Word: botvinnik
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...pawns were human when World Chess Champion Mikhail Botvinnik took on the 1957 titleholder, Vassily Smyslov, in a "Peace Fund" benefit match that enthralled 15,000 Muscovites. So were the king, queen, and all the other pieces in the latest Marxist evolution of an ancient Oriental version of chess. But unlike the Eastern game-in which, according to legend, the chessmen were prisoners of war, and once taken, were beheaded-the Soviet game employed beauteous ballerinas and assorted other troupers, each of whom, upon being captured, put on a performance. So distracting, in fact, was the circus atmosphere (the show...
Careless of the intent crowd in Moscow's Variety Theater, Leningrad Grand Master Mikhail Botvinnik, 49, concentrated on the board in front of him, played with icy calmness to recapture the world chess championship from the man who took it away from him last year: nervous, chain-smoking Mikhail Tal, 24. For the aging Botvinnik, it was a triumph of selfdiscipline: all year he had stayed in training, sharpening his strategy while Tal was living it up in Europe. Botvinnik's endurance paid off in the grueling, three-day 20th game when Tal slumped wearily in his seat...
...With rapid-fire, unorthodox moves, Latvia's Mikhail ("Misha") Tal, a 23-year-old philologist, flustered methodical Mikhail Botvinnik, 48, into worrying more about hidden traps than mounting his own attack, dethroned the Russian master as world chess champion by the score of 12½-8½ in their matches in Moscow to become the youngest titleholder of the 20th century...
Brash, hawk-nosed Challenger Tal is Botvinnik's exact opposite. A graduate of the philology department at the Latvian State University in Riga, he has made chess his profession; when he is not playing the game he is writing about "it in a Riga chess journal, which he edits. During a game, he makes his moves swiftly. Between moves, he circles endlessly around the table. Then, as though in response to an electric brain-flash, he stops in his tracks, hovers over the board, and, when his turn comes, swoops down like a hawk on the piece he intends...
...game is unorthodox, often appearing to the chess purist to fly in the face of reason. Against Botvinnik, he several times seemed to sacrifice a piece without apparent advantage. But he also achieved his primarily psychological purpose: that of confusing and spoiling the precise calculations of his opponent. Time and again, unexpected Tal moves forced Botvinnik to hesitate so long that he ran into trouble with his time limit, then rushed into making weak moves. Last weekend, with 13 games left to play, Tal led by 6½ to 4½-And in the ninth game of the match, Botvinnik...