why isn't botvinnik talked about as much

as the other champions...

he pretty much led the way to soviet school chess domination

Now that is a good question.

He is mentioned quite a bit within historical discussions.  He contributed perhaps more than anyone else in the game's history.  If not then he's at least the equal of Steinitz, Nimzowitsch and Reti. 

Botvinnik is one of the greatest players of all time, but as someone mentioned, it was a long time ago now, for most players nowadays he's only a shadow from the past. I want to point out one thing though: Botvinnik was a pioneer when it comes to teach computers to play chess. This was a great interest of he's in his older days. At a time when it was a big challenge even to make a computer understand the rules of chess.

wasn't botvinnik the first player to really look at chess, scientifically,?

Because he was a cheater, used his position to manipulate the rules grossly in his favor and was a devout Communist.

SilentKnighte5 wrote:

Because he was a cheater, used his position to manipulate the rules grossly in his favor and was a devout Communist.

Anyone who supported Stakin is on a par with those who supported Hitler.

Also Salo Flohr. Larry Evans believes Paul Keres too.

Mersaphe wrote:

because he was a boring player and boring person

In what way was he a boring player and person?  He was consistent, logical, had great combinative vision, amazing endgame technique and planning, defeated Smyslov and Tal in his return matches agaisnt them, and won The Hague-Moscow Tournament of 1948. 

As a person he originated the modern approach for preparing for a tournament, advocated annotating one's own games with harsh self-criticism, advocated studying players of the past, encouraged publishing one's own annotations to be subject to criticism, and made great contributions to opening, endgame, and middlegame theory.  A Kramnik quote goes as,

"Botvinnik's chess career was the way of a genius, although he was not a genius"

I strongly disagree with the last part because genius (used here in the literal, technical sense) is a practical prerequisite to win the world championship because if you aren’t then the geniuses would run over you.  Let’s be very conservative here and say that only 5,000 people at the time were engaged in competitive chess ranging from novices to GMs.  Since genius is defined as the top 2% as far as IQ goes we could logically deduce that there would be 100 geniuses in that pool, and Botvinnik was at the top in any event. 

For the record, a lot of facts about Botvinnik are severely twisted.

An example is the great composer Sergey Mikhailovich Kaminer, who was arrested by NKVD in 1938, and "disappeared" a couple of months later. Just before his arrest, he handed the notebook with all his compositions to Botvinnik. He considered them being safe there, and indeed, Botvinnik published the notebook several years later.

He had a losing score against Smyslov. Kerrs was coerced to lose his games to B. in 48.Keres would have won handily.The Bronstien match has already been mentioned.The rematch clause that he took advantage of against Tal was clearly unfair, as soon as it was dropped, he instantly lost to Petrosian.

The boy doesn't have a clue about chess, and there's no future at all for him in this profession.  -  (Botvinnik on student Anatoly Karpov)

He was a douchebag.

Interesting how Spassky compared Alekhine's fate (mysterious untimely death) with Keres never getting at shot a the title. 

I think you're taking the quote out of context.  It was probably said in good natured teasing. 

Senior-Lazarus_Long wrote:

Anyone who supported Stalin is on a par with those who supported Hitler.

Weren't these guys enemies of each other?

Yes,but Stalin was every bit as evil as Hitler. He murdered more people, but he did have a longer career.

"This is utter stuff and nonsense.  There were many million chessplayers in the Soviet Union alone at that time. "

I used 5,000 as a hypothetical unit, not as a factual representation of the actual number to prove a point.  The fact that there were millions makes it all the more impressive.

"Says who?  Got a reference?  Got any evidence that high IQ translates to great chess ability?"

http://psychology.about.com/od/psychologicaltesting/f/genius-iq-score.htm

"The top 1% to 2% have master ratings in most rating pools and would therefore be world championship calibre!  I don't think so!"

I don't mean top 2% in performance but IQ, sorry if I sounded like IQ and chess performance directly correlate.  A 160 IQ could be 1400 ELO or higher depending on the specific training, interest, and motivation.  You have FMs who are 120 and even 110 IQ, and other factors do indeed play a part, but high IQ reasonably correlates with performance and potential in chess as it’s a mental game.  It is played on a two dimensional grid and is a complex system where knowledge and understanding of the mechanics gives one an advantage.  Since millions of people play competitive chess it stands to reason that many are geniuses, therefore it's practically impossible for an average or any non-genius to be world champion.  Let's say two people put in equal effort and motivation to learn something, but one has a major IQ advantage.  He'd understand and assimilate the material much faster, retain more information, grasp concepts that would be out of the other guy's reach and therefore have a major advantage.  Now think about it on a much larger scale. 

OK, Botvinnik was a Stalin-Communist. Aljechin was a nazi-friend. The born gentleman Spassky has participated in anti-jewish manifestations in older days. Perhaps only a few players can pass the eye of the needle. I respect people with other opinions, but I only judge chess players for their performance at the chess board. For their sins as humans, there are other juries.

+1

Genius is not "the top 2%"
And you could be a world champion chess player without being a genius.

magnanimous!