Free Botvinnik Book

A 110 page pdf book titled Secret Matches: The Unknown Training Games of Mikhail Botvinnik edited by Hanon Russell with selected games annotated and a theoretical section by Jan Timman is available for download from Chess Café. There are 96 games (only 10 are annotated). This book was prepared for release as a small book, but Chess Café never published it so they finally decided to make it available free of charge. Here’s a hint: You can highlight the game and then copy and paste it into you chess program. If it’s an annotated game the notes won’t copy and you will have to fill in the game header yourself, but it’s a good way to play over these great games.  One of the ways Botvinnik prepared for matches and tournaments was to play serious games under actual tournament conditions but the games were kept secret. The games are against Averbakh, Balashov, Flohr, Furman, Kan, Rabinovich, Ragozin and Smyslov.