Four Games by Petrosian- Bringing the king to safety....

Tigran Vartanovich Petrosian (1929-1984) was a unique genius in chess. He won the World Champion title by defeating Botvinnik in 1963.

Petrosian had a mysterious style. After Spassky lost his first WC match against Petrosian in 1966, Botvinnk asked Spassky if he was able to guess Petrosian's moves. Spassky admited he was not always able to, and Botvinnik admitted he also could not.

The following two games by Petrosian have one common theme; after castling on one side, Petrosian moves his king to the other side of the board, where the pawn chains have stabilized and his King would be safer.

I am pretty sure his opponents could not guess his moves either!

These two games are 8 years apart. The first one is against Wolfgang Unzicker, a very strong German Grandmaster, in a match between Germany and the USSR in 1960.

Notice that between moves 29 and 35, Petrosian makes 5 king moves!

Comments (on the Petrosian-Unzicker game) by Irving Chernev in his book "The Golden Dozen".

The next game was played in the Lugano Olympiad in 1968. His opponent, Sammy Reshevsky (1911-1992), was a World Champion Candidate for many years. Reshevsky had wins against all the top grandmasters of his time, including 4 wins against Fischer!

In this game against Reshevsky, Petrosian again embarks on a king journey in the middlegame!

Comments by Ray Keene and Julian Simpole in their book, titled "Petrosian vs the Elite". Highly instructive book!

News- Found a third game with this maneuver!

Petrosian-Peters, Lone Pine, 1976

So here we go!

Another king journey by Petrosian ends in success!

A fourth game has come to my attention...

Diez Del Corral-Petrosian, Palma de Mallorca 1969