Tigran Petrosian - Deafness

Deafness

Petrosian was partially deaf and wore a hearing aid during his matches, which sometimes led to strange situations. On one occasion he offered a draw to Svetozar Gligorić, which Gligorić initially refused in surprise, but then changed his mind in a few seconds and re-offered the draw. However, Petrosian did not even respond, instead went ahead and won the game. As it later turned out, he switched off his hearing aid, and did not hear when Gligorić re-offered the draw. In 1971, he played a candidates match against Robert Hübner in a noisy area in Seville, which did not disturb him, but frustrated Hübner so much that he finally withdrew from the match.