Tigran Petrosian

[shiner]

9th Chess World Champion, 1963 - 1969

 

Tigran Vartanovich Petrosian was born in 1929 in Tbilisi, Georgia of Armenian parents. His parents died before he was 16 and he found consolation in chess. He was greatly influenced by Nimzovitch's theories and his play was deeply prophylactic, preventing any plans his opponents might come up with. He enjoyed slowly improving the position of his

pieces and closed positions where he could quietly fight for the control of key squares. His style of play made his games less accessible to anyone other than masters and this made him one of the least popular of the World Champions. He defeated Mikhail Tal in 1963 to become World Champion and lost his title to Boris Spassky in 1969.

[MosJan]

http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Lobby/7508/petroscrop50.jpg

 

Tigran Petrosian

The World's Highest Ranked Player

 

The ninth world chess champion Tigran Vartanovich Petrosian died in the prime of his life. In his cast years he worked long over his games, annotating them and arranging them in order. He lectured in the chess school for juniors run by his sport society "Spartacus," as well as on TV. Because of his untimely death he failed to collect his works for a book.

 

Tigran Petrosian's creative work has not yet been investigated as thoroughly as one would wish. The amount of time that has passed since his early death is too limited. Gone is the chessmaster who had so much to give to the chess world, one who often brought us simple and even trivial facts that comprise the true fundamentals of chess creativity.

 

The simplicity of explanations shown in this book demonstrates the depths of Petrosian's approach to chess. It is a consequence of the clarity of his thought and unique comprehension of global chess problems, as well as the subtleties that go to make up chess tactics and strategy.

 

Few chessplayers have made a considerable contribution to the development of our game, and very few are able to explain these discovered secrets to posterity. Petrosian has done much in this field. Perhaps his written works are not so voluminous, but they shed a strong light on the very essence and fundamentals of chess. This book is not a traditional textbook or manual which teaches elementary rules. The function and role of this book is of much greater importance: it teaches chess thinking or more exactly how one should think, because chess thinking by itself is not necessarily effective.

[Rubo]

Tigran Petrosian World Chess Champion Born: 1929, Tbilisi

 

Petrosian had a special talent for prophylaxis. Nobody could do anything against him. As soon as someone began mobilizing their forces for an attack, Petrosian would see their plan and put it to rest. He rarely tried to initiate his own attacks. Often he would think only of his opponent's plans and stop them, leaving his opponents not knowing what to do. Eventually his antagonist would make some small error and Petrosian would pounce just like a tiger who has been lying in wait for just the right moment. This tendency earned him the name "Tiger". Petrosian defeated Botvinnik in 1963 to become the World Champion, until his downfall in 1969 to Boris Spassky.

Petrosian-Botvinnik, 5th match game 1963

 

Keycode: GI 9.7

Source: Shekhtman 956

White: Petrosian,T

Black: Botvinnik,M

Place: Moscow Year: 1963

1.c4 g6 2.d4 Nf6 3.Nc3 d5 4.Nf3 Bg7 5.e3 O-O 6.Be2 dc4

7.Bc4 c5 8.d5 e6 9.de6 Qd1 10.Kd1 Be6 11.Be6 fe6 12.Ke2 Nc6

13.Rd1 Rad8 14.Rd8 Rd8 15.Ng5 Re8 16.Nge4 Ne4 17.Ne4 b6

18.Rb1 Nb4 19.Bd2 Nd5 20.a4 Rc8 21.b3 Bf8 22.Rc1 Be7 23.b4!

c4 24.b5 Kf7 25.Bc3 Ba3 26.Rc2 Nc3 27.Rc3 Bb4 28.Rc2 Ke7

29.Nd2 c3 30.Ne4 Ba5 31.Kd3 Rd8 32.Kc4 Rd1 33.Nc3 Rh1?

34.Ne4! Rh2 35.Kd4! Kd7 36.g3 Bb4 37.Ke5 Rh5 38.Kf6 Be7

39.Kg7 e5 40.Rc6! Rh1 41.Kf7! Ra1 42.Re6 Bd8 43.Rd6 Kc8

44.Ke8 Bc7 45.Rc6 Rd1 46.Ng5 Rd8 47.Kf7 Rd7 48.Kg8

1-0

Annotator: Petrosian,T