He lived with the torment of an artist living under a suppresive
regime.The system was such,that he was not the favorite son of the
Soviet chess system.He would not be allowed to fulfil his destiny to it's
fullest degree.You can bet that tremendous resources were devoted to
beat him after his victory over the good doctor.They only tolerated
him because he was "one of their own"
They never let him be "The Star"
We all see the sacs.Tal had the courage to play them.
Some Interesting Facts
* Youngest World Champion until Kasparov.
* Played in 8 Olympiads, 5 Best board Results, 3 times absolute best
score.
* 6 times USSR Champion.
* Lost only once to Kasparov & once to Karpov.
* A countback of ELO ratings revealed that Tal's rating during his
peak around 1960 would be 7th in the all time rankings with 2700
behind Fischer, Kasparov, Capablanca, Botvinnik, Lasker, & Karpov. In
fact in 1979 following his wins in Montreal & Riga he went up to 2710.
* 3rd in 1985 Interzonal thus qualifying for Candidates at 49
* Only 3 men played in both USSR-Rest of the World matches - Tal,
Larsen, & Polugaevsky.
Quotes about Tal
* If Tal had really studied Chess in the late fifties and early sixties he
would have been impossible to play against - Botvinnik
* How does Tal win? - He develops all his pieces in the centre and
then sacrifices them somewhere - Bronstein
* If Tal has an open file it will be mate - an onlooker at a Tal post
mortem analysis session.
Tal quotes
* "If you wait for luck to turn up, life becomes very boring."
* "There are two types of sacrifices - sound ones and mine."
* "To play for a draw is to some degree a crime against chess"
I've only recently (6 months now?) gotten "in" to chess; and Tal
seems like he is shaping up to be one of my chess heros. Irving
Chernev's "Combinations: The heart of chess" starts out with a
beautiful Tal (Tal-Klaman 1957) combination that ends with knight
forking king, queen, rook, bishop. Needless to say, black resigned.
Certainly inspires me!
Tal was awesome...but sickness really stopped him way before his
time...he was the modern day Pillsbury.
The four book set be Chess Stars on his games is a must have for
any library..I have the first two...Chess Digest has them ..and at a
good price...plus the Life and Games Of Mikhail Tal is a good one
too...although i traded my copy for a 1st print Burger edition Of Bobby
Fischer's Games...hehee
Dave
USA Captain
Tal's my favorite as of now. I have his life and games and it's frickin
sweet! Too bad he drank a crapload and the resulting liver problems
screwed up many of his chances. Not to mention he smoked. He was
the best attacking champion ever! Period. People feared him and his
stare thingie he did when he knew he was winning.
Tony
The Jester!
With all due respect to to the Ks and Fischer,Bot,Spassy,etc,you will
not find a more dynamic player than Tal.Qualifying for candiates at
age 49 is phenomenal.It wasn't the drink that held him back(didn't
help),it was the Soviet Chess Federation.Tal was a rebel to them.He
was un-Soviet away from the board...even on the board to a certain
extent.He was brash and daring.He would have made a good
American 🙂
In his excellent autobiography Mikhail Tal told an entertaining story of
what does a chessplayer think when he plays:
"JOURNALIST. It's perhaps not convenient to interrupt at such a
culminating moment, but I would, nevertheless, like to know whether
extraneous thoughts ever enter your head during a game?
TAL. Oh yes! For instance, I will never forget my game with
Grandmaster Vasyukov in one of the USSR Championships. We
reached a very complicated position where I was intending to sacrifice
a knight. The sacrifice was not altogher obvious, and there was a
large number of possible variations, but when I conscientiously began
to work through them, I found, to my horror, that nothing would come
of it. Ideas piled up one after another. I would transport a subtle
reply by my opponent, which worked in one case, to another situation
where it would naturally prove to be quite useless. As a result my
head became filled with a completely chaotic pile of all sorts of
moves, and the famous 'tree of the variations', from which the
trainers recommend that you cut off the small branches, in this case
spread with unbelieavable rapidity.
And then suddenly, for some reason, I remembered the classic
couplet by Korney Ivanovich Chukovsky:
Oh, what a difficult job it was
To drag out of the march the hippopotamus.
I don't know from what associations the hippopotamus got onto the
chess board, but althoug the spectators were convinced that I was
continuing to study the position, I, despite my humanitarian
education, was trying at this time to work out: just how would you drag
a hippopotamus out of the marsh? I remember how jacks figured in
my thoughts, as well as levers, helicopters, and even a rope ladder.
After a lenghty consideration I admitted defeat as an engineer, and
thought spitefully:"Well, let it drown!" And suddenly the hippopotamus
disappeared. Went off from the chess board just as he had come on.
Of his own accord! And straightaway the position did not appear to be
so complicated. Now I somehow realized that it was not possible to
calculate all the variations, and that the knight sacrifice was, by its
very nature, purely intuitive. And since it promised and interesting
game, I could not refrain from making it.
And the following day, it was with pleasure that I read in the paper
how Mikhail Tal, after carefully thinking over the position for 40
minutes, made an accurately- calculated piece sacrifice..."
[Event "USSR Championships 19??"]
[Site "Kiev ch-SU"]
[Date "1964.??.??"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Tal,Mikhail"]
[Black "Vasiukov,Evgeny"]
[Result "1-0"]
[NIC "CK 8.2"]
1. e2-e4 c7-c6 2. Nb1-c3 d7-d5 3. d2-d4 d5xe4 4. Nc3xe4 Nb8-d7 5.
Ng1-f3
Ng8-f6 6. Ne4-g3 e7-e6 7. Bf1-d3 c6-c5 8. O-O c5xd4 9. Nf3xd4 Bf8-
c5
10. Nd4-f3 O-O 11. Qd1-e2 b7-b6 12. Bc1-f4 Bc8-b7 13. Ra1-d1 Nf6-
d5
14. Bf4-g5 Qd8-c7 15. Ng3-h5 Kg8-h8 16. Bd3-e4 f7-f6 17. Bg5-h4
Bc5-d6
18. c2-c4 Bb7-a6 19. Nh5xg7 Kh8xg7 20. Nf3-d4 Nd7-c5 21. Qe2-g4
Kg7-h8
22. Nd4xe6 Nc5xe6 23. Qg4xe6 Ra8-e8 24. Qe6xd5 Bd6xh2 25. Kg1-
h1 Qc7-f4
26. Qd5-h5 Qf4xe4 27. Rf1-e1 Qe4-g6 28. Qh5xg6 h7xg6 29. Bh4xf6
Kh8-g8
30. Re1xe8 Rf8xe8 31. Kh1xh2 Ba6xc4 32. Rd1-d7 Re8-e6 33. Bf6-c3
Bc4xa2
34. Rd7xa7 Ba2-c4 35. Kh2-g3 Bc4-d5 36. f2-f3 Kg8-f8 37. Bc3-d4 b6-
b5
38. Kg3-f4 Bd5-c4 39. Kf4-g5 Kf8-e8 40. Ra7-a8 Ke8-f7 41. Ra8-a7
Kf7-e8
42. b2-b4 Bc4-d5 43. Ra7-a3 Ke8-f7 44. g2-g4 Re6-e2 45. Bd4-c5
Re2-e5
46. Kg5-h6 Re5-e6 47. Ra3-d3 Bd5-c6 48. Rd3-d8 Re6-e8 49. Rd8-
d4 Re8-e6
50. f3-f4 Kf7-e8 51. Kh6-g7 Bc6-e4 52. Bc5-b6 Be4-f3 53. Rd4-d8
Ke8-e7
54. Rd8-d3 Bf3-e2 55. Bb6-d8 Ke7-e8 56. Rd3-d2 Re6-e3 57. Bd8-g5
Be2-d3
58. f4-f5
1-0