Archive for the ‘Petrosian’ Category

Chess Nut

July 6, 2007

Making the Right Moves, from the Board to the Boardroom

Garry Kasparov’s How Life Imitates Chess, scheduled to be published here in the States in the fall, has some entertaining stories.   Like Boris Spassky, the tenth world champion, advising Kasparov, the thirteenth world champion, that the way to defeat Tigran Petrosian, the ninth world champion, was not to attack the hell out of him (Petrosian was an expert at repelling sharp thrusts) but rather to press him continuously and methodically:

“He counseled me that the key was to apply pressure, but just a little, steadily.  ‘Squeeze his balls,’ he told me in an unforgettable turn of phrase. ‘But just squeeze one, not both!'”

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