Tigran Petrosian (1929-1984)
samsloan
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.
This book was originally published in Russian in Yerevan, Armenia as
Zhizn Shakhmatista (“The Life of a Chess Player”) by Viktor Vasiliev.
It was translated into English by Michael Basman (who, it is not well
known, is an ethnic Armenian and who studied as a college student for
several years at the University in Yerevan).
Eventually, the rights to this book were acquired by Sidney Fried for
his company, RHM Press.
This RHM Series of high quality chess books was the brain child of
Sidney Fried (born 22 June 1919 – died 1 June 1991). Sidney Fried was
not a strong player but was an aficionado or big fan of chess.
Sidney Fried had a lot of money. He had made his fortune in common
stock purchase warrants. Then, he made more money writing books and
two newsletters about it. His stock market books are still available
today, including such works as “Investment and Speculation with
Warrants - Options & Convertibles” and “Fortune building in the 70's
with common stock warrants and low-price stocks” by Sidney Fried.
Fried had a number of unusual habits, one of which was that he owned
nothing. He put everything he owned into his corporations, R H M
Press, a Division of RHM Associates of Delaware, Inc.
Fried was a member of the Libertarian Party. Since Fried had no
assets, this enabled him to get away with not paying any taxes.
However, upon his death it was discovered that he had left no will and
therefore nothing, including his New York townhouse, his personal home
on Long Island, his yacht and his California estate that were owned by
his corporations could be inherited. All of his property went to the
state.
This also affected the publication of this book. It appears that all
of his RHM books were “Work Made for Hire” books, in which he paid the
authors in cash rather than signing standard royalty agreements. This
certainly simplified matters. It enabled his books to have numerous
authors, translators and editors and a chief editor, Burt Hochberg
(1933-2006). Hochberg wrote, “grandmasters were very well paid to
write them.” Imagine the difficulties of dividing royalty payments
among the many contributors and the even bigger problems of trying to
negotiate royalty deals with different people. (For example, “I demand
to be paid as much as Petrosian!!!”)
By paying everybody in cash, Fried was able to assemble teams to help
him create his works. For example, this book was originally written by
Viktor Vasiliev. It was translated into English by Michael Basman.
Notes were provided by Alexei Suetin, additional material was provided
by Tigran Petrosian himself. Further notes were by Liberzon,
Boleslavsky and Holmov. Kevin J. O'Connell was a proof reader. Burt
Hochberg probably did some editing although his name is not mentioned
in the book. The whole thing was assembled by Sidney Fried. I have
probably left out somebody.
Eventually, Sidney Fried lost a lot of money the same way he had made
it, gambling on stock market purchase options and warrants. It is not
clear whether he died broke or nearly broke, but in any case he left
behind a great series of chess books that we can still read today and
remember him by.
This book was originally published in Descriptive Chess Notation.
Since that time, Descriptive has become almost obsolete. For that
reason, all 50 games in this book have been converted into modern
Algebraic Notation and are included in an appendix in the back of the
book.
Sam Sloan
October 13, 2009
ISBN 4-87187-813-9
978-4-87187-813-5
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/4871878139
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbninquiry.asp?box=9784871878135
RayLopez99
> This book was originally published in Descriptive Chess Notation.
> Since that time, Descriptive has become almost obsolete. For that
> reason, all 50 games in this book have been converted into modern
> Algebraic Notation and are included in an appendix in the back of the
> book.
>
> Sam Sloan
> October 13, 2009
>
> ISBN 4-87187-813-9
> 978-4-87187-813-5
>
I see. Trafficking in old books spruced up with algebraic notation.
What a seedy way to make money IMO.
And you realize that Petrosian turned off his hearing aid in his
candidate's match with Hubner, to his unfair advantage. Hubner lost
due to crowd noise.
This is the kind of sportsman you want us to emulate?
RL
Offramp
> And you realize that Petrosian turned off his hearing aid in his
> candidate's match with Hubner, to his unfair advantage. Hubner lost
> due to crowd noise.
I suppose the match was so exciting that the organizers had completely
given up trying to silence the crowd.
It may have been to Petrosian's unfair advantage that he was deaf -
just like it is unfair for to other musicians that Stevie Wonder is
blind - but couldn't Hubner have worn some kind of earmuffs?
Or perhaps Hubner could have demanded that Petrosian turned up his
hearing aid to 11.
LOROL.
Taylor Kingston
> the world.
What are your sources for this claim? It sure does not jibe with the
stats in Divinsky's "Life Maps of the Great Chess Masters," which
gives career records of the greatest players against each other.
Petrosian's is +137 -105 =541, i.e. he drew 69.1% of his games against
other top GMs. In contrast, Fischer drew 44.9% and Tal 64.9% of the
time. A few more of Petrosian's contemporaries: Spassky 66.7%, Smyslov
65.6%, Reshevsky 59.2%, Botvinnik 53.5%, Bronstein 63.1%, Korchnoi
55.4%.
Based on these statistics, Petrosian's reputation as one of the most
draw-prone masters of his time seems well deserved. He is even way
ahead of a major drawing master of an earlier era, Karl Schlechter,
who drew 57.1% of the time against his fellow greats. Likewise
Fischer's reputation for disdaining draws seems quite justified.
The award for "lowest percentage of draws of any top grandmaster in
the world" probably should go to David Janowski (1868-1927), who drew
only about 21% of the time against his fellow top masters.
> 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.
Again, I must ask: on what do you base this?
Offramp
It is not often mentioned, but Tal had a better Olympiad average that
Petrosyan.
help bot
> 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.
No, Mr. Sloan, he is not best known for anything
pertaining to BF (except in the delusional minds
of diehard BF fanatics).
The man is in fact best known for being chess
champion of the world-- the same thing people
were known for before the Fischer Era (BFE),
and for which people will be known afterward
(AFE).
> 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?
I think you are really missing the boat here. The
point of p-a3 is not to stop a spite-check, but rather
it is to prevent the possibility of a pin via ...B-b4
which affects control of the important e4 square.
One might say that White's initiative is being traded
in return for avoiding doubled pawns or being forced
to surrender some center control via Q-c2 and Qxc3.
As for your astute comment regarding TP making
moves which /seemed/ pointless, this is more a
reflection of the vast difference in understanding be-
tween a typical America commentator, and the great
master himself. One notes that BF was able to
appreciate such moves as N-d1!, while vast inferiors
of the American variety would write "pointless waste
of time", seeing no direct threat and therefore, no
point.
Even decades later, one often sees this sort of
shallow "analysis" in the pages of Chess Lies mag-
azine. I can recall a case in which all the GMs
were grossly mistaken due to their shallow under-
standing of chess, and where a month or two later
Jan Timman published a proof in the pages of IC,
showing exactly why. It always bugged me that
a mere 2650 player (FIDE) was refuting America's
best and brightest; I wanted Gary Kasparov to be
the one to do it-- that would be okay; after all, not
everyone can be a FIDE 2800.
-- help bot
help bot
wrote:
> Again, I must ask: on what do you base this?
I believe Mr. Soan is probably basing his wild claims
on /only results from the Olympiads/. This is what
the Great Dr. IMnes would call "hyperbole", and what
most other people would call idiocy.
--
As far as BF's amazing draw record, one must take
into consideration such things as:
1) his superiority over most opponents, which allows
one to avoid drawing by, well, simply beating them;
2) his early retirement, while at his peak.
Suppose we took Mikhail Tal at his peak and just
retired him: what sort of draw record would we find?
I don't know, but I do recall a score of 4-0 against
one particular opponent whose initials are "BF";
that's all wins or losses, no draws for either player.
Yet later on, MT was known more for "not losing";
his record of most games "not lost" in a row may
still stand... but he was making more draws and
fewer wins by playing actively beyond his peak, as
most players do.
Another famous case of early retirement from ac-
tive play is Paul Morphy. With such players (and
there are more of them), one should not fall into
the trap of comparing apples to oranges, simply
because one happens to like one particular apple.
-- help bot
Taylor Kingston
Sam, we're still waiting for you to present valid data supporting
your claim that "Petrosian had the lowest percentage of draws of any
top grandmaster in the world."
Similar "all-time greatest" claims you may wish to investigate:
1. Bobby Fischer: most successful defenses of chess world
championship
2. Germany: all-time highest winning percentage in world wars
3. William Henry Harrison: longest tenure as US President
4. Ford Model T: all-time land speed record
5. Billy Barty: all-time NBA rebound leader
None
>
> - Show quoted text -
You have a better chance of convincing ChessFraude or bin Larry to
provide documentation to support their bizarre claims.
samsloan
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbninquiry.asp?ISBN=4871878139
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/4871878139
ISBN 4-87187-813-9
978-4-87187-813-5
Sam Sloan
Taylor Kingston
And does it still have your ridiculous claim that Petrosian had the
lowest percentage of draws?