Tigran Petrosian Top 22 Amazing Chess Sacrifices! - 9th World Chess Champion 1963–1969

Petrosian info from Wiki: ...Petrosian was a conservative, cautious, and highly defensive chess player who was strongly influenced by Aron Nimzowitsch's idea of prophylaxis. He made more effort to prevent his opponent's offensive capabilities than he did to make use of his own. He very rarely went on the offensive unless he felt his position was completely secure.[5] He usually won by playing consistently until his aggressive opponent made a mistake, securing the win by capitalizing upon this mistake without revealing any weaknesses of his own... Another consequence of Petrosian's style of play was that he did not score many victories, which in turn meant he seldom won tournaments even though he often finished 2nd or 3rd. However, his style was extremely effective in matches.[35] Petrosian could also occasionally play in an attacking, sacrificial style. In his 1966 match with Spassky, he won Game 7 and Game 10 this way. Boris Spassky subsequently stated: "It is to Petrosian's advantage that his opponents never know when he is suddenly going to play like Mikhail Tal." (Tal was known as the most aggressive attacker of his era.)[36] The positional exchange sacrifice[edit] Reshevsky vs. Petrosian, 1953 a b c d e f g h 8 Chessboard480.svg d8 black rook e8 black queen g8 black king e7 black rook f7 black pawn g7 black pawn h7 black pawn c6 black knight g6 black bishop a5 black pawn b5 black pawn e5 white pawn c4 black pawn d4 white pawn f4 white queen g4 white bishop a3 white pawn c3 white pawn e3 white rook b2 white bishop g2 white pawn h2 white pawn e1 white rook g1 white king 8 7 7 6 6 5 5 4 4 3 3 2 2 1 1 a b c d e f g h Position after 25.Rfe1 Petrosian was known for his use of the "positional exchange sacrifice", where one side sacrifices a rook for the opponent's bishop or knight. Kasparov discussed Petrosian's use of this motif: Petrosian introduced the exchange sacrifice for the sake of 'quality of position', where the time factor, which is so important in the play of Alekhine and Tal, plays hardly any role. Even today, very few players can operate confidently at the board with such abstract concepts. Before Petrosian no one had studied this. By sacrificing the exchange 'just like that', for certain long term advantages, in positions with disrupted material balance, he discovered latent resources that few were capable of seeing and properly evaluating.[37] One of Petrosian's most famous examples of the positional exchange sacrifice is from his game against Samuel Reshevsky in Zurich 1953.[38] Reshevsky, playing white, appears to have an advantage due to his strong pawn center, which may become mobile after Bf3 and d4–d5. Petrosian realized he was in a difficult position because of the passive placement of his pieces, relegated to defensive roles. He further understood that White might also advance on the kingside with h2–h4–h5, provoking weaknesses that would make it more difficult to defend later on. Faced with these threats, Petrosian devised a plan to maneuver his knight to the square d5, where it would be prominently placed in the center, and blockade the advance of White's pawns. 25... Re6! With the rook vacated from e7, the black knight is free to move to d5, where it will be attacking the pawn on c3, and help support an eventual advance of his queenside pawn majority with b5–b4. 26. a4 Ne7 27. Bxe6 fxe6 28. Qf1 Nd5 29. Rf3 Bd3 30. Rxd3 cxd3 The game was eventually drawn on move 41.[39] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tigran_Petrosian [Event "Bled-Zagreb-Belgrade Candidates"] [Site "Bled, Zagreb & Belgrade YUG"] [Date "1959.09.11"] [EventDate "1959.09.07"] [Round "4"] [Result "0-1"] [White "Paul Keres"] [Black "Tigran Vartanovich Petrosian"] [ECO "B39"] [WhiteElo "?"] [BlackElo "?"] [PlyCount "102"] 1.e4 c5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Nxd4 g6 5.c4 Bg7 6.Be3 Nf6 7.Nc3 Ng4 8.Qxg4 Nxd4 9.Qd1 Ne6 10.Qd2 d6 11.Be2 Bd7 12.O-O O-O 13.Rac1 Bc6 14.Rfd1 Nc5 15.f3 a5 16.b3 Qb6 17.Nb5 Rfc8 18.Bf1 Qd8 19.Qf2 Qe8 20.Nc3 b6 21.Rc2 Qf8 22.Qd2 Bd7 23.Nd5 Rab8 24.Bg5 Re8 25.Re1 Rb7 26.Qf2 Bc6 27.Qh4 f6 28.Be3 e6 29.Nc3 Rd7 30.Bd4 f5 31.exf5 gxf5 32.Rd2 Bxd4+ 33.Rxd4 Rg7 34.Kh1 Rg6 35.Rd2 Rd8 36.Red1 Rd7 37.Qf2 Qd8 38.Qe3 e5 39.f4 e4 40.Ne2 Rdg7 41.Nd4 Bd7 42.a3 Qa8 43.Kg1 h5 44.Rb1 h4 45.Rbb2 Rg4 46.Rf2 Qd8 47.b4 Rg3 48.hxg3 hxg3 49.Rfd2 Qh4 50.Be2 Rh7 51.Kf1 Qxf4+ 0-1 ►Playlists: http://goo.gl/FxpqEH ►Follow me at Google+ : http://www.google.com/+kingscrusher ►FREE online chess at http://osk03.chesshorsey.com/chessclubs/asplogin.asp?from=1053 or realtime at http://www.chessclub.com/from/kingscrusher ►Support the channel by donating via PayPal: http://goo.gl/7HJcDq Thumbnail: Petrosian By uploader Koperczak (talk) 08:49, 3 April 2009 (UTC), photographer unknown (scanned from "Szukam raju" Iskry, Warsaw 1975) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons