How come he always drew chess games with his opponents except for the
rare times when he won or lost?

I think this guy has to be the weakest chess player ever to become
world champion. Botvinnik was quite old by the time he played
Petrosian for the world championship and Tigran was lucky that he was
young.

Ivan wrote:
How come he always drew chess games with his opponents except for the
rare times when he won or lost?

I think this guy has to be the weakest chess player ever to become
world champion. Botvinnik was quite old by the time he played
Petrosian for the world championship and Tigran was lucky that he was
young.

Petrosian weak? No sir. What Petrosian lacked wasn't chess strength, but
ambition. He was one of the strongest, most talented players of all time,
but he was too easily satisfied with a draw. He often contented himself with
a draw against players he could have easily outplayed just by playing on, if
only he had felt like it. He became World Champion largely due to his wife,
who compensated for his lack of ambition by having a big surplus of it. She
was his slave driver. If on some particular day she told Tigran that he
should win, he did. On other days, he happily drew.

Tobi

En/na Ivan ha escrit:
How come he always drew chess games with his opponents except for the
rare times when he won or lost?

I think this guy has to be the weakest chess player ever to become
world champion. Botvinnik was quite old by the time he played
Petrosian for the world championship and Tigran was lucky that he was
young.

It seems to me that Ivan has not seen any Petrosian games!!

From my database I can see, for some thousand games Petrosian only
draws a 50% of his games. 50% is not exactly "rare times", is not it?

And more, some Petrosian games are simply fantastic.

AT

"Ivan" wrote in message
om...
How come he always drew chess games with his opponents except for the
rare times when he won or lost?

I think this guy has to be the weakest chess player ever to become
world champion. Botvinnik was quite old by the time he played
Petrosian for the world championship and Tigran was lucky that he was
young.

Tigran had probably the worst childhood of any major player - he was
supporting a large family at the age of 14. This may have contributed to a
conservative, success-driven style.
You should also remember that his match with Botvinik was the first match he
had played.
Also, as the Oxford Companion to Chess points out, he was the first champion
to successfully defend his title to his strongest challenger.
His score in chess olympics is quite superb; I think it's something like +97
=12 -1. That's from memory.

I think you have to be a very very strong player to fully appreciate his
games. I only understand them a little, but I think the best ones are great!

Here is one of my favourite games of his - admittedly it is a draw but it is
not boring, and Tigran missed a win.
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1106728
You need Java
Alan

Even Fischer said that Petrosian was the most difficult player to play
against because his moves were just unpredictable.

EZoto

In article m,
says...

Even Fischer said that Petrosian was the most difficult player to play
against because his moves were just unpredictable.

EZoto

Was it Petrosian or Polegaevsky who said that Judit Polgar would end up
becoming a positional player? I forgot who made this famous remark about
her.

Alberich wrote:


Was it Petrosian or Polegaevsky who said that Judit Polgar would end
up becoming a positional player? I forgot who made this famous remark
about her.


I don't know who made this remark, but it is highly improbable that it was
Petrosian. He died in 1984, when Judit was 7 or 8 years old. Polugaevsky is
a more likely candidate. He often met Judit over the board in te early
1990's.

Tobi

He did draw a lot against the top most level. However, his losses were much
fewer than his wins. He was very tough to beat at that level, and he crushed
those a few tiers lower.

And as a later poster wrote,some of the stratagies were amazing and beautiful..
The man could sac an exchange like nobodies business.


..En/na Ivan ha escrit:
How come he always drew chess games with his opponents except for the
rare times when he won or lost?


entr0pyf0e

How about when Petrosian beat Karpov in a game and Karpov begged
Petrosian to show him his mistake. Karpov thought he played a near
perfect game and still lost.

How about Kasparov when he played Petrosian and Kasparov had an
irresistable attack that would win against anyone but Petrosian
defended well and won the game. Kasparov was dumbfounded.

How about when Spassky felt he didn't know how he could win a game
from Petrosian and Botvinnik said to him " Lose one! "

All in all. Petrosian was a great player.

EZoto

On Sat, 29 Nov 2003 02:41:34 GMT, EZoto wrote:

How about when Petrosian beat Karpov in a game and Karpov begged
Petrosian to show him his mistake. Karpov thought he played a near
perfect game and still lost.

Don't tell Houlsby about this. It will break his heart.