Beautiful game and very good annotation! Thanks

benws...you posted an article and people commented on it. Why you lose your composure from other's opinions? I enjoyed your articles in the past and I enjoyed this one, BUT if you can't handle the comments of others...Well, maybe writing more articles in the future should be avoided.

yes its true i couldn't believe my eyes i played that on fritz11 and it's actually true patrosian missed that     well done whoever made it cause i couldn't understand

Wisegi, I'm a fairly weak player. I think my last rating was 1680 (a dutch rating). That was two years ago and back then it was probably a little on the low side, as I was still improving. However I quit playing seriously and am only just returning to the scene. I think the rating does me justice now.

I play correspondence chess on the internet on chesshere.com (made a marvellous comeback by losing all the games of the first tournament I entered on a time-out). I haven't played here yet and I don't really feel like playing more games than I do right now on chesshere. Plus I have some principle objections to the site rules (see the interesting debate on the option of not claiming time-outs).

Ben, I don't think anybody is arguing that Petrosian wasn't a great player, at least I'm not. The fact that there may be a slight improvement in what is, as everybody will agree, a marvellous game in no way undermines his genius.

Of course you could and probably should check wisegi's variations, but they seem quite sound and similar to the variations in the actual game. To say in general that giving variations that aren't checked by a computer is jumping to conclusions seems a bit too simple. You could at least try to refute them if you felt they were unsound or point out a non conclusive variation. In theory what a computer can do could also be done by humans and in practice this holds true for short varitions with definite conclusions, i.e. mate, stalemate, threefold repetition etc.

But all this debating is no criticism to either the game or Petrosian himself and I want to thank you for posting a game that deserves to be known.

It's a great game...

It seems that you are absolutely right wisegi and on second thought I think Petrosian did miss it, the variations are very similar, he must have thought them up a move later.

I think Petrosian was playing on the safe side. After 18.Re4 black has no good way to defend against the queensac anyway (an exchange should suffice for the world champion)and he needs to calculate a lot less. So in that sense it's a sensible decision. As to whether 18.Qxf6+ really works: let me get back to you on that one; I'm getting out the board and pieces.

Um, on move 20 the rook is not on e4! That's why he moved it on move 18. I think you need to look at the game again.

WIth 19. Bg5+ Kf5. That's why you need the rook.

very interesting game!

wisgegi-I think black aviods checkmate after 18. Qxf6+ Kxf6 19. Be5+ Kg5 20. h4+ Kh6.

bravo

 

Interesting game by Petrosian.  Contrasts with his grind-the-opponent-to-the-death play in a lot of his other games.

Call of Death:

By Queen Sacrify, Imagine a king was called to fight alone against 3 pieces and 3 pawns !!!! . Amazing Call.

 

I don't understand the final comment. I think that is:

If 21 ... f5 22. h4+ Kh5 23 Bf3#), or or 21 ... e5 22. h4+  Kh5 23. Bf3+ Bg4+ 24 Bxg4# or the last comment, 21. Nf5 ...

i liked it

 Great play by white to quietly force moves and control play