AJanuary 10 1932
The Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles, California, Sunday, January 10, 1932
After a month of strenuous playing the championship of Russia has been won by Michael Botvinnik, 20-year-old student of the Electro-Technical College of Leningrad. His style is decidedly hypermodern, cool composure, taking no risks, a rational study of the position from move to move while waiting for his opponent to open up a weakness.
February 28 1932
The Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Sunday, February 28, 1932
A national masters' chess tournament was held last November in Moscow. We hope later to give a fuller report of this tournament. There were eighteen entries and not a single name do we recall having seen in any tournament outside of Russia. The tournament was won by Michael Moiseyevitch Botvinnik, who was born in St. Petersburg in 1911 and is a student in the Electro Technical College.
March 13 1932
The Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Sunday, March 13, 1932
The great Russian National masters' Championship Tournament held at the Palace of Trade Unions at Moscow last November is an interesting study. There were eighteen contestants and a glance at the score will show that the players were fairly well matched, even the eighteenth player scored 5 points as against the winner's 13½. Outside of Russia and a few Russian players who have now taken up their citizenship in other countries, the general public have very little knowledge of the present standard of Russian chess. Not a single player is known to the general chess public. The Russian players have always ranked high in the chess world. Among the past masters might be mentioned Petroff, Winawer, Tschigorin, Schiffers and Alapin and among the more modern noted Russians we have Alekhine and Bogoljubow, and now we must add Botvinnik and Rumin, without mentioning probably four or five others who took part in the present tournament who are almost unknown to the general chess public.
In order that our readers may become familiar with the names of the noted Russian players, we give the full score of the championship tournament:
M. Botvinnik, won 13½;
N. Rumin, 11½;
V. Alatorzeff, 10;
F. Bogatyrchuk, 10;
B. Verlinsky, 10;
M. Yudovitch, 10;
I. Kahn, 9½;
I. Mazel, 9;
V. Rayzer, 9;
A. Ilyin-Zhenevsky, 8½;
V. Kiriloff, 8½;
G. Lisitzin, 8½;
N. Sorokin, 7;
A. Samykhovsky, 6½
V. Goglidze, 6;
V. Sosin, 5½;
A. Budo, 5;
R. Kasparyan, 5.
The winner of this tournament was born in Leningrad in 1911 and is a student of the Electro-Technical College in that city. The style of play, according to the Moscow News (a five-day weekly published in English), is marked by cool composure. The champion takes no risks. In this respect he differs from the players of the Tschigorin class, who were invariably aggressive from the very start.
