Two New Books. Training and History. Puzzles and Propaganda.

Good afternoon. Something for everyone today - the chance to work with the trainer of one World Champion - Mikhail Tal, and to learn from another World Champion - Mikhail Botvinnik. Plus some history.

My friend Victor Ciobanu has recently released two new books in Amazon Kindle format that I really enjoyed. Sometimes the fact that he is not a native English speaker shows, For that reason often his translations are 'literal' rather than 'converstional' English. However, they are perfectly readable and usable English versions of rare works.

First up this one.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08652H5PV/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0    

Writtenby Tal's legendary trainer, Alexander Koblenz ( or Koblencs, or Koblentz  just depending on where you look!! ) I have a couple of nice pictures of him which I will throw in along the way.

Basically it's a series of excercises, examples and words of wisdom for the aspiring player. The examples and 'homework' cover a range of aspects of the game,  and are targeted at players of different strengths. Often the 'homework' involves examining various phases of a particular game to understand how it works. Excellent stuff!

To give a couple of examples - the first one I solved in under 10 seconds - some will struggle with it!

 Paul Heaucker. 1930. Nice isn't it, and the theme is an important one in Bishop endings.

 One more picture - from the same source as the previous one.

As I say, a really useful book for anyone looking to improve. Even though my days of coaching are long gone, I would have found it useful in that regard as well. And it's a good read. Like it!!

You may have noted that I have included both Botvinnik and Flohr in some way here. Nope, I don't just make this stuff up as I go along!!  ( yeah, O.K. that's usually exactly what I do )

That brings me to a book that is more in my area these days.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0872BDSC2   

The cover picture is taken from a piece of film of the event - made during game one - that you can find different versions of, for example :_

The book is a translation of Botvinnik's original work on the match, published in 1934.

The front cover of the original is a still from that film clip.

I will put my historians head on first and then get to some of the content.

The match was considered a breakthrough event in the history of Soviet chess, as you will see. 

The circumstances of the match and how it was viewed in the USSR at the time are the subject of a long preface by Nikolai Krylenko. As an illustration of how the politics and propaganda of the time worked I will give the title page of the original, with it's picture of Krylenko.

As @Spektrowski notes in the comments, the photographs of the players were given on the previous page. Thanks mate!

The preface - not included in Ciabanu's translation - was well summarized in Richards outstanding work 'Soviet Chess. Chess and Communism In the USSR'. published in 1965, and impossible to get hold of these days, sadly. I will give his summary  from pages 53-54.

In September 1933, Ilyin-Zhenevsky, who was at that time attached to the Soviet embassy in Prague, was approached by Flohr, then the champion of Czechoslovakia and one of the world’s leading players, with a suggestion that a match be arranged between himself and Botvinnik. Flohr’s suggestion was accepted and the match was arranged for the end of the year.

In his preface to the book of the match, Krylenko, the president of the Soviet chess organisation, explains that the Soviet authorities in agreeing to Flohr’s proposal had three aims in mind.

Firstly, although Soviet chess had made great strides in recent years, there had been almost no contact with the outside world since the 1925 Moscow tournament. None of the new generation had crossed swords with a western player, and ‘the time had come when we had to test our strength and the quality of our expansion in a meeting with the professional masters of Western Europe’.

Secondly, as with the 1925 Moscow tournament, the event served to focus public attention on chess and, it was hoped, would contribute towards the ceaseless campaign to enrol fresh members in the Soviet chess movement. The match, played half in Moscow and half in Leningrad, certainly attracted public attention: 2000 people came to watch play every day, and after Botvinnik’s victory in the ninth game the applause lasted fifteen minutes.

Flohr was amazed how well Botvinnik was known to the general public. One evening when the two of them attended a ballet performance in the Bolshoi theatre the whole audience rose to applaud Botvinnik when he and Flohr entered the theatre.

Thirdly, through the simultaneous displays arranged for Flohr ( who was perhaps the leading simultaneous player of the day ) it was hoped to demonstrate to the chess world the strength of the average Soviet player. This aim was more than satisfied by the results: against forty players in Moscow Flohr had to resign twelve games and conceded twenty-two draws;

In Leningrad he lost twenty games and gave twelve draws, while winning only eleven games. Many Western ( and Soviet ) masters were to suffer a similar fate if future years.

The chess section of the All-Union Council for Physical Culture arranged for Botvinnik to be granted a month’s leave of absence before the contest. In his book of the match Botvinnik records the painstaking care with which he prepared himself for the  forthcoming encounter by analysing over 100 of Flohr’s games, preparing openings and by physical training.

The Drawn match ( two wins each and eight draws) was justifiably hailed as a triumph for Botvinnik and Soviet chess.

Krylenko summed up the results of the match from the Soviet point of view:

 “The Flohr – Botvinnik match has further increased  interest in Soviet chess, since it has shown that in our standard of play we have caught up with, and in the breadth of our chess movement we have overtaken bourgeois Europe.

We have caught her up in the class and creative depth of our leading masters; we have overtaken her in the compass of our chess movement, which embraces hundreds of thousands, if not millions, o workers, in our organisational work and, in what is perhaps the most significant of all, the high average level of our players”.

(A quick note on the simultaneous exhibitions mentioned :- contrary to what you might think, he was not really up against selected players of master, or near-master strength - however, there are a few names among his opponents that I recognise at once. For example :- In Moscow. Baturinsky, Kamishov and Olga Rubtsova. In Leningrad Tolush, Vladimir Zak - the famous trainer - Batuev, Novotelnov and Budo.)

A suitable point to throw in a picture from my files - sadly I have lost the original source, which is more than careless, so if anyone can shed any light please do so. Thanks! It is from a tournament in Berlin, in 1927, organised by "Workers' Chess International"

I can easily identify the three figures right to left in the front row - Ragozin, Ilyin - Genevski and Krylenko, but know no more than that.

So, the main part of the book is Botvinnik's account, including his preparation, and full annotations to all the games. One game from the match is an old favourite of mine, and I have posted it elsewhere.

I will give two versions - one with my own notes, and then with the notes from the book. I really like Botvinnik as an annotator.

Hopefully you will be able to get them on the same page for comparison - trying to incorporate two sets of notes into the same pgn is a nightmare. 

So, enjoy the game!

Botvinnik and Flohr at Nottingham 1936 - separated by Reshevsky.