Game Collection: WCC: Botvinnik-Bronstein 1951

Ok the first paragraph has been rewritten and the new notes have been put in.

In "The Most Dangerous Match", a GM playing for the world championship murders his opponent. Columbo meets him and tries to knock him off balance in his meddlesome way. "Hi. You must be the champion. I have a cousin up in Albany with big, thick glasses and he admires you very much."

"Although his subsequent results were solid, the Soviet Chess Federation did not yet award him the grandmaster title.<5> FIDE still invited him with six other Soviets to the Saltsjöbaden Interzonal (1948).<6>"

This now sounds a bit strange, as you would expect the Soviet grandmaster title to be reserved for exceptional results. But here he didn't get it, although his results were <solid> - as a reader I wouldn't expect <solid> results to be enough to earn a Soviet grandmaster title anyway. It even makes it appear as if FIDE's standards for Interzonals were lower than the Soviets' for their GM titles.

I think that the crucial point is that with <solid results>, the reader lacks a point of reference. When I suggested <solid> and <good>, I didn't believe these expressions to be synonymous. To me it seems that Bronstein did become one of the strongest Soviet chessplayers and so FIDE was correct in inviting him as one of the Soviet representatives. However, as he had had his best results against foreigners and weaker Soviet chessplayers, with about solid results against his stronger Soviet adversaries, so he had not been awarded the Soviet grandmaster title yet.

Bronstein had a couple of outstanding results which I guess influenced FIDE's selection.

Moscow (Championship), 1946

http://www.chessmetrics.com/cm/CM2/...

Moscow-Prague, 1946

http://www.chessmetrics.com/cm/CM2/...

thanks. I was aware of that as <Jess> gave his results in the mirror. And we should keep in mind the general readership aimed at with these drafts - it's not enough if only the draft writers and critics understand it.

The point is that <solid> results do not sound too impressive. So the conclusion <Although his subsequent results were solid, the Soviet Chess Federation did not yet award him the grandmaster title.> reminds me a bit of the <not yet WC challenger> despite 15th place at the 1944 USSR Championship in an earlier draft version.

Here, the vagueness rather confuses the reader, especially as no information on the team events is given. If he always played first board, a <solid> result against the Najdorfs and Reshevskys of our world would have been very good. But he played on lower boards mainly. The Prague 1946 match seems to have been a Scheveningen type-tournament, with all the Moscow players playing the Prague players - http://www.olimpbase.org/other/resu... -so I'm not sure about the practical signficance of Bronstein playing first board. And the smaller Championships like Moscow 1946 are not even mentioned.

Bronstein's 1947 results rather do characterize him as a "not yet WCC challenger." His results during and after the interzonal characterize him as the "man to beat." He left no doubt in these years that if you wanted to get to Botvinnik, you'd have to go through him first.

All I mean to say is that his performances against top Soviet opposition in 1947 would not have pegged him as the favorite at the Saltsjöbaden Interzonal (1948).

It should be kept in mind, though, that you don't need to be a "rising WCC challenger" or the "the event favorite" to get invited to an interzonal tournament. Plenty of "not yet WCC challengers" get invited to interzonals. FIDE invited seven Soviets to Saltsjöbaden, and despite his 1947 performances there's no doubt from his overall record that <Bronstein>, though only a master, certainly deserved one of those seven spots.

All that said, I really don't think we are in disagreement on this point.

I'll rework this sentence back into the draft then:

<This earned him a spot on the lower boards of Soviet team events, where he performed well. He further progressed in smaller events with good results, but his performance against the best Soviet opposition was not yet strong enough to attain the grandmaster title.>

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This is what I came up with, and what is now in the mirror:

The new version looks fine now and makes the development much clearer to the reader.

Anticipating a possible objection, I would suggest to add a source after

Heh...

I added a provisional <4a> source for the two Moscow championships- I'll change all of the notes tomorrow when I'm more awake.

But look at the <25th Moscow Champinship 1946> http://al20102007.narod.ru/ch_repub..., and look at this game from that event: Bronstein vs Smyslov, 1946

I was already aware of these results from from Game Collection: Smyslov's Tournaments and Matches 1935-1979 and Game Collection: Smyslov at the 25th Moscow Championship, but now that we're concentrating on <Bronstein>, it just struck me that <Smyslov> was invited to the FIDE World Championship Tournament (1948) two years later.

Thanks for the update- this is most excellent news.

I will send Daniel a thank you email.

I won't submit Game Collection: WCC: Botvinnik-Bronstein 1951 until this Sunday.

I am superbusy at work right now. Also, I want to check each and every note to make sure there are no reference mistakes.

"David Bronstein was born in Belaya Tserkov, Ukraine in 1924."

Is the correct name of the city not rather <Bila Tserkva>?

"3, David Hooper and Kenneth Whyld, "The Oxford Companion to Chess, 2d Edition" (Oxford University Press, 1996), p.60"

Excellent, thank you.

I also just put the correct English spelling of "Bila Tserkva" in the David Bronstein bio as well.

I still want the comma after "later".

Well I made the mistake of not even bothering to "source" it from a typically unsourced Cg.com bio.

Luckily I can source it to this handy Ukrainian Wikipedia article on Дави́д Ио́нович Бронште́йн:

<<Four years later he qualified for the USSR Championship (1944),> I still want the comma after "later">

We'll have to wait on <Tim> for the resolution of this, and all other, comma, matters.

I just went over the "61k" limit on Game Collection: WCC: Botvinnik-Bronstein 1951.

In a previous email, Daniel told me this could result in the destruction of the collection!

It didn't.

I divided it in half. Here is the other half: Game Collection: WCC Botvinnik-Bronstein 1951 Appendix

<<Four years later he qualified for the USSR Championship (1944),>

I still want the comma after "later">

The Comma Sutra stands mute on this issue. Either way works for me.

http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%91...>