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Tigran V Petrosian vs Viktor Korchnoi
Korchnoi - Petrosian Candidates Quarterfinal (1977), Il Ciocco ITA, rd 8, Mar-21
Queen's Indian Defense: Fianchetto. Check Variation Intermezzo Line (E15)  ·  0-1

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Kibitzer's Corner
Oct-11-04  offramp: 33.e4, a strange blunder. He probably meant to play 33.R1c2 first and then forgot about it. It may have lost him the match.
Oct-11-04  tex: 33. e4?? is a blunder but 37. Rc4??? is a crime. Was Petrosian drunk?
Oct-11-04  who: Is 34...dxe4 a mistake (would Rd8 be better?)? If not (though I don't see why not), then 33.e4 might have been o.k..
Oct-11-04  tex: <who> yes, 34..dxe4?? was Korchnoi's blunder. I guess players were experiencing serious time trouble. Or that or vodka. First Petrosian gives exchange away, than Korchnoi offers it back but Petrosian doesn't take it. And all that in a candidates match!? Best part is, this game decieded the whole match. Unbelivable
Feb-13-05  Flyboy216: Why the resign? Won't both sides queen in 7 moves?
Feb-13-05  euripides: <Fly> Black queens before White (in 6 moves) and can therefore swap the queens, winning with the g pawn.
Feb-23-05  Flyboy216: <euripides> Ahh... it seems pawns can move TWO places on their first hop. Who knew? :)
Feb-23-05  euripides: <Fly> Korchnoi must have been boning up on the rules after being caught out in Korchnoi vs Karpov, 1974 ;)
Apr-08-05  lopium: He blundered because of the ambiance, the atmosphere of the match.
Apr-08-05  weirdoid: I once read an article in an old chess magazine (I don't remember which magazine), about Viktor's biography, saying that this match - not just this one game - was particularly blunder-ridden. Interestingly, score-wise (6.5 - 5.5 for Viktor), it was the closest match he fought in that cycle (he later crushed Polugaevsky 8.5 - 4.5 and convincingly beat Spassky 10.5 - 7.5 in relatively less blunder-filled matches, and Polugaevsky was said to be haunted by that defeat for the rest of his life).
Apr-08-05  weirdoid: Speaking of blunders in this match, you may also want to see Petrosian vs Korchnoi, 1977 - behold and enjoy the last two moves!
Apr-08-05  Kangaroo: Being a fan of Korchnoy, I nonetheless have to mention that if Petrosyan played 22. f4 first and then after 22 ... Bf6 (or 22 ... Bh6) advanced the pawn 23. e4, his chances would have been slightly better than in the game.
May-11-14
Premium Chessgames Member
  Tabanus: http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/... cites BCM (May 1980 issue) and notes that this game was played on Korchnoi's birthday 23 March. But that was game 9: Korchnoi vs Petrosian, 1977. This game started 21 March.
May-11-14  Howard: The May 1980 issue of BCM (which I have) gives good coverage of that match, mentioning that Petrosian had won positions in 3-4 games but couldn't convert any of them---he even lost one of them.
Jun-30-15  RookFile: What a strange game. And it was an incredibly important victory for Korchnoi, too, in this match.
Jul-01-15  cunctatorg: Or it was the dynamic unconscious and Tigran Vartanovich Petrosian's guilts...; Korchnoi offered the exchange back but Petrosian did confirm his earlier "declaration", that's an alternative way to read all that!!
Sep-19-15  Howard: Petrosian did indeed blunder the exchange on move 33, but then a few moves later Korchnoi himself made a serious mistake which would have given Petrosian good drawing chances...but Petrosian overlooked that.

Can't recall the exact place in the game though

Sep-19-15  RookFile: The position after 50....Qd5+ is interesting. It turns out that no matter what white plays, he cannot prevent black from engineering a trade of queens.
May-26-16  Howard: To further elaborate a bit on the twin mistakes around move 35, when this game was annotated by Mednis in CL&R, he pointed out, naturally, the horrendous mistake Petrosian made in losing the exchange on Move 33...

...but he failed (at first) to point out how Korchnoi "returned the favor" shortly later. But, in the following issue of CL&R, Korchnoi's error was pointed out.

May-27-16  Granny O Doul: Korchnoi said that the quality of play in this match was about 2350 level.
Jun-07-20  andrewjsacks: To see Petrosian misjudge an exchange sac is a rarity indeed.
Jun-07-20  SChesshevsky: <To see Petrosian misjudge an exchange sac is a rarity...>

True. Also kind of surprised he was the one to seem impatient with 33. e4 when he looked better.

Think he just goofed 37. Rc4. Maybe in time trouble he remembered the line had a tempo on the queen but went to the wrong square. Given any time, not hard to see the same tempo 37. Rd1 Qf6 38. Bxc8 Rxc8 30. Rd7+ and probably can't lose.

Jun-07-20  ZonszeinP: The quality of the games etc
Could have been affected by the fact that these two real outstanding players used to be friends less than a decade ago and now, They were real enemies (which is sad)

Petrosian was very upset and frutration corroded him

It's hard to play like that

Jun-19-20  N.O.F. NAJDORF: I'm surprised that Petrosian did not resign five moves earlier, since it was already clear that his a-pawn could not queen, on account of the a8 square being covered by Black's h-pawn having queened on h1.

I was wondering why Korchnoi returned the exchange, as it left him only a pawn up. I couldn't believe that he had returned his opponent's blunder.

You can see why it is so difficult to play against computer programs - they are programmed not to blunder.

Jun-28-20  Howard: Regarding Korchnoi’s returning the exchange, around the 50th move, that gave him a completely won position...so why not.

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