David Bronstein was born in Bila Tserkva, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union, to Jewish parents.

After completing high school in spring 1941, his plans to study mathematics at Kiev University were interrupted by the spread of World War II throughout eastern Europe in the early 1940s.

Also during the war, his father, Johonon, was unfairly imprisoned for several years in the Gulag and was detained without substantial evidence of committing any crimes, it was later revealed.

With the tide turning towards an eventual Soviet war victory over the Nazi invaders, Bronstein was able to once again play some competitive chess.

His first top-standard Soviet event was the 1944 USSR Championship, where he won his individual game against eventual winner (and soon-to-be world champion) Mikhail Botvinnik.

Then seen as a promising but essentially unproven young player, one of dozens in the deep Soviet vanguard, he raised his playing level dramatically to place third in the 1945 USSR Championship.

In a match where the lead swung back and forth several times, the two players tested each other in a wide variety of opening formations, and every game (except the 24th) was full-blooded and played hard to a clear finish.

Botvinnik wrote that Bronstein's failure was caused by a tendency to underestimate endgame technique, and a lack of ability in simple positions.

[5] Bronstein challenged throughout at the 1953 Candidates Tournament in Switzerland and finished tied for second-through-fourth places, together with Paul Keres and Samuel Reshevsky, two points behind the winner Vasily Smyslov.

From there it was on to another near miss in the 1956 Candidates' tournament in Amsterdam, where he wound up in a large tie for third through seventh places, behind winner Smyslov and runner-up Keres.

At the 1958 Interzonal in Portorož, Bronstein, who had been picked as clear pre-event favourite by Bobby Fischer, missed moving on to the 1959 Candidates' by half a point, dropping a last-round game to the much weaker Filipino Rodolfo Tan Cardoso, when the electrical power failed due to a thunderstorm during the game, and he was unable to regain concentration.

Bronstein was also a six-time winner of the Moscow Championships, and represented the USSR at the Olympiads of 1952, 1954, 1956 and 1958, winning board prizes at each of them, and losing just one of his 49 games in those events.

In the 1954 team match against the US (held in New York), Bronstein scored an almost unheard-of sweep at this level of play, winning all four of his games on second board.

Further major tournament victories were achieved at Hastings 1953–54, Belgrade 1954, Gotha 1957, Moscow 1959, Szombathely 1966, East Berlin 1968, Dnepropetrovsk 1970, Sarajevo 1971, Sandomierz 1976, Iwonicz Zdrój 1976, Budapest 1977, and Jūrmala 1978.

Bronstein's romantic vision of chess was shown with his very successful adoption of the rarely seen King's Gambit in top-level competition.

Bronstein played an exceptionally wide variety of openings during his long career, on a scale comparable with anyone else who ever reached the top level.

Bronstein refused to sign a group letter denouncing the 1976 defection of Viktor Korchnoi,[8] and he paid a personal price for this independence, as his state-paid Master's stipend was suspended, and he was also barred from major tournaments for more than a year.

[9] In 1973 he introduced the idea of adding a small time increment for each move made,[10] a variant of which has become very popular in recent years and is implemented on almost all digital chess clocks.

His final book, nearly complete when he died, was published in 2007: Secret Notes, by David Bronstein and Sergei Voronkov, Zürich 2007, Edition Olms, ISBN 978-3-283-00464-4.