Happy Birthday,Russian chess legend!
Mikhail Botvinnik was born on the 17th August, in 1911. He was a Soviet chess grandmaster and the 6th world chess champion. He also worked as an electrical engineer and computer scientist.
Compared to other super Grandmasters, Mikhail learnt chess late,at the age of 12. But he was improving every day. And only two years later he defeated World Champion Jose Raul Capablanca in a simultaneous exhibition game.
In 1931, at the age of 20, Botvinnik won his first Soviet Championship in Moscow.In 1938, he challenged World Champion Alekhine to a match for the title. But because of 2nd World War, they didn't play it.
From 1939 to 1947 Mikhail Botvinnik played actively and successfully in serious tournaments. Botvinnik also won the very strong Mikhail Chigorin Memorial tournament held in Moscow in 1947.
On the basis of his strong results during and just after World War II, Botvinnik was one of five players to contest the 1948 World Chess Championship, which was held at The Hague and Moscow. He won the 1948 tournament convincingly—with a score of 14/20, three points clear—becoming the sixth World Champion.
In 1950, Botvinnik was one of the inaugural recipients of the international grandmaster title from FIDE.
Botvinnik held the world title, with two brief interruptions, for the next fifteen years, during which he played seven world championship matches. 1st was with David Bronstein,
2nd was with with Vasily Smyslov,3rd was with to Smyslov,that he lost ,but the rules then in force allowed him a rematch without having to go through the Candidates' Tournament, and in 1958 he won the rematch in Moscow.Botvinnik was convincingly beaten 8½–12½ at Moscow by Tal,but again exercised his right to a rematch in 1961, and won by 13–8 in Moscow.
After losing the world title for the final time, to Tigran Petrosian in Moscow in 1963, Mikhail Botvinnik withdrew from the following World Championship cycle after FIDE declined, at its annual congress in 1965, to grant a losing champion the automatic right to a rematch. But he remained involved with competitive chess, appearing in several highly rated tournaments and continuing to produce memorable games.
Mikhail Botvinnik died in 1995 at the age of 84. Despite the fact that he died, he will forever remain in our hearts.
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