Tigran Petrosian

Attributed

• "One must beware of unnecessary excitement."

• "Some consider that when I play I am excessively cautious, but it seems to me that the question may be a different one. I try to avoid chance. Those who rely on chance should play cards or roulette. Chess is something quite different."

• "They say my chess games should be more interesting. I could be more interesting - and also lose."

• "It does not really matter, as long as it is an extra one." (on which was his favorite chess piece)

• "I know I am not on form when the best move is not the one that first comes to my mind."

About

• "With the initiative Petrosian often played like a python, squeezing and squeezing the victim until he was almost happy to resign. When the chances were balanced, Petrosian was like a mongoose deflecting every thrust." – Larry Parr

• "Petrosian was a player who spent more time considering his opponent’s possibilities than his own." – Paul Keres

• "He was perfectly aware that by losing half a point in some tournament he could anger his bosses, thereby cutting himself off from international competitions. It happened to some of his colleagues - the far more daring Tal, for example - and Petrosian did not want to be just another victim at the hands of Baturinsky, Krogius and the like. Therefore all his fantastic talent was eaten up by never-ending calculations - he knew exactly, long before the tournament, with whom he would draw the games and whom he would beat. Today's formula of a super-pragmatic chess player "plus 4, or plus 5" started with Petrosian." – Lev Khariton

• "It was really hard to play Tigran. The thing is that he had a somewhat different understanding of positional play. He went deeper into it than usual, and myself, a universal player, did not completely understand Tigran’s way and depth of judgment, although I was judging all positions well." – Mikhail Botvinnik (on their '63 match)

• "The depth of Tigran’s approach to chess is the direct consequence of his clear mind and his rare insight into general aspects of chess, into subtleties of chess tactics and strategy. Petrosian performed a special kind of art in creating harmonious positions that were full of life, where apparent absence of superficial dynamism was compensated by enormous inner energy. Every subtle change in the position was always taken into consideration in the context of a complex strategy that was not obvious to his opponents." – Garry Kasparov