Mikhail Botvinnik
The Livingston County Chess Club meets every Monday night between
4pm and 10pm
at the Buffalo Wild Wings in the Green Oak Mall in Brighton, MI.
Stop in for some friendly chess, good food and 'refreshments'.
Everyone of all ages and playing strength are welcome to attend. And free lessons to all beginners!
The first LCCC Dice Chess Championship was crowned as Thomas Valenzuela won it with a perfect 3 – 0 score!
A beautiful shoestring wreath with 3 car mirror dice hanging from it was the trophy. Shocking, but this work of art has not been worn to the club since it was ceremoniously placed around his neck. Hard to believe.
LCCC would also like to announce that our 2025 Speed Tournament will kick off on March 10th. There is no cost to enter. There will be 2 rounds of two games per opponent with a time limit of 5 minutes with no delay or increment. 5 minutes is all there is! We normally start the first round about 6:30 pm, so be there for the fun!
Speaking of Championships, how about a little World Chess Championship history? Sure, not as glamorous as the LCCC bling, but let’s learn something anyway.
Alexander Alekhine’s death in Portugal in 1946 confronted the chess world with an unprecedented situation. Never before had the chess world champion die while holding the crown. The long chain of almost 100 years was broken.
The decision was made by the world chess body FIDE, to hold a 6 person tournament, each playing each other 4 times. The winner of this tournament would be the new world champion.
Dr. Euwe was the last champion still alive as Jose Capablanca had passed on. So Dr. Euwe was an obvious choice.
Equally obvious were Mikhail Botvinnik and Paul Keres from Russia.
Rueben Fine and Sammy Reshevsky from the USA were also obvious.
The last spot was given to a young Russian player Vasily Smyslov due to his impressive 3rd place victory in the Russian Chess Championship, behind Botvinnik and Keres.
It was intended to hold the first half of the tournament in The Hague in Holland and the second half in Moscow. But Fine declined to play stating publicly that he was working on his doctorate degree. But privately he stated that he did “not want to spend 3 months of his life watching Russians throw chess games to each other.”
Bobby Fischer would make a similar declaration in public some 20 years later.
With Fine out, it was decided that the five players would meet each other 5 times; ten rounds at The Hague and 15 rounds in Moscow.
Mikhail Botvinnik won easily with a score of 14 points to Smyslov’s 11. Keres and Reshevsky had 10.5 and Euwe 4.5.
This proved that Botvinnik was as far ahead of his rivals in 1948 as Alekhine was over his in 1931.
This tournament proved also to be a coming out party for Smyslov, as he would later win the world championship.
And it was also the sign off for Dr. Euwe, who never again regained his world class form.
