Mikhail Tal

File:Mikhailtal.jpg

Mikhail Tal

Mikhail Nekhemievich Tal (IPA: [mʲixa'iɫ̺ n̻ʲɛ'xɛmjɛvʲiʨ t̺al̻ʲ], Latvian: Mihails Tāls, Russian: Михаил Нехемьевич Таль) (November 9 1936 - June 28 1992), born in Riga, Latvia, was a Jewish Latvian chess player and the eighth World Chess Champion.

Career

Early years

Tal learned to play chess at the age of eight after watching his father play, and soon started to attend the chess club at the Riga Palace of Young Pioneers. His play was not exceptional at first, but he worked hard at the game, and he began to receive tuition from Alexander Koblentz in 1949. He then improved quickly reaching the final of the Latvian Championship in 1951. He competed again in 1952, finishing ahead of his trainer, and won the tournament for the first time in 1953, thereby earning the title of candidate master.

Soviet champion

He qualified for the USSR Chess Championship in 1956, finishing joint fifth, and became the youngest player to win it the following year, at the age of twenty. He had not played in enough international tournaments to qualify for the title of grandmaster, but FIDE decided to waive the normal restrictions and award him the title anyway because of his achievement in winning the Soviet Championship.

He retained the Soviet Championship the following year, and competed in the World Chess Championship for the first time. He won the interzonal tournament at Portorož, then helped the Soviet Union to retain the Chess Olympiad.

World champion

After the interzonal, the top players carried on to the Candidates Tournament, 1959. Tal showed superior form by winning with 20 / 28 points, ahead of Paul Keres with 18.5, followed by Petrosian, Smyslov, Gligoric, Fischer, Fridrik Olafsson and Pal Benko. Tal's victory was much attributed to his dominance over the lower half of the field -- winning all four individual games against Bobby Fischer, and taking 3½ of the other three.

In 1960, at the age of 24, Tal defeated the relatively staid and strategic Mikhail Botvinnik in a World Championship match, making him the youngest ever world champion (a record later broken by Garry Kasparov, who earned the title at 22). Botvinnik won the return match against Tal in 1961 after a lengthy study of Tal's style. Tal's chronic kidney problems may also have contributed to his defeat. His short reign atop the chess world made him one of the two so-called "winter kings" (the other was Vasily Smyslov) that broke up Botvinnik's long domination (1948–1963).

His highest ELO rating was 2705 achieved in 1980, his highest Historical Chessmetrics Rating was 2799, in September 1960.

Later Achievements

After he lost his title back to Botvinnik, Tal played in several Candidates Tournaments. In 1965, he lost the final against Boris Spassky, 1968 the semi-final against Viktor Korchnoi, and 1980 the quarter-final against Lev Polugaevsky.

He was a six-time winner of the Soviet Championship (1957, 1958, 1967, 1972, 1974, 1978), a number that is only equaled by Botvinnik. He was also a five-time winner of the International Chess Tournament in Tallinn, Estonia, with victories in 1971, 1973, 1977, 1981, and 1983.

One of Tal's greatest achievements during his later career was an equal first place with Anatoly Karpov in the 1979 Montreal "Tournament of Stars". In 1988, at the age of 52, he became World Champion in Blitz chess.

In Olympiad play, Mikhail Tal won 59 games, drew 32 games, and lost only 2 games. He played close to 3,000 tournament games, winning over 65 percent of the time.

Health Problems

Throughout his career he suffered from bad health and had to be hospitalized frequently. He was a chain smoker, a heavy drinker, and also for a time suffered from a morphine addiction. His untimely death is related to these problems.

On June 28 1992 Mikhail Tal died of kidney failure in a Moscow hospital.

Playing Style

Tal loved the game in itself and considered that "Chess, first of all, is Art." He was capable of playing numerous blitz games against unknown or relatively weak players purely for the joy of playing.

Known as "The Magician from Riga", Tal can be considered as the archetype of the attacking player, developing an extremely powerful and imaginative play. His approach over the board was very pragmatic - in that respect, he is one of the heirs of the ex-World Champion Emanuel Lasker. He often sacrificed material in search for the initiative in chess, which is defined by the ability to make threats to which the opponent must respond. With such intuitive sacrifices, he created vast complications, and many masters found it impossible to solve all the problems he created over the board, though deeper post-game analysis found flaws in some of his conceptions. Although this playing style was scorned by ex-World Champion Vasily Smyslov as nothing more than "tricks", Tal convincingly beat every notable grandmaster with his trademark aggression. Viktor Korchnoi and Paul Keres are two of the few with a significant plus record against him.

Of the current top-level players, the Latvian-born Spaniard Alexei Shirov has probably been most influenced or inspired by Tal's sacrificial style. In fact he studied with Tal as a youth. Many other Latvian grandmasters and masters, for instance Alexander Shabalov and Alvis Vitolins, have played in a similar vein, causing some to speak of a "Latvian School of Chess". However, it has been reported that partly this style is related to an unusual rule for moving knights in that region, where they are unable to move backwards, only forwards; this forces unusual strategies on players.

Quotes On Chess

• "Some sacrifices are sound; the rest are mine."
• "To play for a draw, at any rate with White, is to some degree a crime against chess."
• "If (Black) is going for victory, he is practically forced to allow his opponent to get some kind of well-known positional advantage."
• "It is also important to remember that he was a real chess gentleman during games. He was always very fair and very correct." (On Bobby Fischer)
• "I drink, I smoke, I gamble, I chase girls -- but postal chess is one vice I don't have."

Notable chess games

• Robert James Fischer vs Mikhail Tal, Beograd ct 1959, Sicilian, Fischer-Sozin with ...a6 and ...b5 (B87), 0-1 In 1959, Bobby Fischer was too young to play with Tal with success. Still, their games from the time are full of interesting tactics.
• Mikhail Botvinnik vs Mikhail Tal, Moscow 1960, 6th game of the match, King's Indian, Fianchetto, Classical Main line (E69), 0-1 An excellent sample of Tal style from the first Botvinnik-Tal match. Tal sacrifices a Knight for the attack and Botvinnik is not able to find a good defence in the given time - his 25th move is a mistake spoiling the game for him.
• Boris Spassky vs Mikhail Tal, Tallinn tt 1973, Nimzo-Indian, Leningrad (E30), 0-1 A game fuelled with tactics from its first moves. Black attacks in the centre and then starts a King chase.

Writings

Although he has not published much, Tal became also known as an exceptional chess writer who did not provide an abundance of variations but was able to communicate the intuition behind his reasoning to the reader. His account of his successful World Championship match against Botvinnik is regarded by many as one of the best chess publications ever.

• Tal, Mikhail (1997). The Life and Games of Mikhail Tal. Everyman Chess. ISBN 1-85744-202-4.
• Tal, Mikhail (2001). Tal-Botvinnik, 1960. Russell Enterprises. ISBN 1-888690-08-9.

Further reading

• Tal, Mikhail, Iakov Damsky and Ken Neat (tr.) (1994). Attack with Mikhail Tal. Everyman Chess. ISBN 1-85744-043-9.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Gallagher, Joe (2001). The Magic of Mikhail Tal. Everyman Chess. ISBN 1-85744-266-0. This covers Tal's career post 1975, and can therefore be seen as a sort of sequel to Tal's own autobiography and games collection, which covers his career up to that point.
• Winter, Edward G. (ed.) (1981). World chess champions. Pergamon. ISBN 0-08-024904-1. {{cite book}}: |author= has generic name (help)
• Chernev, Irving (1995). Twelve Great Chess Players and Their Best Games. Dover. ISBN 0-486-28674-6.
• Clarke, Peter H. (1991). Mikhail Tal – Master of Sacrifice. B.T.Batsford Ltd. ISBN 0-7134-6899-8.

External links

• A biographical article on Tal
• Mikhail Tal player profile and games at Chessgames.com