Tigran Petrosian

Tigran Petrosian was born to Armenian parents in Tbilisi in 1929. Orphaned during the Second World War, he worked as a street sweeper while developing his chess. He studied at the Tbilisi Palace of Pioneers with Archil Ebralidze and learned from chess books. After moving to Yerevan, he won Armenian championships in 1946 and 1947. He later moved to Moscow to find stronger competition. FIDE awarded him the Grandmaster title in 1952.

Petrosian won the Soviet championship four times, beginning in 1959. Victory in the 1962 Candidates Tournament led to his championship match with Mikhail Botvinnik. He defeated Botvinnik in 1963 and retained the world title against Boris Spassky in 1966. Spassky won their second championship match in 1969. Petrosian remained a world-title contender after this defeat and reached the 1971 Candidates final against Bobby Fischer.

His play often aimed to prevent an opponent’s plans before they became dangerous. He was particularly associated with positional exchange sacrifices, giving up a rook for a minor piece to obtain lasting strategic compensation. Across ten Olympiads he lost only one game, scoring seventy-nine wins and fifty draws. He also helped establish the Soviet chess publication 64. His 1968 academic thesis examined the logic of chess thought. He died in Moscow in 1984.