Talk:Tigran Petrosian

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[edit] Comment

I'm afraid I can't make sense of this sentence:

Mikhail resigned from playing chess leaving Petrosian's title at his side for 6 years.

Petrosian played Spassky for the world championship in 1966 (as the article says), three years after he played Botvinnik, so I'm not sure where "6 years" comes from. It's true that Botvinnik didn't claim his right to a rematch the year after he lost, but that's not what this says, of course. --Camembert


" This led many to call his style boring, but this criticism is unfair." A rather weak comeback? -- CJWilly

Agreed. I have removed the lines discussing the "boringness" of his play. --Malathion 02:44, 17 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Defense

I've read somewhere that Petrosian's defensive skills may have made him the hardest chessplayer to beat to date. But I don't have a reference for this. Does anyone have a reference? Bubba73 (talk), 06:45, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

Well, stats show that Capablanca was about as hard to beat. Bubba73 (talk), 04:37, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
In the games in ChessGames.com (which may not be complete, and may be a biased sample), of world champions Steinitz through Kasparov, Cabablanca and Kasparov had a smaller percentage of games lost:
  • Capa 7.16%
  • Kaspy 7.24%
  • Petrosian 8.4%
  • Karpov 8.6%
  • Fischer 9.4%
Bubba73 (talk), 02:10, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Iron?

Here are just three of the many references to "Iron Tiger" and "Iron Tigran": [1] [2] [3]

Botvinnik was also sometimes called "Iron" [4] but that doesn't mean that Petrosian wasn't. There are many references (409) to "Iron Tigran" in a google search. Bubba73 (talk), 23:44, 15 February 2006 (UTC)

I've got a published paper reference now. It is also said to be in Kasparov's My Great Predecessors, volume 3, but I don't have that book. Bubba73 (talk), 00:13, 18 February 2006 (UTC)
Here are some references to Iron Tigran by Kasparov:
In his best years, Tigran Vartanovich Petrosian (17 June 1929 - 3 August 1984) used to lose so rarely, that each defeat of his became a sensation. For this truly legendary impregnability he was nicknamed `Iron Tigran' -- p.7.
But chess life was so arranged that `iron Tigran' had to begin the next world championship cycle... from a semi-final of the USSR Championship.' -- p.16
`Iron Tigran' plays with truly iron logic! -- p.62
In those years, it was easier to win the Soviet Championship than a game against `iron Tigran'. -- p.80 (attributed without citation to Polugayevsky)

Bubba73 (talk), 18:11, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] caro_kann variation

I have never seen the Nd7 caro kann referred to as the Petrosian-Smyslov system. I have only seen it referred to as the Smyslov, or occasionally the Karpov system. Any source on this? Perhaps its nomenclature in countries other than the US?

[edit] Score

The article states "while trailing 3.5-1.5 (+3−1=1)" This is a bit confusing: three wins, one loss and one draw makes 3.5 points which presumably was Korchnoi's score. Better to state "while trailing 1.5-3.5" and give wins/losses/draws in brackets for BOTH players.