Match for the World Chess Championship: Mikhail Botvinnik-David Bronstein, Moscow 1951

by Mikhail Botvinnik, Igor Botvinnik (Compiler), Kenneth P. Neat (Translator)

Match for the World Chess Championship

Three years after winning the world championship, Mikhail Botvinnik had to defend his title against the challenge of David Bronstein. Though out of practice and largely outplayed by his brilliant young opponent, Botvinnik nevertheless demonstrated his fighting qualities, levelling the scores in the penultimate game and thereby retaining his title. All 24 games of the match are deeply annotated.

Genres: Chess

124 pages, Paperback

First published September 15, 2004

Reviews

[Steven · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fascinating mishmash. First off, this is not a complete annotation of the match by Botvinnik. Sveshnikov and Flohr annotate some of the games. What is most compelling is that included here are notes from Botvinnik's game diary: his notes to himself heading into the each game and his notes to himself at the completion of the game. Also included is an appendix that shows Botvinnik's preparation, his analysis of Bronstein's games, and it is great to see how he evaluated his opponent beforehand. Of the games for which Botvinnik provides the annotations, it is clear that these annotations came many years after the match as he cites variations from later games that improve on the variation. That is useful, of course, but not as exciting to read as a pure recitation of his thoughts right after the match would have been. So I think this book suffers from too much "monday morning quarterbacking." Sveshnikov even cites computer lines from Fritz to bolster his analyses.