In our series Champion Born On This Date, today we are featuring Mikhail Botvinnik, the pioneer of artificial intelligence and someone who is considered to be the greatest Chess visionary.

Growing up in the USSR

Mikhail Botvinnik was born on 17th August, 1911 at Kuokkala in erswhile USSR to a Jewish dentist couple. Though it was the most trying time then for the Jewish community, yet Botvinnik always found a way to survive and excel due to his intelligence, adaptability and wisdom.

Botvinnik turned an atheist at a young age and always described himself as “a Jew by blood, a Russian by culture and a Soviet by upbringing”.

Mikhail Botvinnik- Carried forward the chess legacy

At the tender age of 20, Botvinnik won the Soviet Chess Championship, thereby getting opportunity to participate in important Chess tournaments in Western Europe. His victories over former World Champions Capablanca and Alekhine revealed the depth of his mastery over Chess strategy, tactics and technique

When world champion Alexander Alekhine passed away in 1946, leaving the Chess throne empty, the International Chess Federation (FIDE) conducted the ‘World Championship Tournament’ at Groningen. Botvinnik emerged as the winner in that tournament and was crowned as the World Champion for the first time.

Mikhail Botvinnik- The father of computer chess

Mikhail Botvinnik always believed in propagating and promoting the game on all fronts at the same time. He was the main force behind the government support and the broad player base in Soviet Union. He wrote several Chess books and composed some very illustrative Chess puzzles.

However, Botvinnik’s greatest contribution to Chess is his study of artificial intelligence and computer science. Even when he was the World Champion, he dedicated a lot of time in designing and making Chess playing computers.

Even at the risk of becoming ridiculed by fellow Chess masters, Mikhail Botvinnik always expressed that computers would eventually defeat humans some day. His words have indeed come true, though, sadly, it was not to happen during his lifetime.

The true leader

After retiring from active participation in world championship cycles, Botvinnik started training talented youngsters from Soviet Union. World champions Garry Kasparov and Vladimir Kramnik are the most prominent among his students.

Botvinnik promptly acknowledged the contribution of others to his own work as well as to Chess theory. He attributed his concept of ‘acclimatisation’, practiced by all Soviet sportspersons for decades, to invaluable inputs and suggestions by World Chess Champion Dr Emanuel Lasker.

Due to his innovations, objectivity and clarity of thought, Botvinnik was always able to lead the Chess world in new directions and dimensions till the last day of his life. The Chess world will always miss this legendary personality.

Botvinnik’s example and teaching established the modern approach to preparing for competitive chess: regular but moderate physical exercise; analysing very thoroughly a relatively narrow repertoire of openings; annotating one’s own games, those of past great players and those of competitors; publishing one’s annotations so that others can point out any errors; studying strong opponents to discover their strengths and weaknesses; ruthless objectivity about one’s own strengths and weaknesses.

Vladimir Kramnik said, “Botvinnik’s Chess career was the way of a Genius, although he was not a Genius”, meaning that Botvinnik was brilliant at making the best use of his talents.

Botvinnik has written several great Chess books, the most notable being ‘Hundred Selected Games’ and ‘Half a Century of Chess.’

Botvinnik also wrote two books on computers, namely Computers, Chess and Long-Range Planning (1970) and Computers in Chess: Solving Inexact Search Problems (1984).

Learn from the Champion

Today we will see a sharp game by Botvinnik in which he outplayed a master of attack in the pre-World War II era.

Mikhail Botvinnik  – Rudolf Spielmann  [B13]

Moscow International–02 Moscow 15.02.1935

Botvinnik was a complete Chess Player with no shortcomings. He was wise in following Capablanca’s quote, ‘The best way to win is the easiest way to win’. However, he also believed absolutely in Wilhelm Steinitz’s dictum, ‘Chess is not for timid souls.’  Though Botvinnik was known for his great strategic play and technique, he never shied away from aggressive double-edged tactical positions if that was the need of the situation.  Today, we shall see Botvinnik’s miniature victory over Rudolf Spielmann, one of the greatest attacking players of all time.

1.c4 c6 2.e4!

Botvinnik never opened the game with (1) e4 but he introduced a new way of playing against the Caro-Kann defence — the Panov-Botvinnik variation — which is still considered to be a sharp & powerful way to challenge the soundness of the opening.

2…d5 3.exd5 cxd5 4.d4 Nf6 5.Nc3 Nc6 6.Bg5 Qb6?! Dubious.

6…dxc4!? 7.d5 Ne5 or 6…e6 7.cxd5 exd5 or 6…Qa5 7.Bxf6 exf6 8.cxd5 Bb4! are the more popular continuations today.

7.cxd5 Qxb2??

The experienced ‘Master of Romantic School of Chess’ — as he was known in his country Austria — wanted to begin complications at a very early stage against the inexperienced Russian. However, the future world champion not only saw through the trap but also found a way to tactically refute opponent’s dubious play.

7…Nxd4 8.Be3 e5 9.dxe6 Bc5 — suggested by Paul Keres decades later –was the best choice here.

 

8.Rc1!!

Clearly Spielmann was expecting the natural 8.Na4?? Qb4+ 9.Bd2 Qxd4 10.dxc6 Ne4! 11.Be3 Qb4+ 12.Ke2 bxc6! with a crushing attack to Black for the sacrificed piece. However, after the precise move played by White – 8.Rc1!, Black is helpless.

8…Nb4

Desperation. 8…Nd8 leads to a hopeless position after 9.Bxf6! gxf6 10.Bb5+ Bd7 11.Bxd7+ when Black is in a resignable position.

8…Nb8? is even worse on account of the simple 9.Na4 Qb4+ 10.Bd2 winning the BQB at c8.

9.Na4 Qxa2 10.Bc4 Bg4!

[The only chance. After [10…Qa3 White wins with the simple 11.Rc3]

11.Nf3!

11.Ne2?! Bxe2 12.Bxe2 Qxd5 is not so clear.

11…Bxf3 12.gxf3                                                   1-0 Black resigned in view of 12…Qa3 13.Rc3 when Black must give up a piece to save the Queen with 13…Nc2+.