botvinnik vs. smyslov
three world championship matches
1954, 1957, 1958
BOTVINNIK vs. SMYSLOV: Three World Championship Matches 1954, 1957, 1958
Author: Botvinnik
New In Chess (2009)
287 pages
$31.95
Reviewed by John Donaldson
The uniformed might wonder why the Dutch publisher New in Chess has gone to the trouble of producing a book covering three World Championship matches played over 50 years ago. What possible relevance could such games have today? The answer is a lot when the players concerned are Vassily Smyslov and Mikhail Botvinnik and the latter deeply annotates all the games in his clear and logical style.
BOTVINNIK vs. SMYSLOV: Three World Championship Matches is a complete record of one of the greatest rivalries in chess history. The two great champions played three matches in four years and not the half marathons (12 game affairs) that try to pass for the real thing today. The 69 games they contested lasted almost six months! Only the Kasparov-Karpov rivalry surpasses it in World Championship annuals and like those titanic battles the gladiators were very evenly matches with only a single game separating them (35-34 for Smyslov).
Unlike many rivalries, the matches between Botvinnik and Smyslov saw both players at or near the peak of their powers. Separated from his younger rival by ten years in age, Botvinnik started the first match in 1954 at 42, but the “Patriarch” was always known for his regular routine and emphasized physical fitness long before it became a watchword for top class players. The early 1950s were not a bright spot for his career, with a narrowly drawn match with Bronstein, fifth place in the 1951 Soviet Championship and a shared third at Budapest 1952 – results that convinced his colleagues he did not deserve a spot on the 1952 Soviet Olympiad team – but this was less a decline in strength than sub par performances caused by rustiness (Botvinnik played no competitive chess in 1949 and 1950). His record for the rest of the 1950s included a tie for first in the 1952 Soviet Championship (beating Taimanov in the playoff match), shared first (with Smyslov) in the 1956 Alekhine Memorial, and successful stints on board one for the Soviet Olympiad teams in 1954, 1956 and 1958.
Vassily Smyslov could make a strong claim that he was the strongest player in the world during the 1950s – certainly he was the most successful from 1953 to 1958. The World Championship rules in effect at the time strongly favored the World Champion who kept the title in the event of a drawn match and had the right to a rematch if he lost. This “second chance” was a privilege that Botvinnik was to use to his advantage several times to preserve his crown. Smyslov, who drew, won and lost against Botvinnik in their matches, was to enjoy only a brief stay on the throne for a little over a year. He had to win the mammoth Candidates tournament at Zurich 1953 (15 player double round robin) for the right to play for the title and another Candidates tournament at Amsterdam in 1956 for a rematch.
The three matches between Botvinnik and Smyslov were slugfests, the only short draws occurring after things were decided. Botvinnik started the 1954 match off with three wins and a draw in the first four games but Smyslov battled back by winning games 9 through 11, a most impressive example of mental toughness – especially so if one takes into account that Botvinnik was up two games in the match at that point and had a 7-1 lifetime record in decisive games versus his rival before 1954
Despite the importance of these matches, little has been written about them in English with only a pair of books by Harry Golombek on the 1954 and 1957 matches and a Chess Digest translation by Roy DeVault (in 1973) of Botvinnik’s book on the 1958 match. All are in English descriptive notation. The three-volume translation of Botvinnik’s best games, published by Moravian Chess, offers annotations to 27 of the 69 match games. Both the present work and that by Moravian use the same translator, the well-regarded Ken Neat. The translations are very similar, but the New in Chess version, as would be expected of a later work, is more polished. Incidentally Smyslov’s two volume work on his best games, again published by Morovian Chess and translated by Neat, has only ten games from the three matches. Whether Smyslov held the games from these matches in less regard than Botvinnik, was less industrious than the Patriarch or did simply had more games to choose from during this period of his career (Zurich 1953, Amsterdam 1956, etc.), is unclear.
A foreword by Smyslov written in 2003 appears in BOTVINNIK vs. SMYSLOV: Three World Championship Matches. The present work, thanks to Botvinnik’s nephew Igor, also presents Botvinnik’s opening notebooks from the 1957 and 1958 matches and his conclusions to the return match, but of course the heart of this book and what makes it still relevant today, are Botvinnik’s notes.
The Patriarch’s explanations of strategic ideas are crystal clear and his psychological observations are to the point. His notes are never boring but they can be brutal as he spares neither Smyslov nor himself from criticism when they make mistakes.
Interestingly, while Botvinnik will give exclamation marks to moves that deserve them, he does not attach question marks for mistakes (nor !!, ??, !?, ?!), but his prose commentary gives no doubt what he thinks of a move’s value. Botvinnik does use question marks in his book M.M. Botvinnik Izbranie Partie 1926-1936 that was published in 1938. One wonders when and why he changed to his unconventional approach of using only exclamation marks.
BOTVINNIK vs. SMYSLOV: Three World Championship Matches is very nicely produced with a sturdy flexi-cover featuring the two contestants in battle, good paper, a neat two-column layout and solid binding. The only thing missing from this fine production are photographs from the matches.
