<Whenever I heard or read that Botvinnik the tactician was much inferior to Botvinnik the strategist, I felt a sense of protest rising up inside me All chess players make mistakes. Certainly, Botvinnik, too, has occasionally committed tactical oversights, but the chess rumor-mill has assigned exaggerated importance to these. The truth is that sometimes, one wants to see weaknesses where there are none, to be convinced that one's heroes are not superhuman, and that they have their weaknesses; and in such cases, one's wishes soon start to replace the reality. Botvinnik, famous for his self-criticism, has himself sometimes made reference to this so-called weakness of his. Thus, in his book on the return match with Smyslov in 1959, he several times points out tactical errors committed by him. For example, he writes "Here once again, my old ailment showed itself-weak combinational vision."

So there we have it. Botvinnik's organic weakness is clear. We can form our plan of campaign. We need to choose sharp opening set-ups, trying from the first few moves to create a situation on the board that is full of mutual tactical dangers. And once we do that, logic suggests that Botvinnik's old weakness will come to haunt him, he will make mistakes, and we will take him barehanded. A tempting prospect!

"But excuse me" the voice of reason suddenly interrupts. "Isn't it the case that Botvinnik is the author of many brilliant tactical victories, such as those against Rauzer, Alekhine, Vidmar and Capablanca?"

'That was a long time ago, in his youth, when a player's tactical abilities are at their best'

"I'm not convinced! No chess player who was lacking confidence in his tactical abilities could invent such a line as the Botvinnik System in the Queen's Gambit Declined. After all, in that line, everything hinges on a very non-standard assessment of the position, and on deep calculation of the tactical peculiarities of the position."

game 5 v botvinnik 1963 sublime ending

game 7 v spassky 1966 exchange sac for massive attack

game 10 v spassky 1966 2 exchange sacs for massive attack plus a q sac at the end-i give this in the times chess column today saturday april 30

game 2 v fischer 1971 also nice exchange sac

Fischer said in the early 1960s that Petrosian would have been the strongest player in the world if he would have played more boldly.

i'd actually seen all those games before, petrosian being my favorite gm, but none of them are actually titled by cg as "petrosian's immortal", so it seemed to me that there was no consensus.

but thanks again!

If the word "immortal" can refer to a masterpiece which will keep its place in chess history as a masterpiece, here are two immortal masterpieces on Petrosians's part:

Petrosian vs Unzicker, 1960

What would this man's legacy be had Sofia rules existed during his time?>

Correct pronunciation of his name-

i'm not sure if i agree with that. kasparov's immortal didn't have any particularly beautiful ideas from topalov. Kasparov vs Topalov, 1999

<Petrosianic>: i know of two modern players that have "immortals". (or at least, they're titled that by cg, though these two games do seem to stand out among their best games.) karpov's immortal: Karpov vs Topalov, 1994

At the age of 16, I read through Chernev's book <Greatest Dozen Chess Players>(Is that the correct title?), where he annotated several of Petrosian's games. He also had a section on Petrosian's style in <Chess Companion>.

I was so amazed by these games that I immediately became a follower of Petrosian. Combined with Lasker, Capablanca, Nimzowitsch and Fischer, and you can imagine what kind of style I had.