Mikhail Botvinnik

Mikhail Moiseyevich Botvinnik was a Soviet and Russian chess grandmaster who became the sixth World Chess Champion, winning the title five times across three separate reigns. Besides chess, he worked as an electrical engineer and computer scientist, and he was an early innovator in computer chess, an achievement that earned him an honorary degree in mathematics. He is widely regarded as the founding figure of the Soviet chess school and is respected for his methodical, analytical style.

Botvinnik was born on August 17, 1911, in Kuokkala, then part of Finland, now Repino in Saint Petersburg. His parents were Russian Jews: his father Moisei was a dental technician, and his mother Shifra (Serafima) was a dentist. Because of her profession, the family could live outside the Pale of Settlement, and Botvinnik grew up on Nevsky Prospect in Saint Petersburg. His father banned Yiddish at home, and Mikhail and his older brother Isaak attended Soviet schools. Botvinnik later described his nationality as complicated: Jewish by blood, Russian by culture, and Soviet by upbringing. He called himself an atheist.

In 1920, his mother fell ill and his father left the family, though he stayed in touch with the children even after remarrying a Russian woman. Around this time, Botvinnik began reading newspapers and became a committed communist. At age twelve, in autumn 1923, a school friend of his brother taught him chess with a homemade set, and he immediately loved the game. He finished mid-table in the school championship, then took advice from another of his brother’s friends, deciding it was better to think out concrete concepts and derive general principles from them—after which he easily beat that friend. In winter 1924, he won his school championship and exaggerated his age by three years to join the Petrograd Chess Assembly, whose president overlooked the deception. He won his first two tournaments there. Soon after, Nikolai Krylenko, a devoted chess player and leading Soviet legal figure, began building a nationwide chess organization, and the Assembly was replaced by a club in the Palace of Labour.

To test Soviet masters, Krylenko organized the Moscow 1925 chess tournament. On a rest day, world champion José Raúl Capablanca gave a simultaneous exhibition in Leningrad, and Botvinnik was chosen as an opponent and won. In 1926, he reached the final stage of the Leningrad championship and later played for Leningrad’s team in a match against Stockholm in Sweden, scoring one win and one draw against future grandmaster Gösta Stoltz. On returning, he entertained schoolmates with stories of the rough sea voyage. He was asked to annotate two games from the match, and knowing his analyses would be published made him aware of the need for objectivity. In December 1926, he became a candidate member of his school’s Komsomol branch. Around then, his mother worried about his poor physique, so he began a daily exercise routine he kept for most of his life.

When Botvinnik finished school, he was too young for university entrance exams. While waiting, he qualified for his first USSR Championship final in 1927 as the youngest player ever, tied for fifth and sixth, and earned the master title. He wanted to study electrical technology at the Leningrad Polytechnical Institute and passed the entrance exam, but the course had too many applicants and the Proletstud admissions body favored children of engineers and industrial workers. After a local chess official appealed, he was admitted in 1928 to Leningrad University’s Mathematics Department. In January 1929, he played for Leningrad in a student team chess championship against Moscow. Leningrad won, and the team manager, also deputy chairman of the Proletstud, arranged for Botvinnik to transfer to the Polytechnic’s Electromechanical Department, where he was one of only four students admitted straight from school. This forced him to complete a year’s work in five months, and he failed one exam. Earlier that year, he placed joint third in the USSR Championship semi-final and did not reach the final.

His early progress was fairly rapid, mostly under the training of Soviet Master and coach Abram Model in Leningrad. Model taught him the Winawer Variation of the French Defence, then considered inferior for Black, but Botvinnik analyzed it deeply and played it with great success. In 1930, he won the Leningrad Masters’ tournament with a score of 6½ out of 8.