A program with autographs of chess players: Mikhail Botvinnik, Anatoly Karpov, Vasily Smyslov, Mikhail Tal and others

Mikhail Botvinnik was considered an unsurpassed master of analysis — serious preparation for games, matches and tournaments, as well as incredible concentration helped him to win. Subsequently, the grandmaster created his own school for young chess players (its students, in particular, were future world champions Anatoly Karpov, Vladimir Kramnik and others), wrote many books on theory. At the same time, even as a world champion, he combined the game of chess with scientific activities in the field of electrical engineering, successfully defended his doctoral thesis, patented several inventions, and worked on the creation of the first Soviet chess computer program "Pioneer".

Anatoly Karpov is a Soviet and Russian chess player and politician, the twelfth world chess champion, and an international grandmaster. Anatoly's father taught him how to play chess. In 1961, at the age of ten, he took first place in a tournament among schoolchildren, and at the age of 14 he became the master of sports of the USSR.

It was for the sake of studying at the Botvinnik school that Anatoly, as a teenager, first came to Moscow. Later, in 1968, Mikhail Botvinnik, already in the status of mentor to the future grandmaster, personally appealed to Vyacheslav Yelyutin, the Minister of Higher Education of the USSR, with a request to allocate an additional place for Karpov at Moscow State University, as he believed that Karpov needed to live in Moscow to achieve major sporting success. According to the results of the review of Botvinnik's letter, Karpov was accepted out of competition at Moscow State University.

Vasily Smyslov is a Soviet and later Russian chess player. The 7th world chess champion. The champion of the USSR. Three-time champion of Moscow. Nine-time winner of the World Chess Olympiads as a member of the USSR team. The winner of the First World Team Championship as a member of the USSR team.

The first meeting between Smyslov and Botvinnik at the chessboard took place in 1940 in the final of the XII USSR Championship. Then there were other tournament battles, the most significant of which were in the match tournaments of 1941 and 1948. But the peak of the famous confrontation was the match series of 1954-1958.