Tigran Petrosian

I'm working my way through an excellent best games collection and thoughts of Tigran Petrosian. The book is 'Python Strategy'

His  best games are as elegant as any other player I know of. He provides fascinating insights into his and others play. Against Botvinnik he admits he was aware he was the younger man and used a strategy of tiring out the world champion by playing out drawn games to deplete his stamina. This was something Kasparov famously did years later against Karpov.

It seems though Petrosian himself had health concerns as was conscious of this forty year old birthday as some sort of threshold for being over the hill. He died in his fifties and I don't think he enjoyed particularly good health in his life. So all those 'wanting to be a GM' might want to count their blessings.

He gives the impression of being a modest man, who never quite expected to be world champion and took losing the title in his stride as well. Interestingly for a 1d4 man, he says in the notes after beating Spassky, that 1e4 may be the only way to play for a win with white.

He speaks highly of Fischer as a player and whimsically says when asked about playing mind games with by him arriving late, Fischer's lateness was not about psychology but bad manners. He mentions the player Mecking as a particularly nasty piece of work using the table cloth for undisclosed but unworthy purposes and the same player behaving disgustedly with Walter Browne.

Petrosian like Capablanca was famous for making a lot of draws. Another writer in this book, as it has many contributors, says it could have been that Petrosian always anticipated his opponent making the best moves, when often they lacked his own analytical skill, thus taking play at times down  a more drawish path.

Lots of other insights into over the board play. This may be my favourite games collection.

One of the finest compliments I've seen of Petrosian's play was Fischer's comment to Petrosian's 9th move in game #31 of "My 60 Memorable Games": "This super-refinement reduces all of White's attacking prospects. Petrosian has a knack of snuffing out such dreams twenty moves before they even enter his opponent's head!"

Thanks to OP.

There is no book on Petrosian written by Suetin, unless there's one in a foreign language that has escape me.

Besides Python Strategy, books originally or translated into English are:

     - Petrosian's Best Games 1946–63 by P. H. Clarke
     - Tigran Petrosian - World Champion by Count A. O'Kelly de Galway
     - Tigran Petrosian: His Life and Games by Viktor Vasiliev
     - The Games of Tigran Petrosian, a two volume set by Eduard Shekhtman
     - Petrosian's Legacy, a collection of articles in book form by Tigran Petrosian and
        compiled by Eduard Shekhtman
     - Petrosian the Powerful by Andy Soltis

Added 4/22/17 @ 3:56 Mountain Daylight Time

Oops, I missed one:

     - Petrosian vs the Elite: 71 Victories by the Master of Manoeuvre 1946-1983
       by Ray Keene and Julian Simpole

fightingbob - thanks for the great list!

The two volume set by Eduard Skektman and Python strategy are more or less the same. Python strategy removes all the informator style only or uncommented games from the two vol set, and adds a small chapter by Aagard.

I didn't know that Mr. Simmons.  Thanks.

I begin with a warning regarding the current paperback edition of Tigran Petrosian: His Life and Games.  Stay away from poorly printed reproductions by Sam Sloan's Ishi Press.  Spend a little more for the original hardback edition through Abebooks or Amazon Marketplace.  Another option is to wait for one to show up on eBay.

To give credit where credit is due, the Ishi Press edition lists two authors, namely Viktor Vasiliev and Tigran Petrosian, and five editors: Alexei Suetin, Vladimir Liberzon, Isaac Boleslavsky, Ratmir Holmov.

As a curiosity, the original hardback edition was translated into English by Michael Basman, the International Master known for promoting offbeat openings, specifically the St. George Defence, the Grob and the Creepy Crawly (no joke).

Petrosian was one of my favorite players. He played like a snake, slowly approaching his kill until time to strike. Probably one of the best defensive players of all time — a sort of passive-aggressive defense that lulled his opponents into making moves that they didn't even realize were risky.

Thanks for this thread, Zig.

He was great until he got smoked by Fishcer in the candidate matches leading to the 1972 championship.

He was a great champion, who contributed a lot to strategical aspects of the game of chess. I think Kasparov once made a remark about how much he learned from Petrosian. Definitely a legend. Python Strategy from quality chess is a good source for his games with annotations.

He also "got smoked" by Fischer, but that's beside the point.

Don't get me wrong. Petrosian was a terror for about 5-6 years at the peak of his career. But there is only so far you can go with that focus on defense and frustrating your opponent.

If I manage to get that far, I will be very happy. (But your point is taken.)

The first game collection I've read some 43 years ago, was Clarke's. It still is one of my favorites.

When I finished the book, I was pretty sure that people who describe Tigran's style as "defensive" are either dumb, or have not really studied any of his games.

This still applies.

Excellent point.  Petrosian was "risk-averse," which is different from being defensive.  He avoided unclear positions, but was aggressive in many aspects of his play.  When going over his games, I was amazed at how good he was at calculation.  Very precise.  And his positional objectives were often obtained with an offered pawn or exchange sacrifice that could not be accepted.