Chessable: My Great Predecessors (part 3)

% BOOKTITLE = My Great Predecessors, Volume 3

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[Annotator Garry Kasparov]

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[SourceTitle My Great Predecessors 3]

[Source Everyman Chess]

[SourceDate 2016.06.15]

{The battle for the World Chess Championship has witnessed numerous titanic struggles which have engaged the interest not only of the chess enthusiasts but also of the public at large. The chessboard is the ultimate mental battleground and the world champions themselves are supreme intellectual gladiators. This magnificent compilation of play from the 1960s through to the 1970s forms the basis of the third part of Garry Kasparovs long-awaited definitive history of the World Chess Championship. Garry Kasparov, who is universally acclaimed as the greatest chess player ever, subjects the play from this era to a rigorous analysis the examination being enhanced by the use of the latest chess software. This volume features the play of champions Tigran Petrosian (1963-1969) and Boris Spassky (1969-1972). However, this book is more than just a compilation of play from the greats of this era.

Kasparovs biographies of these champions place them in a fascinating historical, political, and cultural context. Kasparov explains how each champion brought his own distinctive style to the chessboard and enriched the theory of the game with new ideas.} 1. {Garry Kasparov is generally regarded as the greatest chess player ever. He was the thirteenth World Champion, holding the title between 1985 and 2000. His tournament record is second to none, featuring numerous wins in the worlds major events, often by substantial margins. As well as his outstanding successes, Kasparov has constantly promoted the game; he has done more than anyone to popularize chess in modern times.} *

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[Annotator Garry Kasparov]

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[SourceTitle My Great Predecessors 3]

[Source Everyman Chess]

[SourceDate 2016.06.15]

{At the Junction of the Eras This volume is devoted to the lives and games of two chess kings from the sixties and seventies of the last century

Petrosian and Spassky, as well as their outstanding opponents - Gligoric, Polugayevsky, Portisch and Stein. In the introduction to the second volume I wrote that a genuine revolution in chess was accomplished by every fifth world champion: Steinitz (1st) - Botvinnik (6th) - Fischer (11th). Steinitz created a school of positional play, and Botvinnik - a system of preparing for competitions and sharp opening set-ups, whereby Black, ignoring classical rules, immediately disturbs the positional equilibrium and strives to seize the initiative. With the next four champions - Smyslov, Tal, Petrosian and Spassky - the theory of the game developed along the lines of the Botvinnik era, which thereby continued to the late 1960s. In the early 1970s the next revolutionary spurt was made by Fischer, essentially laying the foundation of present-day professional chess.} 1. {Nominally the Botvinnik era ended in 1963, when the champion of many years lost his match to Petrosian and opted out of any further contests for the chess crown. Soon after this Botvinnik wrote in Chess World (1964 No.2): It seems to me that in chess the time of geniuses has passed. In their time Morphy, Steinitz, Lasker, Capablanca and Alekhine were definitely superior to their contemporaries, and in particular by talent. Nowadays with talent alone you cannot exist: also required are health, a strong-willed competitive character and, finally, special preparation. A few decades ago the natural selection of the strongest players occurred among a comparatively narrow circle of people, and there were not many such players - their names are known to everyone. But now the mass base of chess is so great, that there are many very strong players - at present it is crowded on the chess Olympus. A good dozen grandmasters are distinguished by striking talent, and enviable health, and fighting character, and deep special preparation. The importance of special preparation should especially be mentioned: sometimes it is intuitive, at other times it consists in reducing to the minimum the influence of the opponents preparation - a quality which is evidently typical of the new world champion. It can be asserted that, in the forming of the modern strong player, talent is no longer the decisive factor. One senses that Botvinniks wounds had not yet healed after his heavy defeat. In fact, of course, he realised that he had lost to a great player. Three years later he asked Spassky, who had just lost a match to Petrosian: Were you able to guess his moves, Boris Vasilievich?

No, not always, Spassky replied. I too was unable to guess them, Botvinnik admitted. In his way of speaking this was the highest praise for his opponent!

Subsequently he also gave both Spassky and Fischer their due} (1. {

However, in Botvinniks evaluation there is an historic truth: the names of the past champions were always shrouded in a romantic halo of grandeur.

However, the 1938 AVRO tournament, where Capablanca, Alekhine and Euwe made way for the young, signified the ending of the heroic era of the chess titans.

Even so, thanks to his legendary victories in the 1940s, Botvinnik succeeded in prolonging this era - not without reason was he called the Patriarch of the Soviet Chess School. Smyslov was rightly regarded as his great opponent, and Tal as a vivid star, a meteor, the second Morphy. And suddenly at the summit there appeared Petrosian and Spassky - seemingly ordinary, non-heroic champions. But a detailed study of their games demonstrates the enormous scale of the talent of these chess kings, and the time when they were on the throne was an important stage in the accumulation of knowledge - something of a consolidating period, when the basis of modern chess was laid. In these years Chess Informator appeared, new opening schemes arose, the concepts of many middlegame positions were deepened, customary dogmas were reviewed (for example, the approach to positions with an isolated pawn changed) and so on.

The second Petrosian-Spassky match (1969) already heralded the approaching change of eras, which began with the arrival of Fischer. But that is a topic of the next volume.}) (1. {I should like to express my thanks to grandmaster Vladimir Belov and to Honoured USSR Trainers Alexander Nikitin and Mark Dvoretsky for their help in preparing this volume for publication.

Garry Kasparov, August 2004.}) *

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[White Tigran the Ninth]

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[Annotator Garry Kasparov]

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[SourceTitle My Great Predecessors 3]

[Source Everyman Chess]

[SourceDate 2016.06.15]

{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, although on account of his very distinctive passive style it was hard to associate his name with the proud conquerors of the chess throne. Meanwhile, Petrosian had a complete mastery of the art of creating harmonious positions, full of life, where behind the apparent absence of dynamics was concealed a colossal internal energy (the slightest changes being immediately taken into account in the general strategy, which was not always understandable to the opponent). As yet his games have not been studied as thoroughly and as comprehensively as one would like. He presented to the chess world what seem to be common truths, but it is they that essentially comprise the basis of chess creativity. The depth of Tigran Vartanovichs style is a consequence of the clarity of his thinking and his uncommon grasp not only of global chess problems, but also all the subtleties of tactics and strategy.} 1. {Yes, perhaps I like defending more than attacking, but who has demonstrated that defence is a less risky and dangerous occupation than attack? And are there so few games that have found their way into the treasury of chess thanks to virtuoso defence?