The Method of Preparing for Competition

The collection includes materials illustrating the preparation method of Mikhail Botvinnik to the competition. Chapters “Botvinnik's notebooks” are published for the first time. This is a training manual that is designed for young chess players, coaches, a wide range of chess lovers. This publication includes materials related to various periods of creativity M. M. Botvinnik. But all these articles are devoted to the famous Botvinnik method. The collection opens a fundamental article of 1939. The art of preparing for the competition was distinctive a feature of the first Soviet world chess champion. You can find out the secret of the Soviet school of chess. Botvinnik used what he regarded as the first version of his method of preparing for a contest but fell two games behind by the end of the first six, played in Moscow. Botvinnik's example and teaching established the modern approach to preparing for competitive chess: regular but moderate physical exercise; analyzing very thoroughly a relatively narrow repertoire of openings; annotating one's own games, those of past great players and those of competitors; publishing one's annotations so that others can point out any errors; studying strong opponents to discover their strengths and weaknesses; ruthless objectivity about one's own strengths and weaknesses. Botvinnik also played many short training matches against strong grandmasters including Salo Flohr, Yuri Averbakh, Viacheslav Ragozin, and Semion Furman – noisy or smoky rooms if he thought he would have to face such conditions in actual competition. Botvinnik founded his own school within the Soviet coaching system, and its graduates include world champions Anatoly Karpov, Garry Kasparov, and Vladimir Kramnik, and other top-class players such as Alexei Shirov, Vladimir Akopian and Jaan Ehlvest.