Botvinnik

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Sounds like reasonable advice. Maybe you should take it. 😵

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Not sure what Botvinnik quote about Fischer you're talking about, but the "defect of character" quote, I believe appears in Botvinnik's annotation of the game translated in the book "Russians vs. Fischer."


The "first among equals" line was in my humble opinion, more a nod to Communist ideology than an assessment of his chess skill.


BTW, I am a fan of Botvinnik. I play his exchange line with white in the QGD he pioneered against Keres. His 100 selected games was the first book written in that awful descriptive notation all the way through.

I'd say of the old champions, Botvinnik would probably be my third favorite behind Smyslov and Capablanca.

I have the utmost respect for Botvinnik's work ethic, analytical approach, and even his off the board gamesmanship.

I honestly don't care whether or not he was egotistical or not.

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Yes, and one of the principles of good 'net conduct derived from this is that one should always take a post as a whole, and not fly off in a tantrum on the basis of a couple of cherry-picked lines.

Richard

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Yeah, you sound like Ben Stein. 😕

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Please don't tell me that my presumption that your goal in posting is to selflessly spread happiness and joy is off base, love.

I don't think I could bear it if that weren't the case.


Botvinnik spit on portraits of his opponents before matches, which I'm sure was endearing.