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Mikhail Nekhemievich Tal (Михаил Нехемиевич Тал) (November 9 1936 - June 28 1992), born in Riga, Latvia, was the eighth World Chess Champion.
Know as "The Magician from Riga", Tal can be considered as the archetype of the attacking player, developping a extremely powerful and imaginative play. His approach over the board was very pragmatic : in that respect, he is one of the heir of the ex World Champion Emmanuel Lasker.
He often sacrificed material in the search for initiative—in chess defined as the ability to make threats to which the opponent must respond. His first and most influential trainer was Alexander Koblentz.
Tal's playing style was scorned by ex-World Champion Vassily Smyslov as nothing more than "tricks," yet he convincingly beat every notable grandmaster with his trademark aggression. Tal's intuitive sacrifices 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 his conceptions.
But the point was elsewhere : Tal loved the game in itself and considering that "Chess, firt of all, is Art" : He was capable of playing numerous blitz games against unknown or relatively weak players for the sole joy of playing !
Tal's dominance over Bobby Fischer in his early years helped his rise to the top. 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 Gary 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.
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" - there he delivered a superb performance against many of the strongest grandmasters of the day.
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."
Quotes
- "If you wait for luck to turn up, life becomes very boring."
- "There are two types of sacrifices - sound ones and mine."
- "Chess is better than checkers. In the very least it has a more interesting cast of characters."
- "...Just as one's imagination is stirred by a girl's smile, so is one's imagination stirred by the possibilities of chess."
- Many sacrifices dont require concrete calculation at all. It is sufficient to only glance at the arising position to convince us that the sacrifice is correct.
- "The pieces must breathe deeply and with a full chest !"
- Extraordinarily tense, full-blooded struggles that are absolutely without any mistakes are only to be found in distant interplanetary chess tournaments.
Further reading
- The Life and Games of Mikhail Tal by Mikhail Tal, ISBN 1857442024
- Twelve Great Chess Players and Their Best Games by Irving Chernev; Dover; August 1995. ISBN 0486286746
External link
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