A blog post dedicated to the annotations, from the contemporary Soviet chess press, of the games of the 1966 World Championship match. In the spring of 1966 the World Champion, Tigran Petrosian, faced Challenger Boris Spassky in a 24-game match for the game’s highest honour. The contest was held in the Estrada theatre, on the…
In the foreword to his book Izbrannie partii (‘Selected Games’, published in Leningrad in 1949), Mikhail Botvinnik writes about his development in a chessplayer. He describes how, during the period 1927-1933, he learned how to make his mark among masters (he himself had gained title of Soviet Master in 1927, at the age of 16). …
A short blog post dedicated to an interesting draw between the Hungarian grandmaster, László Szabó and ex-World Champion Mikhail Tal, from the 5th Central Chess Club International in Moscow, 1963. During October-November 1963, the fifth in a series of international tournaments organised by the USSR Central Chess Club took place in Moscow. The 15-round all-play-all…
A blog post dedicated to Mikhail Botvinnik’s annotations of the games of the 1974 Candidates’ final between Anatoly Karpov and Viktor Korchnoi. The 18th game of the match in progress. (Photo: V. Savostianov / TASS.) During September-November 1974, Soviet grandmasters Anatoly Karpov and Viktor Korchnoi faced each other in a match of 24 games to…
A short blog post dedicated to one of the most beautiful victories of the 13th World Champion, on the occasion of his 57th birthday. Kasparov & Karpov in play on the stage of the Hotel ‘Leningrad’ during the 14th game of their 1986 match. (Photo: D. Donskoi, Novosti Press.) In a match of 24 games…
A short blog post dedicated to the final tournament in the long career of the 6th World Champion. To mark the 75th anniversary of the Leidsch Schaakgenootschap (the Leiden Chess Club), attempts were made to organise a match between Mikhail Botvinnik (USSR) and Bobby Fischer (USA) that would take place in the spring of 1970. Preparations…
The biographical work Akiba Rubinshtein by Yu. S. Razuvaev & V. I. Murakhevri, published in Moscow by the state publishing house Fizkultura i Sport in 1980, is generally considered to be one of the most important books written in the latter part of the twentieth century. Here, for example, is what Boris Gelfand has to say…
A blog post dedicated to the dramatic 1986 Candidates’ match between Artur Jussupow (USSR) and Jan Timman (Netherlands), which was won by the Soviet grandmaster by the score of 6:3 (+4, -1, =4). It features translations of the contemporary annotations by Jussupow’s trainer, Mark Dvoretsky, supplemented by notes and comments by the two players. Artur…
A blog post dedicated to a forthcoming work on the ‘Match of the Century’, written in collaboration with ‘Chess Informant’, featuring some background to the event and extracts from the new book. The ‘Match of the Century’, between teams representing the USSR and the ‘Rest of the World’, took place in the capital of Yugoslavia,…
A short blog post dedicated to the marathon encounter between Nigel Short and Valery Salov from the Linares tournament of 1990, plus some brief information on Salov’s chess career. The 8th in the series of Linares super-tournaments took place almost exactly 30 years ago, from February 18th to March 3rd, 1990. 1st place in the…
A short blog post dedicated to Nezhmetdinov’s celebrated victory against Polugaevsky from the 1958 RSFSR Championship, featuring a translation of annotations by the winner as well as some brief background to the event in Sochi. The championship of the RSFSR (the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic) was one of the more important events in the…
A blog post dedicated to the Tal v. Larsen Candidates’ Semi-final of 1965, featuring translations of Tal’s annotations to nine of the games of the match, plus some background to the event. The Danish grandmaster Bent Larsen was appearing in the Candidates’ Semi-final by virtue of his Quarter-final victory over Borislav Ivkov of Yugoslavia by…
A blog post dedicated to the final decisive game between the 2nd and 3rd World Champions, featuring a translation of Capablanca’s annotations from the Soviet tournament book, and some reminiscences on the background to the game by Yakov Rokhlin. The 3rd Moscow International tournament took place in the summer of 1936. The first two events…
A short blog post dedicated to two remarkable defensive achievements of the 6th World Chess Champion, played within a couple of years of each other in 1950s. Translations of his annotations to the games are available to download. Mikhail Botvinnik was one of the game’s greatest analysts. His ability to get to the essence of…
A blog post dedicated to the appearance of two of the leading Soviet grandmasters in the international tournament at Venice, 1950, featuring translations of Smyslov’s and Kotov’s annotations to some of their games from the event, as well as extracts from Kotov’s report on the tournament from the Soviet Chess Yearbook. The 2nd round at…
