The Life And Games Of Petrosian
27 Feb '10 00:48For anyone interested, Tigran Petrosian: His Life And Games by Vasiliev is now back in print. I have searched for this book for years and years. (It is even further reading in Silman's How To Reassess Your Chess.) The original has been rediculously priced at over $85 dollars all this time.
I just bought a "new" edition from amazon.com for only $23.35.
Here are the differences/comparisons:
The cover is still a picture of Petrosian. (This isn't a Harding Simpole with a generic cover.)
Someone else reprinted it, but they basically just recopied the old one and insterted the story of how they got the publishing rights.
The back has an algebraic version of all the games. Actually, someone just took the games in pgn form and pasted them and printed them. There are no notes or anything on the algebraic versions in the back. It is just bare scores with no spaces between moves.
The original book is quite nice (and untouched).
I have come through several hand corrected points in the book (a typed 0-1 changed to 1-0 by someones handwriting), but I think they must have been in the original.
Here is what I have looked at in the 1 day (!) that I have had it.
An interesting interview where they asked Spassky and Petrosian the same questions, each with 20 seconds to answer, before one of their matches.
A nice description of Petrosian's style and Korchnoi's.
A lot of nice back stories and biographical info. (For instance, Larsen was hospitalized with high blood pressure during the 6 streak loss to Fischer. Even then Fischer played mind games and kept changing the playing venue.)
I have played through three games as well (in the original descriptive notation).
The first was against Smyslov. The games and annotations were quite nice, but I have to confess that I have seen it annotated better (perhaps in Clarke's book).
The second game was a nice win against Spassky circa 1969. Again the game was great, but the annotations weren't in depth like I would have liked.
The third game I played through was worth the price of the book. It's the last game in the book and an epic struggle with Larsen at San Antonio 1972. Petrosian actually annotates this one himself (from the magazine 64)!!! The annotations are not only great, but there is also some nice practical advice.
One line that I particularly liked was something like this:
Petrosian sacrificed a pawn in the opening and was running out of threats.
"... somehow White's initiative had dried up, and he had nothing for the pawn. But then I remembered an ancient truth: many players, sacrificing a pawn, lose because they play as if they had lost it, rather than deliberately parted with it."
In other words, keep your head together and don't get discouraged. Just keep trying to play the right moves, and most importantly keep in a winning frame of mind.
Great advice from a World Champion !!!
This isn't a full review, just some insights into the book.
I just bought a "new" edition from amazon.com for only $23.35.
Here are the differences/comparisons:
The cover is still a picture of Petrosian. (This isn't a Harding Simpole with a generic cover.)
Someone else reprinted it, but they basically just recopied the old one and insterted the story of how they got the publishing rights.
The back has an algebraic version of all the games. Actually, someone just took the games in pgn form and pasted them and printed them. There are no notes or anything on the algebraic versions in the back. It is just bare scores with no spaces between moves.
The original book is quite nice (and untouched).
I have come through several hand corrected points in the book (a typed 0-1 changed to 1-0 by someones handwriting), but I think they must have been in the original.
Here is what I have looked at in the 1 day (!) that I have had it.
An interesting interview where they asked Spassky and Petrosian the same questions, each with 20 seconds to answer, before one of their matches.
A nice description of Petrosian's style and Korchnoi's.
A lot of nice back stories and biographical info. (For instance, Larsen was hospitalized with high blood pressure during the 6 streak loss to Fischer. Even then Fischer played mind games and kept changing the playing venue.)
I have played through three games as well (in the original descriptive notation).
The first was against Smyslov. The games and annotations were quite nice, but I have to confess that I have seen it annotated better (perhaps in Clarke's book).
The second game was a nice win against Spassky circa 1969. Again the game was great, but the annotations weren't in depth like I would have liked.
The third game I played through was worth the price of the book. It's the last game in the book and an epic struggle with Larsen at San Antonio 1972. Petrosian actually annotates this one himself (from the magazine 64)!!! The annotations are not only great, but there is also some nice practical advice.
One line that I particularly liked was something like this:
Petrosian sacrificed a pawn in the opening and was running out of threats.
"... somehow White's initiative had dried up, and he had nothing for the pawn. But then I remembered an ancient truth: many players, sacrificing a pawn, lose because they play as if they had lost it, rather than deliberately parted with it."
In other words, keep your head together and don't get discouraged. Just keep trying to play the right moves, and most importantly keep in a winning frame of mind.
Great advice from a World Champion !!!
This isn't a full review, just some insights into the book.
Back to Top