Red World Series

Every day for a month Muscovites young & old had jammed October Hall to the doors. They followed the play on giant dummy boards suspended over the flag-decked stage. Generals, admirals and diplomats had taken time off to attend. Overflow crowds heard move-by-move reports over loudspeakers. Reporters and newsreel cameramen packed the front rows. Broadcasters flashed round-by-round accounts to the fighting fronts. Moscow newspapers rushed out extras with the latest standings and scores.

Last week it ended. Mikhail Botvinnik, 32, had retained the title which he won in 1941 when the Soviet national chess championship was last staged.

The crowd got its biggest thrill in the early rounds when Botvinnik, playing indifferently, lost to a 20-year-old flash named David Bronstein, a Stalingrad railroad worker playing in his first national contest. But blondish, bespectacled Botvinnik was too self-assured to be ruffled. He went on to retain his title with 12 1/2 points out of a possible 16.

Hemmed in by the war to a field which he clearly dominates, Grand Master Botvinnik is itching to get back into international competition. Last week he hailed with delight a U.S. Chess Review proposal for a radio match between the ten best U.S. chessmen and Russia's best ten. Said the Grand Master: "I think it will . . . strengthen the cultural relations between the United Nations."

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