2 -- -- 3 -- -- 4 -- -- 5 -- -- 6 -- Points 1 Botvinnik * * * * 1 ½ ½ ½ 1 ½ 1 ½ 1 ½ 1 ½ 1 ½ 0 1 0 1 ½ 1 13.5 2 Keres 0 ½ ½ ½ * * * * 1 1 0 ½ ½ 0 ½ ½ 0 1 ½ 1 1 ½ 1 ½ 11.0 3 Smyslov 0 ½ 0 ½ 0 0 1 ½ * * * * ½ 1 ½ 1 ½ 1 ½ ½ ½ ½ ½ ½ 10.0 4 Boleslavsky 0 ½ 0 ½ ½ 1 ½ ½ ½ 0 ½ 0 * * * * 1 1 ½ 1 ½ 0 0 ½ 9.0 5 Lilienthal 0 ½ 1 0 1 0 ½ 0 ½ 0 ½ ½ 0 0 ½ 0 * * * * 1 ½ 1 1 8.5 6 Bondarevsky 1 0 ½ 0 0 ½ 0 ½ ½ ½ ½ ½ ½ 1 1 ½ 0 ½ 0 0 * * * * 8.0 Two months after this tournament in "Operation Barbarossa" Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union and so the quest for a Soviet player to win the World Title receded into the background until after the War. The main source for this collection was the book Championship Chess by M M Botvinnik. ISBN 1-84382-012-9. Reference: (1) Wikipedia article: Tauride Palace. Original Collection: Game Collection: USSR Absolute Championship 1941, by User: Benzol.  page 1 of 3; games 1-25 of 60  Game   Result Moves Year Event/Locale Opening 1. Keres vs Bondarevsky 1-0 53 1941 USSR Absolute Championship B11 Caro-Kann, Two Knights, 3...Bg4 2. Lilienthal vs Smyslov ½-½ 35 1941 USSR Absolute Championship E32 Nimzo-Indian, Classical 3. Smyslov vs Keres 0-1 67 1941 USSR Absolute Championship C79 Ruy Lopez, Steinitz Defense Deferred 4. Botvinnik vs Lilienthal 1-0 27 1941 USSR Absolute Championship E67 King's Indian, Fianchetto 5. Keres vs Botvinnik 0-1 22 1941 USSR Absolute Championship E34 Nimzo-Indian, Classical, Noa Variation 6. Bondarevsky vs Smyslov ½-½ 35 1941 USSR Absolute Championship E25 Nimzo-Indian, Samisch 7. Boleslavsky vs Smyslov ½-½ 42 1941 USSR Absolute Championship C79 Ruy Lopez, Steinitz Defense Deferred 8. Botvinnik vs Bondarevsky 0-1 89 1941 USSR Absolute Championship D55 Queen's Gambit Declined 9. Lilienthal vs Keres 1-0 44 1941 USSR Absolute Championship E19 Queen's Indian, Old Main line, 9.Qxc3 10. Botvinnik vs Boleslavsky 1-0 49 1941 USSR Absolute Championship C07 French, Tarrasch 11. Bondarevsky vs Lilienthal   0-1 83 1941 USSR Absolute Championship D30 Queen's Gambit Declined 12. Smyslov vs Botvinnik 0-1 42 1941 USSR Absolute Championship C19 French, Winawer, Advance 13. Keres vs Boleslavsky ½-½ 31 1941 USSR Absolute Championship C19 French, Winawer, Advance 14. Smyslov vs Lilienthal 1-0 37 1941 USSR Absolute Championship C43 Petrov, Modern Attack 15. Bondarevsky vs Keres ½-½ 42 1941 USSR Absolute Championship D12 Queen's Gambit Declined Slav 16. Boleslavsky vs Botvinnik ½-½ 23 1941 USSR Absolute Championship C15 French, Winawer 17. Bondarevsky vs Boleslavsky 1-0 77 1941 USSR Absolute Championship C19 French, Winawer, Advance 18. Lilienthal vs Botvinnik   ½-½ 32 1941 USSR Absolute Championship C82 Ruy Lopez, Open 19. Keres vs Smyslov 1-0 65 1941 USSR Absolute Championship E32 Nimzo-Indian, Classical 20. Lilienthal vs Boleslavsky 0-1 50 1941 USSR Absolute Championship C15 French, Winawer 21. Botvinnik vs Keres   ½-½ 41 1941 USSR Absolute Championship D27 Queen's Gambit Accepted, Classical 22. Boleslavsky vs Lilienthal 1-0 17 1941 USSR Absolute Championship C40 King's Knight Opening 23. Smyslov vs Bondarevsky ½-½ 114 1941 USSR Absolute Championship A13 English 24. Keres vs Lilienthal 1-0 94 1941 USSR Absolute Championship C86 Ruy Lopez, Worrall Attack 25. Smyslov vs Boleslavsky 1-0 33 1941 USSR Absolute Championship C11 French  page 1 of 3; games 1-25 of 60    REFINE SEARCH:   White wins (1-0) | Black wins (0-1) | Draws (1/2-1/2)   < Earlier Kibitzing  · PAGE 3 OF 3 ·  Later Kibitzing> Jul-01-25    Petrosianic: <beatgiant>: <Petrosianic> Your narrative would make more sense if Alekhine had said he was willing to play a title match with any winner of a Soviet championship. He had not. He saw Botvinnik as a worthy challenger, and it wasn't due to his results in Soviet championships.> LOL at "my narrative", as if that's not really what the Absolute Championship was. But if Alekhine says he wants to play Botvinnik, and the Soviet government wants him to play Bondarevsky, guess who he's going to play? If you think Alekhine would have held out and eschewed a payday, saying "Botvinnik or Nobody", I would like to have seen that. Jul-02-25    beatgiant: <Petrosianic> Yes, the event was related to the challenge to Alekhine, in that they wanted to fix the perception of weakness caused by Botvinnik's showing in the 1940 championship. But can we really believe the idea was to give Bondarevsky a chance to replace Botvinnik as the world title contender in case he won the 1941 event? That seems like madness, comparing the two players' records to that point. As far as Alekhine was concerned, it wasn't really the case that <nobody knows when Alekhine is coming, and you only win the lottery and get the title shot if you happen to be reigning Soviet champion at the same time that he does>. If the Soviet sports authorities did have the idea that "the challenger to Alekhine should be the national champion," it was entirely self-imposed and meant nothing to Alekhine. Jul-02-25    Olavi: It meant nothing to Alekhine, but Botvinnik makes it clear in his memoirs that it meant a lot to him. And he presents the matter the way that the USSR must choose one candidate to issue a challenge to Alekhine, and stick to that one candidate. Later, when Botvinnik outlined his proposition for conducting the WC (after Alekhine's death I think, but I'm not absolutely sure, it might have been prior to the Winterthur 1946 congress also), one of his points was that the country of the challenger and the champion should be made responsible for the match; if they can't finance it, then that country doesn't deserve a champion... Well that was very logical from Botvinnik's point of view. There would be no problem for a USSR champion (with the initials MB?!) with the financing! But let's say that was not how the world saw the matter, Soviet GMs including. Nor am I convinced MB really thought that the justified way to do it or whether it was a tactical ploy. Jul-02-25    Petrosianic: <Olavi: It meant nothing to Alekhine, but Botvinnik makes it clear in his memoirs that it meant a lot to him. And he presents the matter the way that the USSR must choose one candidate to issue a challenge to Alekhine, and stick to that one candidate.> And I think he was right about that, at least in the short term. Suppose Alekhine had come to the US in 1945, and the USCF had said "Sorry Sammy, sorry Ruben, we feel we really should sponsor an Alekhine-Denker match." Jul-02-25    beatgiant: <Olavi> But the USSR had already approved Botvinnik as the challenger in 1939. Must the USSR stick to one candidate or not? Particularly if that candidate was already accepted by Alekhine and had the best international record and head-to-head record against Alekhine. Jul-02-25    Olavi: <beatgiant> Alekhine had accepted Botvinnik's challenge after the last round of AVRO 1938; presumably Botvinnik had the green light from the authorities before that. But now Keres had adopted the Soviet citizenship - Botvinnik's words in the preface of the 1941 absolute ch tournament book; who in these changed circumstances should now represent the USSR in the struggle against Alekhine for the WC?, he writes in his memoirs. The 1940 Soviet ch ending as it did, Botvinnik wrote a letter to Snegirev, the man responsible for chess in the Sports committee - above the chess federation - and voilà, there was the match tournament instead of the Lilienthal - Bondarevsky match. For Snegirev and Botvinnik it was plain and clear what that title meant; but Keres wrote in his Selected Games that to this day (early 60s) he doesn't know what the title was supposed to mean. I wonder if that was some sort of veiled protest 20 years after the fact. Jul-02-25    beatgiant: <Olavi> I agree that people could consider Keres a realistic challenger to Alekhine too, but they could have settled that question by having Botvinnik and Keres play a match. If the winner of this event was definitely to become the challenger to Alekhine, wouldn't it be risking disaster in case one of the weaker players with no experience either internationally or against Alekhine won it? Jul-02-25    Olavi: <beatgiant> I guess for Botvinnik it wasn't riskier, considering he finished sixth in the championship, any second chance is welcome - and Keres fourth, so it would have looked bad to have a match between them. Botvinnik had to make sure he was armed to the teeth for the match tournament... he knew about it before the others, according to Lilienthal's memoirs. (It was his plot after all.) "I wrote to Snegirev ironically pointing out that the winner of the match Bondarevsky-Lilienthal would be Soviet champion, i.e. the foremost Soviet player, while Keres and Botvinnik already have significant international successes." From the German edition, loosely. Jul-02-25    stone free or die: So, we're comparing a 20-player single round RR, vs. a 6-player four set RR? Clearly the latter is a far better determination of the best qualified match player. And exactly how much extra time did Botvinnik have for preparing over the others? And how long did the latter have to prepare? Jul-02-25    keypusher: <And exactly how much extra time did Botvinnik have for preparing over the others? And how long did the latter have to prepare?> Not sure I believe him, but Botvinnik claims he found out about the match tournament at the same time as everyone else. Jul-02-25    beatgiant: <MissScarlett><The important thing is that Lilienthal and Bondarevsky agreed to it.> Was this intended ironically, or do we have a real reason to believe anyone asked Lilienthal and Bondarevsky their opinions of the idea? <keypusher><Botvinnik claims he found out about the match tournament at the same time as everyone else.> Then at the same moment he sent his message to Snegirev, he also sent messages to all the players who got invited to this event? Otherwise, at least he would be less surprised than they when he found out. <Olavi> <it would have looked bad to have a match between them.> It would have looked bad to whom? I really doubt even Bondarevsky himself believed his tie for first in the 1940 USSR Championship meant he would be as good as Botvinnik or Keres as a challenger to Alekhine. <For Snegirev and Botvinnik it was plain and clear what that title meant> But I don't know of any official statement that the winner of this event, if not Botvinnik, would replace him as the challenger to Alekhine. What if, say, Lilienthal had won? How can you make us believe the USSR would switch their support to him as the new challenger? Jul-02-25    perfidious: One rather doubts the Soviet chess bureaucracy, even in the era after the purges, were concerned with keeping up appearances; their aim was to dominate world chess. Jul-02-25    stone free or die: This looks to be an interesting side-alley of chess history, which I'm largely ignorant of. It was discussed over a decade ago on <CG> (found by doing a google search on <Snegirev>): Mikhail Botvinnik (kibitz #1203) <bronkenstein> was himself quoting from another <CG> page. The source material used was from this Russian language page - still active: https://chesspro.ru/_events/2007/vo... Unfortunately, I don't have time to really go through this now, but thought I'd drop the links here for future reference. Jul-02-25    Olavi: As is mentioned in that Botvinnik kibitz 1203, Lilienthal was in Sibiria on a simul tour when the word reached him that he should immediately return for the match tournament. Well, almost. According to his Schach war mein Leben (1988, original Hungarian 1985) he and Bondarevsky were told that there would be no match, they would both receive the gold medal. Whereupon he left for the Urals; he was in Sverdlovsk playing a 201 board simultaneous, a world record at the time he claims, during which president Snegov's telegram arrived. He writes he was very embittered. Jul-02-25    Olavi: <beatgiant:> OK, this is but speculation: <it would have looked bad to have a match between them. It would have looked bad to whom?> We are in the Soviet Union in 1940. To challenge Alekhine Botvinnik had to be sure he had full backing of the establishment. He had to beat those above him in the actual championship. Jul-02-25    beatgiant: <Olavi> The Russian source linked above says Botvinnik was bothered by the effect his poor showing in the 1940 USSR Championship could have on his world title shot, and so proposed this new event. If true, Botvinnik did have a head start preparing for it, and the goal was much more to give Botvinnik a do-over than to establish a fair Candidates process for the USSR's world title contender. Jul-02-25    keypusher: <Then at the same moment he sent his message to Snegirev, he also sent messages to all the players who got invited to this event? > <beatgiant> Of course not. Come on. Botvinnik wrote: <I do not know how [Snegirev] managed to convince the authorities, he never revealed this, but about two months later came an announcement about the setting up of the title of 'Absolute'Champion of the USSR and the running of a match-tournament of the six winners in the championship in four rounds.> USSR Absolute Championship (1941) (kibitz #14) <SFOD> Note that the name is also rendered Snegiryov and probably other ways. The Match-Tournament comes up periodically on this site and everybody more or less repeats what they said five or ten years before. There was a pretty thorough discussion in 2013. Jul-02-25    beatgiant: <keypusher> If we agree Botvinnik suggested the idea to Snegirev, but didn't tell the others, it's hard to accept his claim that <he found out about the match tournament at the same time as everyone else>. He would definitely have been much less surprised about it than they were. Jul-02-25    stone free or die: <kp> thanks for the heads up. And... being a firm believer in recycling, I think a revisit of certain interesting topics ain't a bad way to while away the hours! Jul-02-25    keypusher: <beatgiant> Again, I don't know if I believe him, but Botvinnik seems to say that Snegiryov/Snegirev/Whoever came up with the Match-Tournament format. He, Botvinnik, didn't know what, if anything, would happen. USSR Absolute Championship (1941) (kibitz #7) Botvinnik says he wrote S in December 1940, the announcement came out about two months later (so February?) and we know the M-T began March 23. So if Botvinnik did know what would happen, yes, that is an advantage, although a month/six weeks, which all the participants would have had, is still significant prep time. If MMB didn't know what would happen, but had some reason to believe SOMETHING would happen, I suppose that's still a psychological advantage. Jul-02-25    beatgiant: <keypusher> It's not clear from the sources at hand when exactly the participants were notified of this event. The Russian source above, which is strongly in the camp that it was all Botvinnik's idea, quotes Botvinnik saying he was "preparing intensively in the first two months of 1941" (no more precise start date mentioned). It also points out that the event was announced in "64" on Feb. 19, suggesting (but not actually proving) the others found out around that time. The source also quotes Botvinnik saying he stayed at a Leningrad city Party committee resort at that time, going skiing and studying chess with Ragozin. Sounds great, but it doesn't tell us how the other participants were prepping. Jul-03-25    keypusher: <The Russian source above, which is strongly in the camp that it was all Botvinnik's idea, quotes Botvinnik saying he was "preparing intensively in the first two months of 1941" > Is it the same source that says Botvinnik’s life was a smoldering ruin after the 1940 championship? If so, judge it accordingly. Jul-03-25    beatgiant: <keypusher> He didn't exactly say Botvinnik's life was a smoldering ruin, only that he saw his world title hopes in jeopardy, but yes, the source makes some other over-the-top claims and is clearly not a neutral telling of the history. He does not give a citation for the quote from Botvinnik (maybe "Achieving the Aim," but I don't have a copy handy). But even if all the sources are as given, it doesn't really prove much. If the players were informed in late January, with "64" announcing it a few weeks later, it would be consistent with Botvinnik only starting his prep after everyone was informed. It's definitely believable that Botvinnik had nicer accommodations than Boleslavsky. If I remember right, Averbakh had some anecdote about Botvinnik and his fancy dacha, albeit after he was World Champion. Jul-03-25    HeMateMe: Sponsored by Absolut Vodka? Seems fitting. Jul-03-25    Olavi: Lilienthal writes that the telegram from Snegov informed him that "I should return to Moscow as soon as possible and play in the so-called absolute championship. It was like a blow to the head for me. I was very bitter. I hadn't expected a tournament like this. Of course, I wasn't prepared either." Hungarian to German to English (by me the latter). But the exact date of the Sverdlovsk simultaneous is unknown - or is it... Jump to page #    (enter # from 1 to 3) search thread:    < Earlier Kibitzing  · PAGE 3 OF 3 ·  Later Kibitzing> NOTE: Create an account today to post replies and access other powerful features which are available only to registered users. 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