World Chess Championship 1963

In the World Chess Championship 1963 Petrosian sparked by a race victory against Mikhail Botvinnik the result as a world chess champion.

Candidates tournament

Petrosian had qualified by winning the 1962 Candidates Tournament for Curacao to challenge the world champion in a match. The candidates tournament was held with eight participants, of which the valley and Keres were set and Fischer, Geller, Petrosian, Korchnoi, Filip, Benkő had qualified Interzonal in Stockholm in 1962. Each participant had to play four times against each other. Petrosian won with 17.5 points out of 28 games against Keres and Geller, each with 17 points. The first three led their games to each other all relatively quickly sheds, which was sharply criticized after the tournament by Fischer as " unfair agreement ".

World Cup battle

The race for the championship was scheduled for 24 games. Case of a tie after 24 games Botvinnik would retain his world title. The match took place from March 23, 1963 to May 20, 1963 in Moscow. Referees were Stahlberg and Golombek.

Botvinnik won the first game with black because Petrosian played too passive as white in the Carlsbad structure and fell into an attack. Petrosian equalized in the fifth game and went to the seventh game of the lead. There followed six sheds until Botvinnik tying the fourteenth game. But immediately afterwards Petrosian won the fifteenth game and after that the eighteenth and nineteenth what Botvinnik no attempt was made by, nor to turn the match.