Mikhail Botvinnik

Mikhail Botvinnik was born in Kuokkala, near St Petersburg, in 1911. He combined chess with electrical engineering, graduating from the Leningrad Polytechnic Institute in 1931. That same year he won his first Soviet championship. He shared first place at Moscow in 1935 and at Nottingham in 1936, where he finished level with José Raúl Capablanca. His preparations emphasised opening research, analysis of his own games and physical fitness.

Botvinnik became the sixth world champion by winning the five-player championship tournament of 1948. He was among the first recipients of FIDE’s Grandmaster title in 1950. Drawn championship matches with David Bronstein in 1951 and Vasily Smyslov in 1954 allowed him to retain the title. He lost to Smyslov in 1957 but regained it in their 1958 rematch. The same pattern followed against Mikhail Tal: defeat in 1960 and victory in the return match in 1961. His final championship reign ended when Tigran Petrosian defeated him in 1963.

Botvinnik earned a doctorate in electrical engineering in 1951 and continued scientific work alongside chess. He founded a chess school in 1963 whose students included Anatoly Karpov, Garry Kasparov and Vladimir Kramnik. After retiring from tournament play in 1970, he continued teaching and writing. His later work included computer-chess research and the PIONEER program. His game collections include Half a Century of Chess. He died in Moscow in 1995.