Where would you rank Botvinnik among all the great world champions in history?
The 100th Anniversary of Mikhail Botvinnik
Wednesday, 17 August 2011 09:35
WELCOME MESSAGE FROM THE FIDE PRESIDENT KIRSAN ILYUMZHINOV
Today is a remarkable date for the chess world – the 100th anniversary of a chess legend Mikhail Botvinnik.
Mikhail Botvinnik is known as one of the greatest chess players of the twentieth century, the founder of the Soviet chess school and three-times World Chess Champion. Mikhail Botvinnik played a major role in the chess life of his generation which led chess to a new, state level of its development. Due to his outstanding chess career and achievements people of his country learned more about chess and it gradually entered every Soviet family. He is not only the “Patriarch” of the Soviet chess school but also a wise mentor of such noble chess players as Anatoly Karpov, Garry Kasparov and Vladimir Kramnik among the others.
Anyone who loves chess will always remember his style of play and his brilliant games against Capablanca, Tal, Smyslov. These games helped many people learn and fall in love with chess. Playing top class chess for decades, being an eminent chess author, one of the pioneers of computer chess and one of the openings theory researchers, Botvinnik is widely regarded as the most influential chess contributor in the world.
We are paying tribute to the first world class player who will be in our hearts forever.
www.fide.com
Ahead of Kasparov and Karpov.
I’d certainly rank him among the top two or three. When he lost..he buckled down and figured out how to beat the person…he never lost faith and ALWAYS came out on top. A very good lesson in dedication. I never met the man..but it’s rather obvious he was quite the obstinate competitor. He may have not been the greatest “natural” but he worked so hard it didn’t matter.
Botvinnik was a great chess player, no doubt about that. But he was also the benefactor of the return-match policy when he was world champion. This gave him a huge advantage over all other world champions, and enabled him to be a world champion for many more years than he would have been otherwise.
I certainly would not rate him as high as Kasparov, Karpov, Capablanca, Lasker, Alekhine, Steinitz, Fischer.
“The most influential chess contributor in the world”?
Awwww, no!
What to do with Philidor, with his obsession to analyse every game and endings like rook and pawn vs rook are now a must for every top club-player?
Morphy, a class ahead all his opponents and who demonstrates the art of developing quickly pieces?
Steinitz, Nimzowitsch and Tarrasch, whose principles are good, or fought by Reti and Breyer?
Kling and Horwitz, whose endings and studies were nearly all landmarks?
Chéron, THE chess theorician from openings till endings?
Saying that Botvinnik is the most influential chess contributor in the world is an ethnocentric point of view.
Arabs could say Al Suli, Indians Sissa, Spanish Ruy Lopez de Segura, French Stamma or Philidor, Americans Morphy or Fischer…
I have a proposal to name the person who is most influencial to modern chess:
Steven J. Edwards
He perfected the Forsythe notation (now Forsythe-Edwards notation or FEN), devised PGN (portable game notation), invented and researched distance to mate tablebases (the very difficult two bishops versus one knight are his!).
So. All modern electronic chess, and the opening research that rocketed after it, is due to the labor of Steven J. Edwards, completely unknown from the masses, dead several years ago and who hasn’t even yet a page on Wikipedia!
I totally agree with Luciemarie!
Mathur