Because Botvinnik’s 109th birthday is tomorrow. I only feature games that are not in ChessBase’s Mega Database and it’s hard to find games that they missed by players of Botvinnik’s stature. But here’s one from his youth.

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Generally speaking, playing bad openings against a grandmaster is a bad idea and usually will lead to an even quicker loss than a respectable opening would. While this is a quick loss, the fish in this game did have his chances (moves 7 and 9), but the end result was inevitable. By the way do you know what the word “grob” means in German? It’s fitting.

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Today is Caro’s 158th birthday.

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Another case of sibling rivalry. Two weeks ago, it was the Byrne brothers, this week it’s Eugene and John Meyer, who have been mainstays of the DC chess scene for decades. Currently, Eugene, an International Master, is rated sixth on the USCF’s top over 65 list while John, a FIDE Master and USCF Life Master, is tied for 35th. Unfortunately, Eugene belongs to the Dark Side.

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Vladimir Simagin, who would have celebrated his 101st birthday today, was a greatly underappreciated Soviet grandmaster.

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This week’s theme (and next week’s) is sibling rivalry. Friday would have been Donald Byrne‘s 90th birthday. His brother Robert enjoyed greater success, becoming a grandmaster while Donald only earned the international master title, but Robert was far more active even before giving up his academic career to become a chess professional. Donald spent his entire career in academia, teaching English at Penn State. It’s arguable that Donald was the greater talent of the two. For example, in the 1954 match between the USA and the Soviet Union, Donald beat Yuri Averbakh 3-1 on board four (Robert beat Alexander Kotov 3-1 on board six–the Soviets won the match 18-14). They are undoubtedly the strongest pair of brothers ever. Anyway, here is an early game between them.

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