The 1957

World Chess Championship The World Chess Championship is played to determine the world champion in chess. The current world champion is Magnus Carlsen of Norway, who has held the title since 2013. The first event recognized as a world championship was the World Chess ...

was played between

Mikhail Botvinnik Mikhail Moiseyevich Botvinnik, ( – May 5, 1995) was a Soviet and Russian chess grandmaster. The sixth World Chess Champion, he also worked as an electrical engineer and computer scientist and was a pioneer in computer chess. Botvinnik ...

and

Vasily Smyslov Vasily Vasilyevich Smyslov ( rus, Васи́лий Васи́льевич Смысло́в, Vasíliy Vasíl'yevich Smyslóv; 24 March 1921 – 27 March 2010) was a Soviet and Russian chess grandmaster, who was World Chess Champion from 1957 to ...

in Moscow from March 5 to April 27, 1957. Botvinnik had been World Champion since 1948, while Smyslov earned the right to challenge by winning the 1956 Candidates tournament. This was the second World Championship match between the pair, after the drawn 1954 match. Smyslov won the match and became the seventh World Chess Champion. However he lost the title in the 1958 rematch.

1955 Interzonal tournament

An interzonal tournament was held in

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, Sweden, in August and September 1955. The top nine finishers qualified for the Candidates Tournament. : Ilivitsky won a 6-game match against Pachman (1-0 with 5 draws) to qualify as first reserve for the Candidates.

1956 Candidates tournament

The 1956 Candidates tournament was held in

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the Capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population ...

in the Netherlands in April and May. As the loser of the last championship match, Smyslov was seeded directly into the tournament and joined by the top nine from the Interzonal. Smyslov won, once again becoming the challenger in the 1957 championship match. With two rounds remaining, the leaders were Smyslov 10, Keres 9½, Geller 9. In the penultimate round, Keres lost in a winning position against Filip, while Smyslov and Geller drew their games, giving Smyslov a full point lead. Smyslov also won his final game, against Pilnik, to ensure victory.Amsterdam Candidates (1956)

Chessgames.com Chessgames.com is an Internet chess community with over 224,000 members. The site maintains a large database of chess games, where each game has its own discussion page for comments and analysis. Limited primarily to games where at least one pla ...

1957 Championship match

The match was played as best of 24 games. If it ended 12-12, Botvinnik, the holder, would retain the Championship. Smyslov won.

References

External links

1957 World Chess Championship
at the Internet Archive record of Graeme Cree's Chess Pages {{World Chess Championships, state=expanded 1957 1957 in chess 1957 in Soviet sport 1957 in Moscow