WIZARD ON THE WEB
By Malcolm Pein
Daily Telegraph/UK
28/08/2007
The Armenian GM Tigran Petrosian was the winner of a qualifying
tournament staged on the Internet Chess Club and won an expenses
paid trip to the Mainz Chess Classic to play in the Ordix Open. As
reported last week this immensely strong tournament was won by David
Navara. Petrosian finished a very creditable fourth, half a point
behind the winner on 9/11
The young Tigran Petrosian is not related to his countryman and
namesake and their respective styles of play could not be more
different. The tenth world champion was very positional and tied his
opponents up in knots, occasionally he forced resignation with hardly
a shot being fired.
The young Tigran in contrast is a tactical wizard and is one of the
most successful players on the ICC where most the chess is played at
high speed.
Indeed one wonders what the late Tigran Petrosian would have felt
about chess on the internet which is almost entirely tactical and
where the favourite time limits are three minutes or five minutes per
game. I suspect he might have liked it for although Petrosian liked
to play quietly in Classical Chess games, when a tactical solution
presented itself he rarely missed it.
This position is from the end of a very long combination Petrosian
played during his successful title defence against Boris Spassky in
1966. How did Petrosian, white, to play, finish swiftly? (See below)
Spassky
Petrosian
White to play
The young Petrosian used a discredited line of the Pirc Defence to
topple the prodigy Sergey Karjakin although he had to turn round a
ghastly position from the opening.
S Karjakin (2678) – TL Petrosian(2613)
14th Ordix Open Mainz (9)
1.e4 d6 2.d4 Nf6 3.Nc3 g6 4.f4 Bg7 5.Nf3 0-0 6.Bd3 Nc6 7.e5 dxe5
8.fxe5 Nd5 (8…Nh5 intending Nxd4, Bg4 and f7-f6 is better)
9.Nxd5 Qxd5 10.c3! f6 11.Qe2 Kh8 12.Be4! Qd8 13.Be3 fxe5 14.d5! Nb8
15.0-0-0 (A rather sorry position for Black. 15.Ng5 was also good)
Petrosian
Karjakin
Position after 15.0-0-0
15…Nd7 16.Bc2 e4! 17.Bxe4 Nf6 18.Bc2 (18.Bd4)
18…Qd6 19.Bd4 Nxd5 20.Bxg7+ Kxg7 21.Rhe1 (21.c4 Nf4 22.Qe3 Nxg2! and
the resource Qf4+ gives Black the edge)
21…Bg4 22.Kb1 Bxf3 23.gxf3 Qc6 24.Be4 (24.Qe5+ Nf6 25.Be4!)
24…e6 25.h4 Qb6 26.h5?? Nxc3+ 0-1
Answer: 29.Bxf7+ Rxf7 30.Qh8+! 1-0 as 30…Kxh8 31.Nxf7+ wins.