MIKHAIL BOTVINNIK vs VASILY SMYSLOV – World Chess Championship, round 14, 1954

Today we show you one of the best game played by a (often) forgotten world champion: Vasily Smyslov.
We present you the game between Botvinnik and Smyslov played at the World Chess Championship in 1954.
The opening, as the previous game covered, is the King’s Indian Defense: Fianchetto Variation.
In this game, Smyslov gives Botvinnik a lesson on how to mobilize the pieces and activate the bishop pair by sacrificing the queen on move 23.
It’s considered Smyslov’s Immortal game, despite the match ended 12-12 and Botvinnk was able to keep the title.
You can find the game below:
What you wanna do now?
- Play chess online
- Solve chess puzzles and train your endgame
- Follow my live chess streaming on Twitch
- Study my collection of the best chess games ever
- How to learn chess
- Watch chess videos on my Youtube channel
LATEST POST
- The smooth game
- Chess analysis #9: never resign and find the brilliancy!
- Chess slaughtering
- Festival of tactics
- The Magnus Effect
- Sacrificing the queen casually!
- Best chess games 2020 (3)
- Best chess games 2021 (2)
- Best chess games ever (37)
- Chess (3)
- Chess analysis (9)