Mikhail Nekhemievich Tal (Latvian : Mihails Tals) (November 9, 1936 – June 28, 1992) was a Jewish Latvian chess player and the eighth World Chess Champion.

For much of his life he suffered from ill-health but his obsession with chess was made apparent when, prior to an operation, he talked about chess until the mask was placed on his face and when recuperating he had to be taken back to hospital on several occasions after making his escape to a local chess club.

He defeated Mikhail Botvinnik in 1960 at the age of 24 to become the youngest grandmaster to hold the world champion title until then.

Tal was an attacking genius at the board. His attacks often looked like sheer madness. Botvinnik is quoted as having said, ” I was surprised by his ability to figure out complex variations. Then the way he sets out the game; he was not interested in the objectivity of the position, whether it’s better or worse, he only needed room for his pieces. All you do then is figure out variations which are extremely difficult. He was tactically outplaying me and I made mistakes.”

Early years

Tal was born in Riga, Latvia. He 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 23, 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

Tal suffered from bad health, and had to be hospitalized frequently throughout his career. Tal was a chain smoker and a heavy drinker; he was also briefly addicted to morphine. Tal’s untimely death was likely 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”.

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.