Were Petrosian and Tal the same player in disguise?

Another theory: Tal and Petrosian are the same chess player separated into two split personalities. Two brilliant tacticians, one born as an attacker, the other as a defender...flip sides of the same coin

When this is "another" theory, what is the other  one ? 

yes, petrosian didn want to wreck his reputation as a great positional player, so he put on a disguise, called himself tal and attacked.

thats an interesting idea Fear i would have never thought about that.

Fischer suspects he's sitting next to a holograph.

I think that Petrosian and Tal had a hell of a lot more in common than most people think!

When I was improving as a chess player, Petrosian first and Tal a bit later were my two favourite players and my style resembles that of both of them (combined with that of Lajos Portisch). Having seen lots and lots of their games Ive made the following intersting observations:

1. Petrosian was a very very very good tactician! So much so that Spassky (who lost a world championship match to him) saw him first and foremost as a tactician! Petrosian didnt play beautiful attacking combinations (that often) because he saw just as many beautiful defensive combinations which would get his opponents out of the mess! Tal also probably saw these defensive combinations too, but he just played his brilliant sacrifices anyway! This possibly indicates that their main difference was not actually in chess but in temperament - Tal was more prepared to gamble...

2. Tal was a very very very good positional player too! Anyone who has looked at a lot of his games will have seen him win beautiful positional games with the English Opening in particular! Interestingly when he played 1.d4, Tal often employed the Petrosian System agains the Kings Indian Defence and won nicely with it!

3. Later in life (after losing the world championship) Petrosian started playing 1.e4 a lot more and even once wrote that he now considered it the best move when playing for a win!

In a nutshell, Petrosian and Tal had a lot more in common than what most people think. Of course on the surface their styles look like chalk and cheese, but when you study them more closely, you will see a lot of very interesting similarities! A strong GM with the best of them both would be an absolute monster! Maybe this player exists already... I think what is "wrong" here are the stereotypes about both players. Both are much deeper and more well rounded players than most of the chess world gives them credit for!

In conclusion, Id like to offer a nice story about them both:

Recently, GM Igor Khenkin did a lecture at my club (the Melbourne Chess Club) and in it he discussed the fact that he was coached at Petrosian's chess school as a youngster. He tells how Petrosian said to him words to the effect of "...Tal has the most brilliant chess mind ever. He sees these unbelieveable combinations in a split second. I am not that brilliant, I dont see these things in a split second - but I still see them!" Here is a link to the lecture and interview:

https://www.youtube.com/user/MelbourneChessClub/featured

While you are there you can also have a look at my videos on openings and positional principles - however they are probably more influenced by my love for Petrosian rather than my love for Tal. But that said, Tal always watched the beginners chess show on tv - even when he was the world champion as he always said that you can never get enough of the basics!

not bad whiterhino

Some of my favorite games of Petrosian's believe it or not, are the ones he played against Pal Benko, who used the "cat and mouse" method to perfection in many games aginst Tigran and in others not so much. The positional play of Petrosian and his patience in games was amazing. This was what I attempted to look upon for inspiration as well.

With Tal, I like his focus on attacking and tactics. These have been perhaps the most difficult for me to synthesize but while I will not likely be a GM anytime soon, the ideas he gave for attack and for offensive and defensive tactical schemes has been something I have begun to focus on more and more in the last year, with mixed results but better overall play, especially in the ending.

Great idea on the posting BTW.

That photo of Fischer was before Najdorf turned him on to buying suits

Still, amazing someone that young is sitting next to the best players of the day

Thinking it's got to be hard to change styles. Don't know of any GM who was renowned for one style of play (positional or attacking) who then played the other way. Probably too ingrained to be changed. Attackers can be great defenders but can't imagine Tal or Nezhmetdinov playing like Petrosian or Botvinnik or vice-versa

Thank you FM whiterhino, great post, informative and helpful.

This is due to the ole "label and dismiss" human nature weakness. If we can slap a label that contains an element of fault or weakness in some aspect of another, we don't mind ascribing praise to another. For example, "Karpov would just grind his opponents for the win." (As if there was something somehow 'incomplete' or not perfect about that.) Or "Carlsen is so great in the endgame he just finds a way to win, but not so much in the openings." (Because it's okay to accept his complete dominion if we get the 'compensation' as lesser mortals that he, too, has an alleged "weakness" somewhere. No one considers the possibility his opening preparation was done with the intent to lull his opponent into a false sense of security before the full plan goes into effect, thereby making him superior in opening theory because of that advantage.)

The difficulty comes when we must actually get to know the truth of the whole person. Especially when the true person shatters our preconceived ideas, rips to shreds and exposes as false our pretty labels we adhered to lazily for convenience's sake at the cost of delusion.

But just as there is more to a game of chess than the opening, middle game or ending,

there is more to the chess player than the sometimes nearsighted and faulty lens of those caricatural labels we use to "see" the parts of them we'll concede as great.

Me and Houdini are related. The only problem is that we were split up at birth. He took 95% of the chess skills and only left me with 5%. 

If the above are true, then we would have equal (or near equal) examples of Tal and Nezhmetdinov playing positionally and Karpov, Petrosian and Botvinnik playing the kind of risky, sacrificial chess that Tal and Nezhmetdinov came to be associated with. To say a player's style falls near toward one end of the spectrum or the other isn't saying they can't play another way when needed. It's just saying they have a style of playing they feel most comfortable with and are inclined by their personalities to play.

Certainly am not "dismissing" any GM based on the style he feels most comfortable with. One of the reasons the Tal-Botvinnik match was so interesting to many chess writers and GMs is it was seen as a clash of scientific and creative chess. The fact that Tal won and then lost the rematch is an indication (to me) that labeling a style as good or bad is faulty.

One of the chess books I had a few years ago advised amateurs to determine where they fell on the spectrum of positional and sacrificial chess with Korchnoi represented on the positional extreme and Nezhmetdinov represented on the sacrificial extreme (Karpov was on the positional side, Tal on the sacrificial side, Fischer near the middle, etc.) The amateur was then supposed to play over and study GMs whose style came closest to their own. That seemed to make sense to me.