Petrosian only did what he needed to "save" the game, which eventually actually won it >

I couldn't disagree with you more. The first finesse was that Petrosian was slow to castle kingside. Next, we have Petrosian leaving the rook on g4, to be taken by knight or bishop, upon demand. Nobody - nobody - had as skillful of a judgement of these types of exchange sacs as Petrosian.

It was not obvious, for example, that Spassky's counter-attack, with 26. e4 would not work. It's by far the best chance for counterplay.

Consider the story above, where you have, even Mikhail Tal, at some point, saying that Spassky is better.

44..Qf4

41..?

as a puzzle some (Tues?)day to see the analysis of what would happen if the sac is not accepted.

since i was a juvenile chess-student i studied several's Petrosian's games...

He's well know like a defensive player, a little "boring"... is same way this is true, but Tigran had had a very deep positional sense, even Botvinnik admited how much was difficoult to understand his mind working's way... and when he choiced to go for sacrifice, was dangerous and creative like Tal....( unfortunatly, he didnt very often goes to...)

By my side I always considered the armenian one of the best ever player..

Fischer and Kasparov too declared in several occasions how much they admired and respected this player

Bogoljubov vs M Monticelli, 1930

OK,... they are not exactly the same

toghether with:
Botvinnik-Bronstein 1951
Botvinnik-Tal 1960 (the first)

........... this before Kasparov burst into the championship match field!

but watching this point without any kind of limitation, would i like to add that the

Steinitz-Anderson 1866

and the

Steinitz-Zukertort 1886

were fantastic too....