What's so special about the Zurich 1953 Chess Tournament?

A fool laughs even when there's nothing amusing.

Menander, 302 B.C.

Pfren, 

It's good to laugh at the world, otherwise it is tragic. That Bronstein's career must have been made by crushing many other promising young careers just because he was sleeping with a powerful guy. And then the hypocrisy and propaganda machine of raising these people as some kind of demi-gods. 

Mickynj,

The irony in your post is amazing. Bronstein?!!! Come on, most people don't even know about him, so I don't know how that would make me feel important by insulting him. I don't even particularly care about these individual Soviet players. What I absolutely detest is how they have been put on a pedestal by Soviet propaganda machine without achieving anything extra-ordinary. These Soviet players of that era were just fixing matches and sleeping with right people... 

I think that now we have enough proof that when your I.Q. is the suitable one, you don't need more than 136 words to say one dozen stupid things.

What word counter did you use?

You are demonstrating how ignorant you are. In the soviet era, some players were favoured, but others weren´t. Bronstein, like Keres and Korchnoi, was not precisely one of the first group, his huge talent allowed him to be a world championship challenger despite soviet chess politics, no thanks to them.

Correct.

David Bronstein's father, Johonon, was sent to the Gulag by the NKVD (fore-runner of the KGB and GRU) and spent several years in labor camps. As the son of a "known traitor", Bronstein was NOT one of the fortunate Soviet GMs who received government support. Hardly that... he faced official obstacles at every turn.

http://store.doverpublications.com/0486238008.html

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5856bd64ff7c50433c3803db/t/589601ff20099eae9e52da6c/1486225919292/zurich53excerpt.pdf

i'm curious, is kindaspongey a bot?

"... Did we not contain conscious brains ourselves, how would we know that other brains are conscious? Truth be told, you can really only know that you are conscious, and it seems polite to give other people the benefit of the doubt. But were a computer to claim that it was conscious, how would you know? ..." - CGP Grey

"I am Dr. Roger Korby." - bot

"I don't understand the question. Could you tell me more?" - bot

No, but he tries very hard to become one.

Presuming your info is correct, thanks for confirming my point. Bronstein had a good career and hype because he had a sugar daddy gay lover who was powerful enough. But, Bronstein was not the top tier because of his father's track record. 

Anyway, my point is not about XYZ player. My point is that in Soviet era, the Soviet players were not where they were because of what they knew but rather whom they knew. Besides, they were all just supposed to fix matches anyway according to the instructions of Soviet high command. Puppets dancing to a tune. 

Pfren,

Insulting others (rather than arguing your point) does not indicate high IQ. Infact, since you mentioned IQ, I am pretty sure my IQ is either equal or more than yours. Anyway, no point in this nonsensical debate. I guess I am the heretic in this thread and the mob is just going to lynch me for daring to blaspheme their demi-gods. 

There is no doubt that the first digit of your IQ is considerably higher than almost every other human being. The problem is the second digit, which does not exist.

You got any evidence for this?

It is the first time where Bronstien explains at that time new variations such as Kings indian defence, and plans for white and black. I actually didnt read like some other books from that time. (Botvinik trilogy Kotov or Averbah)

I read Bronstein's book back in the DN days and just recently bought Najdorf's book.  I love both books but have to use B's book for corrections to all the typos in N's book.  Still, it's definitely worth a read, and having to use both at the same time gives an extra depth to the experience--each have their own comments and observations.  But both are great books by great players about a great tournament.  As Bronstein wrote, it was a snapshot of the state-of-the-art of chess at the time.

A little side story--at the 1995 WCC match in NYC, I met Najdorf briefly while taking an elevator down after the 9th game (Anand's win).  Najdorf said, "I must tell Garri to take better care of my variation."  I opened my mouth and was about to say who are you to think the Najdorf was named after you when I realized I was facing Miguel Najdorf himself.  So, to say something, I said, "Grandmaster, it's an honor to meet you (classic bail-out).  I loved Zurich 53; you really raised some hell there."  "Ach, not enough hell" was his reply, then he began talking with his body guard.  I'd like to say that I rubbed shoulders with him, but I'm 6'2", so his shoulder rubber my elbow.  But I did get to meet him.

That's what I took him to be.  Like I said, I'm 6'2", and the guy Najdorf was with made me look small.  And it was just the way he acted that made me think of bodyguard, but I could be wrong.  Don't forget, that was 1995 in the Twin Towers, and security was a little tight back then, so was he Najdorf's bodyguard or a TT guard or whoever; I don't know.  The next day, while taking the up escalator to the express elevators to get to the match I saw Anand coming down the other escalator with two Sikhs behind him, big guys with no-nonsense looks about them, and I took them to be bodyguards, too.  I said to Anand, "Great game, Vishy.  Now, kick his ass!"  Alas, a few minutes later, the 10th game started....

I did not really intend that this go into a serious discussion and I suspect that I will soon regret taking it seriously, but I guess I will risk going so far as to say that I think the idea is that it is not necessarily straight-forward to know what actions (lying or whatever) may result (intentionally or unintentionally) from programming. Further discussion should probably be taken to Off Topic and thus avoid interference with the Zurich 1953 discussion.

Who said that? About 2 days ago, didn't you tell us that Bronstein's wife, Tatiana Boleslavskaya said this?

"... Bronstein entered Dynamo club at the lowest rank and left it almost 40 years later , at exactly the same rank(no promotion for 40 years for a player that became the challenger of the world championship). …"

Is Vainshtain mentioned in that sentence?