World champion who dominated chess in the 1940s and '50s selects and annotates his own best games to 1946. 221 diagrams.

Mikhail Botvinnik won the World Chess Championship in 1948 and held the title with two breaks until 1963. Botvinnik announced his retirement from chess in 1970. This book covers the entire period when Botvinnik waa World Chess Champion. Of the great postwar chess players, one figure stands out above all others - the Soviet grandmaster, Mikhail Botvinnik. With the exception of two one-year interludes this dedicated electrical engineer was world champion for fifteen years - from 1948 to 1963; on the second occasion that he regained his title - from Tal - he was in his fiftieth year. It was not, however, until 1970 that he announced his "official retirement" from international competition. "Chess." wrote Botvinnik, "is an art which illustrates the beauty of logic." He could not abide errors which spoiled the beauty of the game, and the secret of his success was thorough preparation and routine, which fully justified his own self-confidence - and which were systematically adopted by the Soviet school. In controlled positional play, Botvinnik was an incomparable virtuoso - as Bronstein, Smyslov, and Tal, among many others, discovered. Above all, he was a perfectionist. Prefaced by a short biography, this volume - the first ever published in English presents over 100 of Botvinnik's best games over the period 1947 to 1970. Nearly all the annotations are by Botvinnik himself, and they reveal the qualities that won him the champion's title. Botvinnik's Best Games is, perhaps, the outstanding collection of the decade.

The Patriarch of Soviet Chess From the mid-1930s to the early 1960s, one man towered above all other chessplayers. That was the sixth world chess champion, Mikhail Botvinnik. His calm, deep analytical approach, supplemented by careful attention to his mental and physical conditioning served him well throughout his career. Now, in the sixth volume of the World Chess Champions Series by Isaak and Vladimir Linder, you will learn all about the chess advances and achievements of the Patriarch of Soviet chess, about his life and scholarly pursuit, and his contributions to the various phases of the game – opening, middlegame and endgame. Botvinnik was no less influential when he assumed the role of teacher. Graduates of his school included such powerful players as Garry Kasparov, Vladimir Kramnik, Sergei Tiviakov and Alexei Shirov. This book presents almost 150 of Botvinnik’s best games and endings, with fresh annotations by German grandmaster Karsten Müller, along with crosstables and many archival photographs. We invite you on journey to explore the life and games of one of the greatest and most influential world champions ever.

The games of Mikhail Botvinnik, world chess champion from 1948 to 1963, have been studied by players around the world for decades. But little has been written about Botvinnik himself. This book explores his unusual dual career--as a highly regarded scientist as well as the first truly professional chess player--as well as his complex relations with Soviet leaders, including Josef Stalin, his bitter rivalries, and his doomed effort to create the perfect chess-playing computer program. The book has more than 85 games, 127 diagrams, twelve photographs, a chronology of his life and career, a bibliography, an index of openings, an index of opponents, and a general index.

Covers Botvinnik's chess career from his first serious games to just before winning the World Chess Championship in 1948.

One of the greatest books ever written about a world championship match. In 1960 Mikhail Botvinnik was the pillar of "scientific " chess and the ironwilled champion of the world. The young attacking genius Mihail Tal, the "Wizard of Riga," put the magic back into the game by defeating Botvinnik with spectacular tactics in one of the most dramatic and celebrated world championship matches of all time. This is Tal's own classic work on the contest. In it he sets the stage and explains every one of the 21 games, telling both the on- and off-the-board story of this tatanic clash of styles and thought. Take a trip with the Magician from Riga as he invites you to share his thoughts and feelings as he does battle for the world title. "Mikhail Tal's splendid account of his world championship match victory is one of the masterpieces of the golden age of annotation - before insights and feelings and flashes of genius were reduced to mere moves and Informant symbols. This is simply the best book written about a world championship match by a contestant. That shouldn't be a surprise because Tal was the finest writer to become world champion." - From the Foreword by International Grandmaster Andy Soltis

Mikhail Tal, the 'magician from Riga,' was the greatest attacking World Champion of them all, and this enchanting autobiography chronicles his extraordinary career with charm and humor. Dazzling games are interspersed throughout with anecdotes and witty self-interviews, and in typically objective fashion he related both the downs and ups of his encounters. An inveterate smoker and drinker, Tal's life on the circuit was punctuated by bouts in the hospital with kidney problems, but nothing could dull his love for chess and his sheer genius on the chessboard. His illustrious tournament record, up to his death in 1992, is included here in full, along with 100 complete games and nearly as many positions. Tal's annotations in this book are a world apart from ordinary games collections. No reader could fail to be swept along by his passion and vitality as he sets the scene for an encounter and then recounts every psychological twist and turn.

In this collection of his best games, former world champion Mikhail Botvinnik demonstrates the deep strategic style that took him to the title. Written by one of the greatest players of all time Contains 90 annotated games from Botvinnik's career Includes victories over Capablanca, Alekhine, Smyslov, Tal and Petrosian Incorporates background material on key personalities and events