Commentators choosing the greatest player in the history of chess, never mention Mikhail Botvinnik. Yet he led the Soviet Union’s domination of world chess in the 20th century. In doing so, he became ...

For Mikhail Botvinnik–the perennial Russian world chess champion from 1948 to 1963–physical fitness was a key to success on the chessboard. The early signs were not auspicious. A teenage bookworm, he ...

Genius has its own logic. In 1963, at the age of 12, Anatoly Karpov made his debut at the famous Botvinnik chess school in Moscow — a landmark initiation for many future champions. But Mikhail ...

In the championships of Russia’s national indoor game some 700,000 competed in 1936. The game: chess. This week, with short-wave radio bridging Moscow and Manhattan, the Russians tried their hand at ...

Andrew Soltis, a fellow chess columnist whom we vastly admire, found himself writing a biography of Mikhail Botvinnik (1911-95). His wife wondered why he would choose "such a cold personality." He ...