Word: botvinnik
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...midst of a tense, 24-game match for the world's chess championship were Mikhail Botvinnik, 48, who has held the title since 1948 with one year's lapse and Challenger Mikhail Tal, 23. As the competition developed, the conflict of their personalities became more important than their technical skills...
...profession, Botvinnik is an electrical engineer, and one of the Soviet Union's best (he helped design the turbines for a giant hydroelectric plant on the Volga). He brings an engineering mind to the chessboard: steeped in the classical traditions and theories of chess, he sizes up his opponent, selects his form of attack and, pondering each move to the limit of allowed time, develops it with ruthless precision...
...After two months of chess, during which both contestants begged off for occasional bed rest, Challenger Mikhail Botvinnik demonstrated the intellectual stamina of a champion. Sticking stubbornly to the defensive strategy that experts insisted he was constitutionally incapable of using, Botvinnik, 46, strung out the 23rd game of the tournament until World Champion Vasily Smyslov, 37, broke under the strain. Rather than resume the adjourned game, Smyslov offered a draw by telephone. This gave Botvinnik half a point and the match, 12½-10½. Thus, without even the satisfaction of a handshake, Botvinnik regained the title that he lost...
Smyslov, and his countryman, Mikhail Botvinnik...
...week before, at 40, he had cleared 13 ft. with a Fiberglas pole, said that at 25 the new pole would have pushed him to 16 ft. ¶ Russia's Vassily Smyslov, an aspiring concert baritone, needed only 22 games to depose nine-year World Chess Champion Mikhail Botvinnik, 12½-9½. Anxious to meet all challengers, Smyslov expects to face no females. Says he: "They could not stay silent for five hours straight...