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Tigran Petrosian vs Viktor Korchnoi
Curacao Candidates (1962), Willemstad AHO, rd 23, Jun-16
English Opening: Symmetrical. Anti-Benoni Variation (A31)  ·  1-0

ANALYSIS [x]

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Kibitzer's Corner
< Earlier Kibitzing  · PAGE 3 OF 3 ·  Later Kibitzing>
Feb-13-05  euripides: <ray> thanks, I was wondering if you might have heard anything.
Feb-13-05
Premium Chessgames Member
  keypusher: <ray keene> can you shed any light on the identity of T. Hemingway? He has three games in the database but they are all (as <Gypsy> noticed) quite amazing. One is a victory over Jonathan Speelman, although Speelman must have been very young at the time (1972).
May-19-05  woodenbishop: Korchnoi and Petrosian were enemies. I quote...

If many had little affection for slow, cautious Petrosian, one man, flamboyant Korchnoi, had a positive hatred. Korchnoi's autobiography CHESS IS MY LIFE (somewhat confusingly Karpov's autobiography has the same title) outlines the background. Korchnoi's complaint is table shaking. Korchnoi says that when he was considering his move during their 1974 Candidates match, Petrosian would cause the tablt to shake. When Korchnoi asked him to stop Petorsian objected to the controller that Korchnoi was upsetting him by talking.

-Ken Whyld

From his book CHESS RECORDS published by Guinness Superlatives Ltd. 1986

Jul-31-05  Helios727: <Ray Keene> Did he ever mention being ordered to throw any other games?
Jul-31-05  Perkins: Maybe Korchnoi just played one of his stragne Alekhinesque openings, got caught too far behind in development and got reamed.

It happens.

Oct-23-05
Premium Chessgames Member
  offramp:


click for larger view

Kortschnoi was a bit tired in this game - this was the 23rd round.

Aug-23-06  notyetagm: This is how you use your knights, centralizing them deep within enemy territory.

Position after 18 ♘e6!:


click for larger view

Jul-10-07  sanyas: Yes, clearly the best opening move is 1.♘e6!
Jan-01-08  whiteshark: 7...Qa5 with 9...Bb4 didn't work.

<7...Bg7 8.Bxc4 0-0 9.0-0 Bd7> looks more pleasing for black.


click for larger view

Jun-26-08  Ulhumbrus: 20 Nd4 comes with tempo, as it threatens the fork Nc6+
Feb-27-09  Riverbeast: Timman said on page 26 in his Curacao 1962 book that this game was a fix.

The exact quote is "A Russian former World Champion once told me that Korchnoi had been told to lose his game as black against Petrosian in Round 23"

Mar-06-09  Absentee: <Riverbeast: Timman said on page 26 in his Curacao 1962 book that this game was a fix.

The exact quote is "A Russian former World Champion once told me that Korchnoi had been told to lose his game as black against Petrosian in Round 23">

It wouldn't be surprising. It's a very un-petrosian like game.

Jun-24-09  Lt.Surena: Riverbeast: and Absentee:
For those who write or believe in this kind of trash, I suggest to stop riding the metro bus aimlessly like Bobby (with a worn out copy of 'I want to play/be like Bobby'). LMAO !!

You also can not cry anti-commie or anti-jew slogans all day long. LMAO !!

P.S. GM Keene denied hearing any of the nonsense you mention here in this web site. He was Victor's 2nd after defection.

Aug-15-10  Ulhumbrus: White develops rapidly innthe opening whilst Black neglects his own development. Following this White begins an attack by offering the pawn sacrifice 13 b4! This brings to mind the famous game Capablanca vs O Bernstein, 1914
Dec-31-10  wordfunph: <Riverbeast: Timman said on page 26 in his Curacao 1962 book that this game was a fix.

The exact quote is "A Russian former World Champion once told me that Korchnoi had been told to lose his game as black against Petrosian in Round 23">

i believe this is true..

Dec-31-10  Lt.Surena: What a crushing defeat ! Twice World Champion, Six times Soviet Champion (You can easily call them World Championships also).

Haters can reach out to Osama like the sore loser Bobby (*after losing freaking 7 games in Curacao)!

Aug-08-12  RookFile: It works out better for black if he castles before mixing it up.
Mar-07-14  zydeco: Obviously, I have no idea if this game was fixed or not. It doesn't make much sense for the Soviets to throw a game to Petrosian when, at this stage, the tournament could only have been won by a Soviet player, and even less sense for Geller to 'work out' the analysis and help one of his main rivals in the tournament. On the other hand, the Soviet commissar-types didn't always act particularly rationally; and sometimes, when they got bored (as they might have late in a long tournament), seemed to engineer results just for lack of anything better to do. At this point in the tournament, it looked like Keres might win, which would have been a less-than-desirable outcome. With the withdrawal of Tal, Korchnoi would have been one of the only players whom the Soviets were able to 'touch.' It's possible to imagine some party type coming up with the idea that Petrosian should get every possible advantage in the last cycle while Keres would face every possible obstacle. It's even possible to imagine Geller graciously offering to help Petrosian, while hurting his own tournament standing, for a 'higher purpose.' It's harder to imagine ornery Korchnoi going along with any of it.

Based on the game itself, Korchnoi's mistakes at least seem to have a certain 'logic' behind them -- i.e. they're mistakes that a rational player, trying to win a game, might make. The whole line is something Korchnoi would have felt very comfortable with -- he'd used it to beat Smyslov in his first 'grandmaster win' in 1952 and he'd won a messy game with it against Simagin in 1956. 7....Qa5 looks patzerish, but that turned out to be a useful idea in both of the earlier games, and Korchnoi could have justifiably felt that it made sense to play it earlier. In the earlier games, Korchnoi had developed his bishop to g7, but it makes sense to instead develop the bishop to b4 once white had forced the e-pawn to move. 10....a6 (instead of 10...0-0) is the first eyebrow-raising move, since black's fallen dangerously behind in development and Ndb5 isn't much of a threat. On the other hand, it's part of Korchnoi's style to try to 'sneak in' these sorts of useful positional moves. 12....Bxc3 is almost certainly better than 12....Be7 (black can't afford to waste a tempo; and has to get rid of a dangerous knight), but I suppose the ....Bb4-Be7 Nimzo-Indian was in style in the tournament so it's not totally unreasonable for Korchnoi to try and play this way. 13....Qe5 at least feels like an honest mistake: Korchnoi wanted to keep his queen centralized (not least because he would have remembered Simagin Ne6! sacrifice and having the queen on e5 seems to create some defensive counter-chances), and could have easily missed the fact that after 14.f4 Qxe3+ 15.Kh1 the queen will be lost to 15.Rf3. 18....b5 seems like the game's only truly suspicious move; why play this way if he's just going to resign after a knight check on c7 and Nxa8? 18....Ra7 at least temporarily keeps black in the game.

It's very hard to know what's really going on with these Soviet fixed games. Korchnoi definitely played a sub-standard game: 10....a6?! 11.....Nd7?! 12.....Be7?! 13....Qe5?! 18....b5?! but all those moves are sort of in his style. Most likely, there were a lot of countervailing schemes at this stage in the tournament; and, after the fact, Korchnoi (much like Bronstein reflecting on his 1951 match) decided that he'd been pressured to lose. Probably the more accurate way to phrase it is that he was induced to psych himself out.

Oct-25-16  Petrosianic: <Absentee>: <It wouldn't be surprising. It's a very un-petrosian like game.>

It seems that way at first glance. 15. Bxf7+ would be very un-Petrosianlike if the move were speculative. If you look at it closely enough to see that it wasn't speculative and that the combinations are calculable from Move 15, then it becomes a very Petrosian-like game. It's also a very Korchnoi-like game, in keeping with his style of egging his opponent to attack too rashly and then counter-punch. This is the kind of thing that happened when the approach backfired.

In the absence of any evidence for the idea and strong evidence against it, I'd have to conclude that the game was as legit as any of Fischer's wins, and suggestions to the contrary to be just more of the bad sportsmanship surrounding Curacao.

Feb-12-20  King.Arthur.Brazil: Before this game, in Korchnoi x Filip, there is an excentric opening where the white did 6 moves in 13, with his ♕ like a bad player (to provoke the opponent?), and the resulting position is:


click for larger view

Nevertheless, black failed in obtain effective advantage and, with time trouble-it seems-lost the game with a tactical strike. Luckiest Korch.

Therefore, in my oppinion, the Russian team could see Korchnoi like a childish player and with the vision of "don't disturbe", someone could say to him "as you don't mind about win the tournament, come on, you don't play like a big world champion now, against Petrosian! Don't compromess our team!" Which seem a reasonable posture, very different from "trow away the game with Petrosian".

However, for Korchnoi, this could sound very strange at that time. Maybe he had felt bad about it. Years after, when he became dissident, he let the story follow the wind, like a revange. It seems that he likes to be in the spotlights. Nothing better than "one said... he said".

Looking at all the games, even the ones from the previous interzonal, you can see Fischer, Tal, Korchnoi -among others- had scaping from bad positions and games, with ammazing tactics and direct attacks to opponents ♔, because they would had games over, if they didn't do it. They used small combinations, forks and traps to already save their games, exploring the small time for their opponents to complete the 40 mandatory moves. For example, the case of Keres, requiring that Benko did adjust the pieces that he made fall before, with his clock turn on again. While this, the flag came down and black lost the game. There was no fair play anyway!

For this reason, I believe that some things happened, but not in an exagerated way that was presented somewhere. Sorry

Feb-21-20
Premium Chessgames Member
  Breunor: I just played through this game; tremendous reminder of how incredible Petrosian was at this time! It’s just amazing how he combines tactics and incredible positional and knight moves. Great to see games from this great player!
Oct-10-21
Premium Chessgames Member
  kingscrusher: I don't know if engine technology has improved dramatically and this hasn't been seen before but it appears as though Bxf7+ could have been played at move 12 as a near knockout blow:

12: Tigran Vartanovich Petrosian - Viktor Korchnoi 1-0 23.0, Curacao Candidates 1962


click for larger view

Analysis by Stockfish 14:

1. +- (5.82): 12...Kxf7 13.Qb3+ Kg7 14.Nd5 Nc5 15.Qxb4 Qxb4 16.Nxb4 a5 17.Rxc5 axb4 18.Ra1 g5 19.Rb5 Ra4 20.b3 Ra3 21.Rxb4 Rd8 22.Rc4 Kg6 23.h3 h5 24.Rac1 Bf5 25.Nxf5

Something is not quite right about black's position from the opening

Mar-28-22
Premium Chessgames Member
  keypusher: From Vik Vasilev's book about Petrosian:

<Geller's position was worsened in that Petrosian won against Korchnoi on the same day [that Geller lost to Fischer], and with an elegant bishop sacrifice. Korchnoi had played the opening rather riskily, and then went into a line which gave Petrosian the opportunity of sacrificing a bishop for a dangerous attack. Korchnoi had relied on Petrosian playing 'safety first', and did not seriously consider the latter would undertake any so risky an operation at this stage of the tournament. But Tigran's tactical abilities were capable of allowing him to calculate all the consequences of the sacrifice, and he calmly delivered the knock-out blow. Six moves later Korchnoi resigned.>

Jun-25-22  Misha709600: The "Iron Tiger" is my all-time favorite player.
Aug-18-24  PaulPetrovitj: @ KingArthur, Brazil: Regarding the incident you bring up about the time scramble between Keres and Benko. According to the rules of chess, if a player overturns a piece when making his move, he has to adjust this piece before he presses his clock - not afterwards. Stands to reason, so Keres was completely within his rights to restart Benko's clock and demand that he should follow the rules. Strangely enough Benko acc. to his autobiography does not seem to have grasped that he was in violation of the rules, decades after the incident - almost incredible.
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