Tigran Vartanovich Petrosian 9thclassical world champ (1963-1969) Tigran Vartanovich Petrosian…aka Iron Tigran. Tigran Vartanovich Petrosian Tigran Vartanovich Petrosian was born on 17 June 1929in Tbilisi, Georgia and died on 13 August 1984 in Moscow, Russia. He was world champ from 1963–1969 Tigran Vartanovich Petrosian was a Soviet Armenian Grandmaster, and World Chess Champion from 1963 to 1969. He was nicknamed "Iron Tigran" due to his almost impenetrable defensive playing style, which emphasized safety above all else. Petrosian is credited with popularizing chess in Armenia. As a young boy, Petrosian was an excellent student and enjoyed studying, as did his brother Hmayak and sister Vartoosh. He learned to play chess at the age of 8, though his illiterate father Vartan encouraged him to continue studying, as he thought chess was unlikely to bring his son any success as a career. Petrosian was orphaned during World War II and was forced to sweep streets to earn a living. It was about this time that his hearing began to deteriorate, a problem that afflicted him throughout his life. At age 12 he began training at the Tiflis Palace of Pioneers under the tutelage of Archil Ebralidze. By 1946, Petrosian had earned the title of Candidate Master. In that year alone, he drew against Grandmaster Paul Keres at the Georgian Chess Championship, then moved to Yerevan where he won the Armenian Chess Championship and the USSR Junior Chess Championship. Petrosian earned the title of Master during the 1947 USSR Chess Championship, though he failed to qualify for the finals. He set about to improve his game by studying Nimzowitsch's My System and by moving to Moscow to seek greater competition. He won the Soviet Championships four times (1959, 1961, 1969, and 1975), and was a member of the Soviet Olympiad team 10 times (between 1958-1978). Petrosian won the 1962 Candidates tournament (ahead of Mikhail Tal, Viktor Korchnoi, Bobby Fischer, and more chess legends), which gave him the right to challenge World Champion Mikhail Botvinnik the next year for the title. He prepared for this match by skiing every day, as he felt that this physical exercise would help his stamina in the long match to come. In 1963, Petrosian soundly defeated Botvinnik to become the ninth world chess champion. Trivia At the time of his death, Petrosian was working on a set of chess-related lectures and articles to be compiled in a book. These were edited by his wife Rona and published posthumously, in Russian under the title "Шахматные лекции Петросян" (1989) and in English as "Petrosian's Legacy" (1990). In 1987, World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov unveiled a memorial at Petrosian's grave which depicts the laurel wreath of World Champion and an image contained within a crown of the sun shining above the twin peaks of Mount Ararat – the national symbol of Petrosian's Armenian homeland. On July 7, 2006, a monument honouring Petrosian was opened in the Davtashen district of Yerevan, in the street named after Petrosian. Petrosian was also honoured on the Armenian dram, with his image on the 2,000 dram banknote https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tigran_Petrosian https://www.chess.com/players/tigran-petrosian .