Michail Botvinnik

                                                                                     Mikhail Moiseevič Botvinnik was the sixth world champion (from 1948 to 1957, from 1958 to 1960 and from 1961 to 1963). For his methodology in competitive preparation, for his purely scientific approach to the game and for having trained subsequent generations of great masters and world champions, he is considered the "Patriarch" of the Soviet chess school. Graduated in electrical engineering, he made a decisive contribution to the development of chess engines. He participated in the Chess Olympiad with the Soviet team from 1954 to 1964, scoring 8 gold, 2 silver and 1 bronze. At twelve years old he learned to play chess from his brother's friend Leonid Baskin. Despite his parents' opposition, three years later he was already one of the best players in the city. Botvinnik showed off by winning the 1936 Nottingham tournament, then after the war he won the title of world champion in 1948. In that year FIDE, after the death of the reigning champion, Alexander Alexandrovich Alekhin, decided to have the a six-player tournament to be played half in the Netherlands and half in the Soviet Union; the participants were the strongest players of that period: the Dutch Max Euwe, world champion before Alekhine, the Americans Samuel Reshevsky and Reuben Fine (the latter declined the invitation for work reasons) and the Soviets Paul Keres and Vasilij Smyslov, as well as Botvinnik of course. The tournament was organized as a quintuple round-robin: each player met the others five times, alternating matches with the white pieces and those with the black pieces. Botvinnik, in brilliant form, won with 14 points (10 wins, 8 draws and 2 defeats, of which one draw when the title was already mathematically his), leading the second-placed Smyslov by 3. In the following years Botvinnik had to withstand the assaults of strong challengers selected in the candidates' tournaments: 1951: drawn match with David Bronštejn. Botvinnik, by regulation, retained the title. 1954: drawn match with Smyslov. 1957: defeat by Smyslov, 9.5-12.5. Botvinnik took advantage of a rule that allowed him to get his revenge within a year. 1958: victory with Smyslov, 12.5-10.5. 1960: defeat by Michail Tal', 8.5-12.5. Botvinnik asked for a rematch. 1961: victory with Tal', 13-8. FIDE annulled the rule that allowed the rematch. 1963: defeat by Tigran Petrosyan, 9.5-12.5. Furthermore, between 1931 and 1952 he won the Soviet chess championship six times (out of eight participations).