My Great Predecessors 3 Petrosian & Spassky

Descripción

My Great Predecessors 3 Petrosian & Spassky is rereleased in paperback and hardcover, enhanced in every way, with high-quality print, modern fonts and an upgraded visual style.

Part III covers the ninth and tenth World Champions: Tigran Petrosian (1963–1969) and Boris Spassky (1969–1972) and a time where there was no dominant player in the chess world.

Garry Kasparov, the 13th World Chess Champion (1985–2000) “is the greatest player who’s ever lived” – Magnus Carlsen

My Great Predecessors 3

This volume is devoted to the lives and games of two chess kings from the sixties and seventies of the last century – Petrosian and Spassky, as well as their outstanding opponents

– Gligoric, Polugayevsky, Portisch and Stein. In the introduction to the second volume I wrote that a genuine revolution in chess was accomplished by every fi fth world champion:

Steinitz (1st) – Botvinnik (6th) – Fischer (11th). Steinitz created a school of positional play, and Botvinnik – a system of preparing for competitions and sharp opening set-ups,

whereby Black, ignoring classical rules, immediately disturbs the positional equilibrium and strives to seize the initiative. With the next four champions – Smyslov, Tal,

Petrosian & Spassky

Petrosian and Spassky – the theory of the game developed along the lines of the Botvinnik era, which thereby continued to the late 1960s.

In the early 1970s the next revolutionary spurt was made by Fischer, essentially laying the foundation of present-day professional chess.

Nominally the Botvinnik era ended in 1963, when the champion of many years lost his match to Petrosian and opted out of any further contests for the chess crown.

Soon after this Botvinnik wrote in Chess World (1964 No.2): ‘It seems to me that in chess the time of geniuses has passed. In their time Morphy, Steinitz, Lasker,

Capablanca and Alekhine were defi nitely superior to their contemporaries, and in particular by talent. Nowadays with talent alone you cannot exist: also required are health,

My Great Predecessors 3

a strong-willed competitive character and, fi nally, special preparation. A few decades ago the natural selection of the strongest players occurred among a comparatively narrow

circle of people, and there were not many such players – their names are known to everyone. But now the mass base of chess is so great, that there are many very strong players

– at present it is crowded on the chess Olympus. A good dozen grandmasters are distinguished by striking talent, and enviable health, and fi ghting character, and deep special preparation.

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