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"Born in St. Petersburg, the son of a dental technician, he first came to the notice of the chess world at the age of 14, when he defeated the world champion, Jose Raul Capablanca, in a simultaneous display."

What, exactly, is "simultaneous" supposed to mean in this sentence? Simultaneous with what? Livajo 07:31, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

See  Simultaneous chess  in Chess terminology. — Monedula 11:32, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

About the phrase: "although Reuben Fine, one of the strongest players in history not to have won the world title, wrote that Botvinnik's collection of best games was one of "the three most beautiful"."

I have The World's Great Chess Games by Fine, and there he ranks the collections of Lasker, Fischer and Alekhine as the three most beautiful.

I hope someone with privileges can correct this. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 200.54.125.99 (talk) 18:07, 1 February 2007 (UTC).[reply]

I have removed the following paragraph, which is embedded in a long discussion of allegations by Bronstein, in a referenced 1995 book:

Reference to the site chessmetrics.com in 2007 tends to support Brontein's points. Chessmetrics is a site which endeavours to place chess ratings of strong players in historical context, while correcting for different methods of calculation. Formal chess ratings for top players were not formally introduced internationally by the World Chess Federation (FIDE) until 1970; they had been used in the United States and Canada since the 1950s for national play. The lack of ratings made it difficult to compare the relative strengths of players at that time, especially since there had been almost no international chess involving the top players from the different parts of the world during World War II. Chessmetrics puts the Argentinian Najdorf's February 1948 rating at 2797, #2 in the world behind Botvinnik, and Botvinnik had lost badly to Najdorf at Groningen 1946. Boleslavsky hit 2738 at the same time, for #5. Bronstein himself sat at 2721 for #8, and this would rise later in the year after he won the Interzonal. Another very strong player at that time was the Swede Gideon Stahlberg, who was #3 in the world at 2762. None of those four players were included in the 1948 World Championship tournament.

The above seems to be largely speculation by the editor of the paragraph, based on his personal observations. It draws on primary sources to reach a conclusion. I have removed it for now on suspicion that it may be Original research, which is not permitted in Wikipedia articles. If a Reliable source for these speculations can be found, it can be replaced. --Tony Sidaway 16:56, 23 March 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I've reverted an edit in what appears to be an emerging edit war over the insertion of the following (bolded characters are insertions):

Born in Kuokkala, near Vyborg, the Jewish [1][2] son of a dental technician

This is mainly because the provenance of the sources--two articles on websites--is dubious. The question of whether Botvinnik's ethnic Jewish origin (if verified) should be given so much weight is another matter, but can we first get some reliable sources? Botvinnik was a FIDE champion for over a decade so I'd expect there to be a few decent biographies. --Tony Sidaway 22:53, 26 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

There is nothing at all dubious about the multiple sources. This point now has more citations than any other part of the bio.

The person (Ioannes Pragensis) who would delete the references, and their citations, based his reason for deletions on his wrong-headed assumption that because B was communist and Soviet, he could not possibly be Jewish. Just check the history page. ("Botvinnik was not Jew but communist and Soviet.") That is patently ridiculous.

His next argument was based on unsupported personal feelings ("he was from a Jewish family, but I doubt whether he personally was a Jew as a member of the communist party"). I'm sorry, but his personal feelings are less valuable as a source than the sources cited.

Finally, I then -- despite the baselessness of his protest -- added citations. They are fine citations, not at all dubious. http://www.chesshistory.com/ is a fine source. Perhaps you wish to contact Edward Winter at chessnotes@chesshistory.com. -- he authored the first article. Here is his Wiki bio -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_G._Winter. The same holds for the other sources. Really, this is a waste of everyone's time. --Epeefleche 23:07, 26 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]