The Botvinnik Flohr Series Luxury Chess Pieces - 4.0" King

The Botvinnik-Flohr Chessmen presented here are a faithful reproduction of those used during this historically important match which would ultimately catapult Botvinnik to prominence and set the stage for an eventual World Championship match with Alexander Alekhine – one which never occurred due to the untimely death of Alekhine. The House of Staunton Russian Series Chessmen were created reintroduce our customers to chess sets used by Russian Grandmasters and lesser lights during their 24-year domination of International chess.

After his winning the 1933 USSR Chess Championship in Leningrad, a match was devised by Alexander Ilyin-Zhenevsky and Nikolai Vasilyevich Krylenko to pit their new Soviet champion, Mikhail Botvinnik, against Salomon Flohr. Flohr was the leading Czech chess grandmaster and a national hero in his home country during the 1930s. At that time Flohr was one of the few chess professionals believed to be strong enough to challenge Alexander Alekhine for the world championship.

Flohr agreed to the match with Botvinnik. The first six games were to be played in Moscow and the latter six games in Leningrad. Few in Soviet chess circles at the time believed in Botvinnik’s chances against the very strong Czechoslovakian master, despite Botvinnik's impressive successes. Krylenko insisted, however, claiming that Botvinnik and the new generation had to be “tested.”

The first half of the match was a near disaster for both Botvinnik and Krylenko. Flohr got off to a one game lead in the opening round of the match, and had made it plus +2 by the end of the Moscow leg of the match. Botvinnik came back strongly in Leningrad however, managing to win two games drawing the match score tied at 6 points. It was not the resounding victory Krylenko had hoped for, but Botvinnik, at the very least, had managed to spare them both embarrassment.

Negotiations for a title match against World Champion Alexander Alekhine with Botvinnik were halted by the outbreak of World War II in Europe in 1939. In 1946, shortly after the War, negotiations for a world title match with Alekhine, were proceeding when Alekhine died in Portugal under unclear circumstances. To determine a successor to Alekhine, the 1948 AVRO World Championship was organized by FIDE. It was a quintuple round-robin tournament played to determine the new World Chess Champion. Mikhail Botvinnik won the five-player championship tournament, beginning the era of Soviet domination of International chess that would last over twenty years. Botvinnik would go on to hold or regain the World Championship until his loss in 1963 to Tigran Petrosian.