I think Bronstein mentioned that in <The Sorcerer's Apprentice>. The "rationale" was that Botvinnik would face fewer of the toughest players that way. I don't know if the story is true or not.

I do not think that the Russians were lying. Fischer's complaint was legitimate but that does not explain his poor results, as Karpov says, people do not win tournaments by drawing. I think Fischer was simply not in the same class as the top trio. Here are the results:

Petrosian 2.5 - 1.5 Fischer
Geller 2.5 - 1.5 Fischer
Keres 2.0 - 2.0 Fischer

For somebody who claimed that he was the true challenger and the best player around that was poor. Also I would not count Tal (during that period) or Filip (Fischer scored 3 of his 8 wins against these two) among "the world's best". It was a shame that the number of Soviet players was restricted just imagine the tournament with Spassky instead of Filip!

Fischer lost 7 games in this tournament. How many lost positions did he get into but manage to save?

At least three: the game with Benko, the second cycle game with Korchnoi, and the 4th cycle game with Geller.

Nothing else leaps immediately to mind (his 4th cycle games with Keres and Petrosian were very difficult, but I'm not sure if he was provably lost in either one). Even so, 10 lost positions in 27 rounds is an awful lot to base an "I shoulda won" campaign around. Anybody who finds that performance comparable to Fischer 1972 isn't looking very hard.

But of course there is a big, big difference between being worse at some stage and losing. Fischer in 1972 was very hard to put away.

I don't think there was anything accidental about it. He couldn't find anything, and so allowed a repetition rather than lower himself to offer a draw.

There were several creative drawing methods in that match. Which was the game (Game 20? maybe) where Fischer asked the referee to check for repetition (in a position where there clearly was none), and while he was doing that, Spassky signed the scoresheets?

Alexander Koblents >

"The Fabulous 70s: 3 Chess People and a Beautiful Woman … Plus, Petrosian Tidbits"

http://nezhmet.wordpress.com/2008/0...

Maybe it's a little odd but I decided to paste the "Tigran Petrosian tidbits" part on his page, i.e. here

<Tigran Petrosian Tidbits

1.He was born in Tbilisi, Georgia, but was 100% Armenian.

2.Tigran's dad was a refugee from Turkey.

3.Tigran left Georgia when he was 17.

4.Tigran journeyed 160 miles to Yerevan, Armenia.

5.Before she got married to Tigran, Rona was an English teacher.

6.Tigran had two sons, Mikhail and Vartan.

7.Petrosian also enjoyed checkers, cards, and an Armenian backgammon variant called Nardy. He also played ping ping and billiards.

8.He liked to watch ice hockey and soccer.

9.He was a supporter of club Spartak and played first board for Spartak chess team.

10.His main hobby was philately (stamp collecting) MG Note: just as it is Anatoly Karpov's! He liked to collect art stamps and chess stamps.

11.He used to attend the opera regularly.

12.He was awarded the honorary Master of Sport title [MG: relatively late?!] in 1960.

13.He was chief editor of '64' chess magazine when this interview was conducted in 1976.

14.If he won a prize abroad, he could keep some of it and give some of it back to the state (the USSR).

15.He was impressed by young Seirawan at Lone Pine 1976. Apparently young Yasser managed to beat Tigran in a friendly skittles game (one of several they played) although Tigran pointed out "I was not serious, I was having fun. "MG Note: You wouldn't see Fischer very light-hearted after a skittles loss.

16.He reiterates his belief that ".. in chess there is nothing accidental. I believe only in logical, correct play."

17.On Fischer: "[he] tries to make the opponent play something other than the best move, than he - in turn - does make the best move"

18."Everything in chess is rather wooden - wooden pieces, wooden problems, wooden decisions."

19.Petrosian in 1976 rated Ljubojevic's chances of becoming a world championship contender as higher than Mecking's, although both GMs were at that time young superstars. He also mentioned Ulf Andersson and he stated "I hope he will awaken one day" (!)

20.Petrosian received a PhD in 1968 from Yerevan State University >

http://www.chesscorner.com/worldcha... <Tigran Vartanovich Petrosian was born in 1929 in Tbilisi, Georgia of Armenian parents. His parents died before he was 16 and he found consolation in chess.... >

I regret very much that nobody ever seems to have asked him what he thought about her performance in <The Great Race>, particularly the scene where she got involved in the greatest pie fight in the whole history of foreverness:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0BO...

Garry Kasparov: <And I even learned, you know, later Plisetsky found that in early sixties, before playing Botvinnik, Petrosian studied Rubinstein games.>