Strategy II - Mikhail Botvinnik - Hardcover

LEONTXO GARCÍA'S PROLOGUE

Spartan in Glory

"I asked Ragozin, my old friend, to throw the smoke of his cigarettes in my face while we played training games (…). This way, when my rivals in tournaments did the same (accidentally of course!), it didn't affect me". These ironic words of Botvinnik in the official book of the USSR Championship 1941 (in which he was nation champion for a fourth time) show his meticulousness in the training, not only related to the preparation of the openings –faceta in which probably nobody equaled him until the eruption of his favorite student, Gari Kaspárov, in the 80s– but with every detail that could influence his sports performance. For younger readers, it is worth clarifying that the prohibition of smoking in the chess tournaments didn't exist until the end of the 20th century.

Married to a ballet dancer, and without ever renouncing his career as an engineer, although chess already occupies the greatest part of his time, Botvinnik has become a strong candidate for the title of Alexander Aliojin (Frenchman who had escaped from USSR), while the Second World War starts bleeding the planet. This urges him even more to fortify his Spartan training: he publishes comprehensive analysis of his games for them to be criticized and for technical discussions with other great masters; he plays secret duels (the Dutch GM Jan Timman managed to rescue and publish a hundred of those games in 2000) with strong rivals –especially, the mentioned Ragozin– and, besides the smoke from the cigarettes, he does it with the radio on to acquire the capacity to concentrate surrounded by noise, and even sleeps in the same room without airing it out beforehand, so that his body can work in extremely charged environments. He pays special attention to how to avoid time troubles and to the analysis of adjourned games, and takes care of his physical preparation with gymnastics exercises every day. In the specific field of openings, Botv