The International Chess Federation (FIDE) declared 2004 as the year of Tigran Petrossyan, legendary Armenian chess player.

Petrossyan was the 9th World Chess Champion. He took first place at the 1962 Curacao Candidates tournament to become the challenger for the world chess championship.

In 1963 Petrossyan challenged Mikhail Botvinnik for the World Championship and won with 5 wins, 15 draws, and 2 losses.

He was born on June 17, 1929 in Tbilisi, Georgia, of Armenian parents. In 1946 he moved from Tbilisi to Yerevan and that year won his first Armenian Championships. In 1948 he repeated his success.

In 1949 he moved to Moscow and in 1951, 1956 and 1968 won the Moscow Championships.

Petrossyan was USSR Champion in 1959 and 1961 and in 1966 defeated Boris Spassky to remain World Champion.

In April 1969 Petrossyan lost the crown to Spassky.

Petrossyan played more than 2,500 games, winning more than 62 percent of points. His peak rating was 2680.

On August 13, 1984 he died from cancer in Moscow.

Chess (FIDE Rankings)

Four grandmasters representing Armenia are on the FIDE list of the Top 100 players released January 1.

The best chess player of Armenia is Vladimir Hakobyan, who holds 19th position in the rankings with 2693 points (best chess player in the world Garry Kasparov has 2831 points). He is followed by Smbat Lputyan, who takes 58th place with 2634 points. Grandmaster Rafael Vaganyan is 74th with 2623 points. And finally Gabriel Sargsyan completes the list of Armenian chess player in the FIDE rating with 2618 points, 78th place.

Armenian women's chess has only one representative in FIDE list of best 50 women chess players. Grandmaster Elina Danielyan takes 32nd place in the rankings with 2428 points.