AThe Guardian London, Greater London, England Saturday, August 07, 1971 - Page 14
Chess: The Man Who Waits by Leonard Barden
Petrosian, the former world champion, has a reputation for negative, waiting play which, coupled with indifferent tournament results, meant that he was never really accepted as the best player in the world while he held the title. After Fischer's crushing defeats of Taimanov and Larsen, the young American will start the hottest of favorites to sweep Petrosian aside in the final eliminator and so qualify to meet Spassky for the championship next spring. Yet, while Fischer has been winning by what Botvinnik in a recent article ironically called his “standard score” of 6-0. Petrosian has quietly fulfilled his own norm of a 1-0 win over Huebner and Korchnoi.
At first sight Petrosian's draws even with the white pieces put little pressure on his opponents: but Huebner resigned the match as soon as Petrosian took the lead while Korchnoi was not only well beaten in this week's game but would also have lost the final game of the series had Petrosian bothered to play it but Botvinnik in his article in the magazine “64,” pays tribute to Fischer's successes but also mentions the American's vulnerability in a crisis. Fischer, says Botvinnik, has yet to face real pressure in the current world title series and it remains to be seen whether he is more resilient than when he withdrew from the 1967 interzonal.
Fischer has always wanted the challengers' matches to be for the first player to win six games rather than a fixed series of ten or twelve encounters. The margin of his wins over Taimanov and Larsen seem to mock Fischer's own fears that the fixed series is too short, but the Petrosian match will be different: Petrosian will settle to be the first to win one, then try to close up the match with half points. Petrosian has lost only twice in his last 61 games, though these were both to Fischer (in the Russia v. World match last year). It is to say the least, arguable that Fischer's bright hopes of the world title will be more at risk in a dozen games against Petrosian than in 24 against Spassky—but we shall see when the match takes place in September. Meanwhile, here is the win which broke Korchnoi's resistance.
