Monday, July 07, 2014

ISEs: From the Books IV


Black to play
Spassky - Petrosian (11), World Championship 1969


I was so fascinated by Petrosian’s art in this area that in a rather short time I started sacrificing exchanges whenever I had the chance. My Olympiad team-mates met my new habit with pronounced skepticism, in spite of my excellent results both in practical play and analysis. Some of them considered it nothing more than an eccentricity, though an excusable one, given my youth.
Mihail Marin, Learn from the Legends(Quality Chess, 2006)


Up until now, I’ve usual mentioned Marin’s Learn from the Legends in connection with its first chapter: Rubinstein’s Rook Endings. Today’s ISE comes from his chapter on Petrosian.

Mr P must be the most famous of all ISE-ists.  There’s his ... Re6 at Zurich, of course, and we had him in this series not so long ago (Psychological Caution). I seriously doubt whether it would be possible to find anything written on ISEs in the last forty years that doesn’t mention Petrosian’s name. Marin has a whole chapter dedicated to him.

I’d pick out Petrosian - Nunn from Hastings in the late 70s ...



16 b3


...  but I’m trying to give fianchetto ISEs a rest. So instead today we’ve got a game from Petrosian’s rematch with Spassky. Plenty of time to think about this ISE. It’s on for a long long time.


2014 ISE Count: 47
TISE Index


1 comment:

ejh said...

Anybody wanting to see Marin as a hard, experienced player instead of an eccentrically-minded youth could try here.