Armenia
was not an independent state in the 1960s, when Tigran the Great was
the king of the world. Tigran Petrosian put Armenia and Armenians on the
world map of chess. His almost impenetrable defensive playing style
earned him the nickname “Iron Tigran” by Soviet grandmaster Lev
Polugaievsky.
Petrosian
was born in Tiflis on June 17, 1929. He learned to play chess at the
age of 8, though his father, who was illiterate, encouraged him to
continue studying. He was orphaned during World War II and was forced to
sweep streets to earn a living.
He
began training at the Tiflis Pioneers’ Palace in 1941, and became a
candidate Master at the age of 17 (1946). He then moved to Yerevan and
won the Armenian chess championship. He earned the title of Master
during the USSR junior chess championship of 1947.
After
moving to Moscow in 1949, Petrosian's career as a chess player advanced
rapidly. In 1951 and 1952 he earned the titles of International Master
and Grandmaster. In the tournament of candidates for world championship
of 1953, he arrived in fifth position. After the 1956 candidates’
tournament, he made a turnaround in his production. He went on to win
the 1959 and 1961 USSR championships, and after winning the candidates’
tournament of 1962 in Curacao, he earned the right to challenge Mikhail
Botvinnik, another Soviet player, for the title of world chess champion.
Petrosian won the match in 1963 with a final score of 12.5 to 9.5.
Upon becoming world champion, Petrosian became editor-in-chief of the chess monthly Shakhmatnaya Moskva
(1963-1966) and campaigned for the publication of a chess newspaper for
the entire Soviet Union. This newspaper became known as 64. He
would become its founding editor from 1968-1977. He earned a Ph.D. in
Philosophical Science at Yerevan State University in 1968, with his
dissertation entitled “Chess Logics: Some Problems of Logic of Chess
Thought.”
After
successfully defending his crown in 1966 against Boris Spassky,
Petrosian, who had won the Soviet championship in 1969, was challenged
again by the same player in the same year. This time, Spassky won the
match by 12.5-10.5.
The
Armenian player continued his career and participated four more times
in the candidates’ tournament (1971, 1974, 1977, and 1980). He won again
the Soviet championship in 1975. He participated as a representative of
the USSR in ten Chess Olympiads from 1958-1978, where he obtained the
third all-best performance of all times (79.5 per cent, with only one
defeat on 129 games) and won six individual gold medals.
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Petrosian photographed during a match with rival Bobby Fischer in Belgrad, Yugoslavia, 1970.
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In his 1973 book on grandmasters of chess, New York Times
journalist Harold C. Schonberg said that “playing him was like trying
to put handcuffs on an eel. There was nothing to grip.” Boris Spassky,
Petrosian’s successor, described his style of play: “Petrosian reminds
me of a hedgehog. Just when you think you have caught him, he puts out
his quills."
Petrosian
passed away of stomach cancer in Moscow on August 13, 1984. He was
buried in the cemetery of Vagankovo, where world chess champion Garry
Kasparov unveiled a memorial on his grave in 1987, depicting the laurel
wreath of a world champion and an image contained within a crown of the
sun shining above the twin peaks of Mount Ararat. In the district of
Davtashen, in Yerevan, a monument honoring the world-famous player was
opened in 2006 on the street that carries his name.
Tigran
Petrosian contributed enormously to popularize chess in Armenia. The
country became a great power in the chess world after independence.
Grandmaster Tigran L. Petrosian, born a month after his death, was named
after him.
