Tigran Petrosian (1929-1984)

All Things Chess
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Tigran Petrosian (1929-1984) was World Chess Champion from 1963 to 1969 and was one of the strongest players in the world throughout his lengthy career.

His style of play was the opposite of what others said it was. Others characterized his play as “dull” and “drawish”. However, statistics prove that while others considered his play to be dull by their standards, it was not drawish.

Petrosian had the lowest percentage of draws of any top grandmaster in the world. Whereas Tal is considered to have been the opposite of Petrosian, with daring sacrificial attacks, in reality Tal drew more games than Petrosian did. Similarly, Fischer whose play was characterized by direct assaults, nevertheless drew more games than Petrosian did.

Petrosian represented the USSR in the World Chess Olympiad ten times. His result was 78 wins, 50 draws and only one loss, for 79.8 per cent.

The most famous instance of this was at the 1966 Chess Olympiad in Havana, Cuba, where he won the gold medal on top board with 88.46 percent vs. Bobby Fischer’s 88.23 percent.

Petrosian was a Candidate for the World Championship on eight occasions (1953, 1956, 1959, 1962, 1971, 1974, 1977 and 1980). He won the world championship in 1963 by defeating Botvinnik, successfully defended it in 1966 against Spassky, and lost it in 1969 to Spassky. Thus, he was the defending World Champion or a World Champion Candidate in ten consecutive three-year cycles.

He won the Soviet Championship four times (1959, 1961, 1969, and 1975).

In spite of these impressive results, he is perhaps best known for breaking Bobby Fischer’s winning streak of 20 games by beating Bobby in game two of their 1971 match.

Why is it then that, in the face of these amazing results, Petrosian is considered to be a dull and drawish player?

It is because of the way that he achieved his results. He did not often launch a direct, immediate attack. Instead, he maneuvered, seeming endlessly. He waited for his opponent to make an error or to attack unsoundly. When the mistake finally occurred, Petrosian exploited it ruthlessly.

In many ways, Petrosian played the way that modern computers seem to play, sometimes making moves that seem pointless and yet winning the game in the end.

An example of this is the Petrosian System in the Queen’s Indian Defense: 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 e6 3. Nf3 b6 4. a3.

The purpose to a3 is obviously to stop Black from playing Bb4+. Yet, Bb4+ is not really a threat or even a very good move. Why waste a valuable move in the opening to stop a non-existent threat?

Petrosian felt that a3 would turn out to be a useful move later in the game and thus was not wasted. Moreover, a3 was in accordance with his policy of restricting his opponent, thereby causing his opponent to feel frustrated, leading to his opponent making a rash decision which Petrosian could exploit.

Bobby Fischer said that Petrosian “will smell any kind of danger 20 moves before!”

Tigran Petrosian was born in Tbilisi, Georgia on 17 June 1929. He died of stomach cancer in Moscow on 13 August 1984. The poor quality of the Soviet Health Care System may have contributed to his early death at age only 55.

Petrosian lived in Moscow most of his life. In spite of neither being born nor living in Armenia, he has always been considered to be Armenian and he is a national hero of the Republic of Armenia.

				Sam Sloan
				October 13, 2009
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Hi Sam, thanks for posting this tribute, I enjoyed the refresher on one of our greatest players. I would like a recommendation on a good annotated collection of Petrosian’s games.

I once met Petrosian during one of his simul’s to the DC area, I lost in 24 moves. He was quite the gentleman, I must say.

Here is a link to one of his so-called greatest games (please suggest others as appropriate):

lifemasteraj.com/great_chs-g … m1960.html

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I always enjoyed Petrosian’s games and although I could not play like that, I think I learned something from studying his clear demonstrations of sometimes offbeat positional concepts. (Full disclosure: As a fan, I think a draw is a perfectly acceptable result from a chess game.) It helped me learn to spot mistakes and develop intuition. The tactics are very solid, but he isn’t trying to “fight gravity” or make more of the position than is there, just goes with the flow and maybe waits for the losing mistake. He sees much more of what is there than almost anyone else.

He’s been denounced as a “negative” player but if one has perfect analytical power, there are only three kinds of positions: winning, drawn and losing. No matter what you do or how aggressive you are, you cannot turn a drawn position into a win without a mistake by the opponent. Petrosian was good at waiting for that mistake while taking little risk that he would make a losing mistake himself.

Perfectly good GMs would lose to “the wily Petrosian” and not even know why they lost after the game was over.

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There are several biographies on Tigran Petrosian. The earliest is a collection of games annotated by P.H. Clarke. The Weltgeschicte des Schachs published a “red book” soon after. In 1974, a bio by Vik L. Vasiliev, “Tigran Petrosian, His life and games” was published by Batsford Chess Publishing. The biggest collection of games was done in by Eduard Shektman, “The Games of Tigran Petrosian.” This was a two volume set published by Pergamon, with translation by Ken Neat. The latter collection consists of around 2100 games, many of them annotated by Petrosian and others.

My copy by Vasiliev was autographed by the former world champion when he came to Pittsburgh in 1975 during a simul tour of the US after he had finished winning the Lone Pine tournament. Armed with “preparation” (I had read the book and devoured his games), I won my game in the simul by using his own weapon of prophylaxis. He was not a gracious loser, but he did sign the book. As I recall, he played 30 players, losing three and drawing two.

In reading the bios, it becomes apparent that Petrosian’s habit of playing safe was a result of his need for security because of the traumas of his early life and the need to participate in endless qualifying for USSR Ch, Interzonals, Candidates tournaments, and the World Championship. Not losing put bread on the table. He was heavily criticized in the Soviet chess press for his many draws, especially the lifeless under 20 move games. But it usually takes two to produce these. I recall a comment by one GM who said that it was often wise with White to offer an early draw to Petrosian and “get on with life” rather than risk getting crushed by “the python.”

The idea of prophylaxis has been variously interpreted and misinterpreted. In Petrosian’s hands, it involved deep maneuvering to suppress counterplay of his opponent. He often found tactics that his opponent did not, but he did not find it “logical” to make risky tactical or strategic forays. His tactical skills were often on display in mixed tournaments and in blitz events. In looking at crosstables, one can see he was a model of consistency. He rarely had a bad result, but he also did not put on spectacular performances like some of his contemporaries - Tal, Fischer, Larsen. Petrosian said that the players who most influenced him were Nimzovich, Capablanca, and Lasker, an interesting trio.