Breaking Through the Brick Wall Known as Iron Tigran

Hey Impressive Chessers

On Thursday, February 27th, we lost the chess legend Boris Spassky. I never got the chance to meet the man, but I’ve heard countless stories of what a fine gentleman he was. I’m not the right person to write Spassky’s obituary, and that’s not what this blog is going to be about. If that’s what you want, I’d send you to www.chess.com/news/view/boris-spassky-passes-away-at-88.

Puzzles #1, 2 & 3 | Puzzle #4 | Puzzles #5 & 6

Today’s blog is going to cover the two World Championship matches between Petrosian and Spassky in 1966 and 1969 and also my favorite game of Spassky’s at the “USSR vs. Rest of the World” match in 1970. But the overall theme of this blog is about overcoming “solid” players. I bet you all were curious when I was going to make this blog about me...well, read on!

"Jared Esq."

When I first started playing in tournaments, I was lucky to have a local club to play tournament games at every Thursday night. Us humans are social creatures, so we do better when we belong to a group rather than trying to lone-wolf our way to success. It doesn’t have to be an in-person club, this community could be online, like the Impressive Chessers or countless other clubs.

So anyway, at this Thursday night club, I was rising the ranks and got to be the third-highest player at the club with a rating of 1914. The highest-rated player was a very aggressive 2100 rated, apparently, his highest ever rating was 2199 (just one point shy of National Master!). We’ll call him “Jared Esq.” At first, Jared was too much for me to handle. Like I said, he was very aggressive and blew me off the board in the first three games we played. The fourth game was going along the same lines as the first three when I started to get into time pressure. In my time pressure, Jared started playing quick moves to try to run me out of time (not a good strategy! Just play solid moves when this situation arises; those are harder to face anyway). With seconds remaining on my clock, I uncorked a lovely queen sacrifice for an eventual back-rank mate.

Since I only had seconds on the clock, I wasn’t recording my moves, and unfortunately, the game has been lost to the annals of time. After that game, I went on to defeat Jared three more times in a row. I guess I just needed that confidence boost of knowing that Jared was indeed human and beatable. Besides, we had very similar styles, as I was incredibly aggressive back then too. So Jared was the highest-rated player at our club, but who was #2?

"Dr. Nick"

A person that we are going to call “Dr. Nick” was the second-highest-rated player at the club. Dr. Nick was usually in the high 1900s or low 2000s, and he was the exact opposite type of player as Jared and myself. Dr. Nick was super solid, and boy, was he a troublesome opponent for me. Jared did very well against Dr. Nick, beating him almost every time, and then he started doing badly against me and would watch me lose to Dr. Nick. We had a classic chess triangle going! I think my troubles against Dr. Nick started because our first game went so well for me. 

Puzzle #1 Can you Find White's Brilliant Move*?

*As judged by chess.com's game review, not me  

After that first game, I thought every game would go like that, but it was far from the truth. Most games were like this one:

Puzzle #2: Can you spot the move that Dr. Nick sprung on me?

Dr. Nick played very solid, quick moves and was somehow able to survive in gross positions. At that point, I would be reeling about my missed opportunities and also much lower on time. This was when Dr. Nick would strike. Eventually, I started wondering, what if I, too, played solid and quickly against Dr. Nick? This strategy worked like a charm, and I started equaling our personal record, eventually even getting a +1 score in our battles. Here's a game where I tried to play more solidly against Dr. Nick, and I was rewarded with a win. I almost blew this game though, do you see how Dr. Nick could've "Dr. Nicked" me?

Puzzle #3: White to play and "Dr. Nick" a draw out of this position

Iron Tigran

The whole story about Dr. Nick and Jared Esq. was not just for vanity's sake. I think it was analogous to the two World Championship matches between Tigran Petrosian, “Iron Tigran,” and Boris Spassky. Tigran Petrosian got the nickname "Iron Tigran" because many players had an extremely tough time at defeating him; even when they achieved visually appealing positions. It was so hard to beat Petrosian because of his defensive & patient style of play. Maybe his most famous display of defensive skill were on full display here: 

Boris Spassky had the unenviable task of trying to break down "Iron Tigran" when they met in the 1966 World Championship match. In that match, Spassky had the strategy of trying to make every game complicated and unorthodox to make Petrosian uncomfortable; or at least, that was the theory. See how it went: 

Puzzle #4: How did Iron Tigran end this game in style?