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Mikhail Botvinnik

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Chess Champ

The Resume

    (August 17, 1911-May 5, 1995)
    Born in Repino, Russia
    Three-time world chess champion (1948-57, 1958-60, 1961-63)
    Won six Soviet national championships (1931-52)

Why he might be annoying:

    At 13, he added three years to his age to join the Petrograd Chess Assembly.
    A planned world championship match against titleholder Alexander Alekhine was scuttled by the start of World War II.
    He dropped out of the 1952 Chess Olympiad when members of the Soviet team voted to place him on the second board instead of the top board.
    He was twice the beneficiary of a regulation adopted by FIDE at the instigation of its Soviet members that allowed a defeated world champion an automatic rematch without going through a qualifying tournament.

Why he might not be annoying:

    He trained as an engineer and was awarded the Order of the Badge of Honor for his work on power stations in the Urals during World War II.
    An early computer chess program he developed included a generalized method of decision making that, with some adjustments, was used to schedule maintenance of power plants in the USSR.
    He trained future chess champions Anatoly Karpov, Gary Kasparov, and Vladimir Kramnik.

Credit: C. Fishel


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Year In Review:

    In 2022, Out of 1 Votes: 100% Annoying