Russian Supremacy

For many years, the Russian chess players have been dominating the field. Unlike the US, the Russian government, acting as sponsors, promoted a vast program of chess activitiy, encouraged and professionalized its top flight talent. Because no other country engaged in this practice on a comparable basis, Soviet victories have been many, and masses of grandmasters flourished. Botvinnik, Smyslov, Bronstein, Keres, Geller and Tal, just to name a few.

Under the circumstances, Russian chess reached a peak of technical perfection, until the appearance of the American wizard Bobby Fischer, who stopped cold the Russian chess empire and brought it down to its knees, the rest is ancient history.

David Bronstein (1924-2006) achieved the Soviet Master title at age 16 for his second-place result in the Ukranian Chess Championship of 1940, behind Isaac Boleslavsky. FIDE awarded him the Grandmaster title in 1950. He earned the rights for the World Championship challenge match against Mikhail Botvinnik in 1951. He came very close to becoming World Champion as the match resulted in an amazing 12-12 draw, another great player who never won the World title.

The French Defense below is an exquisite sample of Bronstein's power. He ended up the game with one of the most amazing winning moves on record.