Botvinnik’s Chess School Again Open for Business
'The Secret
Weapons of the Champions' by Adrian Mikhalchishin - reviewed by Michael Jeffreys
To be honest,
the first time I popped the new DVD from Chessbase, The Secret Weapons of
the Champions, into my computer I was initially turned off. I mean, who was
this Mikhalchishin guy with his thick Russian (Ukrainian?) accent and no-nonsense
demeanor? Where was my beloved, light hearted, all around fun guy
Daniel King?
I wanted to be entertained and yet it seemed to me that this ultra-serious guy
in front of me wasn’t playing along.
So, I turned
off the video and forgot about it. Then, a funny thing happened. A few days
later I was at my computer and decided to re-watch the introduction. For
whatever reason, Mikhalchishin’s presentation hit me in a whole new way and suddenly
I understood where he was coming from. GM Mikhalchishin was raised in the old
U.S.S.R. where, unlike here in America, they take their chess very seriously.

Whereas we here
in the West want everything “sugar-coated” for easy consumption, Mikhalchishin
is from the “old school,” the Botvinnik School, where the
problems over the chess board are solved through systematic training and hard
work. Once I realized that I was being given a glimpse into something rarely
seen outside the Soviet Union by a man who had trained, among others, Karpov,
Ivanchuk, Zsuzsa Polgar, and Alexander Beliavsky, I refocused my attention and
listened with a whole new level of respect and commitment. And what a difference
it made!
Mikhalchishin
starts things off by saying that there are two ways to become a stronger
player: 1) By carefully analyzing your own games to eliminate your mistakes. 2)
By studying the “classics,” but in a very special way. The goal is to learn how
to handle the different aspects of the game; different plans, typical
structures, how to exploit weaknesses, how to correctly defend when needed, how
to exploit material imbalances, etc.

He tells the
story of when the great Mikhail Botvinnik was lecturing to a group of juniors
in 1975, of which he was a part, and the former world champion was going over
their games. When he came across a mistake, he would point to it and say, “So,
you juniors don’t know what to do in these kinds of positions… this is typical.
What you have to do is study classical games, like my game against Bondarevsky,
Soviet Championship 1941, and you will know everything what to do in this kind
of position.”
Mikhalchishin
goes on to say that some of the top classical players in chess were just a
little better than their contemporaries in certain aspects of the game, and we
can learn a lot from studying their games. For example, he says that Botvinnik was
fantastic at exploiting a space advantage, utilizing piece centralization with the
support of a flank attack, as well as winning with bishops of opposite colors.
Petrosian was the master of the exchange sacrifice as well as how to exploit weak colored
squares in an opponent’s position.
Click her for replay of
Petrosian - Schweber (1962).
And that Tal was brilliant at intuitive
attacks as well as creating and then exploiting material imbalances. He notes
that while objectively the position after the material imbalance has been
created (such as giving up two minor pieces for a rook and pawn) might be
roughly equal, that some players are simply more comfortable playing these
types of positions than others.
As an example,
he takes the viewer through the game Tal - Savon, URS-ch40 Baku, 1972,
starting from the position after the moves: 1.c4 e6 2.Nc3 d5 3.d4 Nf6 4.cxd5
exd5 5.Bg5 Be7 6.e3 0–0 7.Bd3 Nbd7 8.Nf3 Re8 9.0–0 Nf8 10.Qc2 Be6 11.Ne5 N6d7
12.Bf4 Nxe5 13.Bxe5 c6 14.Na4 f6 15.Bg3 Bf7 16.b4 Bd6 17.Rab1 Bxg3 18.hxg3 a6
19.Nc5 Re7 20.a4 Rc7 21.Rfc1 Qe7 22.Rb3 g6 23.Rc3 Rac8 (see
below)

Tal-Savon after 23…Rac8
Even though
White has the makings of a “minority attack” with his queenside pawns, Tal
feels it doesn’t give him enough and decides to dramatically unbalance the
position with the shot: 24.Nxb7! I imagine this was probably a shock to
Savon who most likely thought that Tal would not give up such powerful knight. After
the moves 24…Rxb7 25.Bxa6 we reach the position below:

And the game
continued: 25…Ra8 26.Bxb7 Qxb7 27.Qb3 Ra6 28.b5 cxb5 29.Rc7 Qb6 30.axb5 Ra5
31.R1c6 Qxb5 32.Qxb5 Rxb5 33.Rxf6 reaching the position below:

Obviously Tal had to envisage this sort of position on the board
before he would have gone in for such a move as 24.Nxb7. He knew that his two
active rooks would simply be too much for Black’s two minor pieces to handle.
The game concluded: 33…Be8 34.Rc8 Kg7 35.Rf3 Rb1+ 36.Kh2 Nd7 37.Rxe8 Nf6
38.Re7+ 1–0 (see below)

Black’s knight is about to fall so Savon resigned here
Mikhalchishin
not only takes you through the game, but through several sidelines as well. He
also explains why Tal chose one line over another.
The Bottom Line
All in all, GM Mikhalchishin takes you
through 15 middle game positions: 4 from Botvinnik, 2 from Makogonov, 5 from
Tal, and 4 from Petrosian. This DVD is all about “old school” chess and the
way the great players from the Soviet Union used to improve by going over “classic” games and key positions,
and committing these to memory.
As I mentioned in the beginning of this
review, if you (like I initially was) are looking to be entertained through lively
commentary and a charismatic presenter, than this is NOT the DVD for you.
However, if you’ve always wondered what the so called “Russian school of chess”
was all about, and what exactly were their “secret training methods,” than this
is your baby, as Mikhalchishin pulls the curtain aside in a very straightforward and no-nonsense manner and lets you in on exactly how they do it.
And since Russia and in particular the
Botvinnik school of chess turned out numerous chess champions over the course
of many decades, it’s safe to say that their training methods have been proven
to be quite successful. On a scale of 1-10, the The Secret Weapons of
the Champions by GM Adrian Mikhalchishin gets a 9.