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Mikhail Tal - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mikhail Tal
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mikhail Tal (Latvian: Mihails Tls; Russian:


, Michail Nechem'evi Tal,
pronounced [mxil nxemvt tal]; sometimes
transliterated Mihails Tals or Mihail Tal; 9 November
1936 28 June 1992)[1] was a Latvian Soviet chess
Grandmaster and the eighth World Chess Champion (from
1960 to 1961).

Mikhail Tal

Widely regarded as a creative genius and the best attacking


player of all time, he played in a daring, combinatorial
style.[2][3] His play was known above all for improvisation
and unpredictability. Every game, he once said, was as
inimitable and invaluable as a poem.[4] He was often called
"Misha", a diminutive for Mikhail, and "The magician from
Riga". Both The Mammoth Book of the World's Greatest
Chess Games[5] and Modern Chess Brilliancies[6] include
more games by Tal than any other player. Tal was also a
highly regarded chess writer. He also holds the records for
both the first and second longest unbeaten streaks in
competitive chess history.[7]
The Mikhail Tal Memorial has been held in Moscow annually
since 2006 to honour Tal's memory.

Contents
1 Early years
2 Personality
3 Soviet champion
4 World champion
5 Later achievements
6 Team competitions
7 Tournament and match wins (or equal first)

Mikhail Tal in 1982


Full name

Latvian: Mihails Tls


Russian:

Country

Latvia

Born

9 November 1936
Riga, Latvia

Died

28 June 1992[1] (aged 55)


Moscow, Russia

Title

Grandmaster (1957)

World
Champion

196061

Peak rating

2705 (January 1980)

7.1 195066
7.2 196779
7.3 198191
8 Score with some major grandmasters
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9 Health problems
10 Playing style
11 Notable games
12 Writings
13 References
14 Further reading
15 External links

Early years
Tal was born in Riga, Latvia, into a Jewish family.[8] According to his friend Gennadi Sosonko, his true father was a
family friend identified only as "Uncle Robert";[9] however, this was vehemently denied by Tal's third wife
Angelina.[10] From the very beginning of his life, he suffered from ill health. Tal learned to read at the age of three,
and was allowed to start university studies while only fifteen. At the age of eight, Tal learned to play chess while
watching his father, a doctor and medical researcher. After Mikhail Botvinnik became the world chess champion, in
1948, while in Riga after the tournament, Tal, then eleven years old, visited, hoping to play a game against the new
champion. Tal met Botvinnik's wife, who said the champion was asleep, and that she had made him take a rest from
chess. Shortly thereafter he joined the Riga Palace of Young Pioneers chess club. His play was not exceptional at
first but he worked hard to improve. Alexander Koblents began tutoring Tal in 1949, after which Tal's game rapidly
improved, and by 1951 he had qualified for the Latvian Championship. In the 1952 Latvian Championship Tal
finished ahead of his trainer. Tal won his first Latvian title in 1953, and was awarded the title of Candidate Master.
He became a Soviet Master in 1954 by defeating Vladimir Saigin in a qualifying match. That same year he also
scored his first win over a Grandmaster when Yuri Averbakh lost on time in a drawn position. Tal graduated in
Literature from the University of Riga, writing a thesis on the satirical works of Ilf and Petrov, and taught school in
Riga for a time in his early twenties. He was a member of the Daugava Sports Society, and represented Latvia in
internal Soviet team competitions.
He married 19-year-old Russian actress Salli Landau in 1959, divorcing in 1970. (In 2003, Landau published in
Russia a biography of her late ex-husband.)

Personality
His first wife, Salli Landau, described Mikhail's personality:
Misha was so ill-equipped for living... When he travelled to a tournament, he couldn't even pack his
own suitcase... He didn't even know how to turn on the gas for cooking. If I had a headache, and
there happened to be no one home but him, he would fall into a panic: "How do I make a hot-water
bottle?" And when I got behind the wheel of a car, he would look at me as though I were a visitor
from another planet. Of course, if he had made some effort, he could have learned all of this. But it
was all boring to him. He just didn't need to. A lot of people have said that if Tal had looked after his
health, if he hadn't led such a dissolute life... and so forth. But with people like Tal, the idea of "if only"
is just absurd. He wouldn't have been Tal then.[11]
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Soviet champion
Tal first qualified for the USSR Chess Championship final in 1956,
finishing joint fifth, and became the youngest player to win it the following
year, at the age of 20. He had not played in enough international
tournaments to qualify for the title of Grandmaster, but FIDE decided at
its 1957 Congress to waive the normal restrictions and award him the
title because of his achievement in winning the Soviet Championship. At
that time, the Soviet Union was dominant in world chess, and Tal had
beaten several of the world's top players to win the tournament.[12]
Tal made three appearances for the USSR at Student Olympiads in
195658, winning three team gold medals and three board gold medals.

In this house in Riga lived Mikhail Tal

He won nineteen games, drew eight, and lost none, for 85.2 percent.[13]
He retained the Soviet Championship title in 1958 at Riga, and competed in the World Chess Championship for the
first time. He won the 1958 Interzonal tournament at Portoro, then helped the Soviet Union win their fourth
consecutive Chess Olympiad at Munich.

World champion
Tal won a very strong tournament at Zrich, 1959. Following the
Interzonal, the top players carried on to the Candidates' Tournament,
Yugoslavia 1959. Tal showed superior form by winning with 20/28
points, ahead of Paul Keres with 18, followed by Tigran Petrosian,
Vasily Smyslov, Bobby Fischer, Svetozar Gligori, Fririk lafsson, and
Pal Benko. Tal's victory was attributed to his dominance over the lower
half of the field;[14] whilst scoring only one win and three losses versus
Keres, he won all four individual games against Fischer, and took 3
points out of 4 from each of Gligori, Olafsson, and Benko.[15]
In 1960, at the age of 23, Tal thoroughly defeated the relatively staid and
strategic Mikhail Botvinnik in a World Championship match, held in
Moscow, by 128 (six wins, two losses, and thirteen draws), making
him the youngest-ever world champion (a record later broken by Garry
Kasparov, who earned the title at 22). Botvinnik, who had never faced
Tal before the title match began, won the return match against Tal in
Tal in 1962
1961, also held in Moscow, by 138 (ten wins to five, with six draws).
In the period between the matches Botvinnik had thoroughly analyzed
Tal's style, and turned most of the return match's games into slow wars of maneuver or endgames, rather than the
complicated tactical melees which were Tal's happy hunting ground.[16] Tal's chronic kidney problems contributed
to his defeat, and his doctors in Riga advised that he should postpone the match for health reasons. Yuri Averbakh

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claimed that Botvinnik would agree to a postponement only if Tal was certified unfit by Moscow doctors, and that
Tal then decided to play.[17] His short reign atop the chess world made him one of the two so-called "winter kings"
who interrupted Botvinnik's long reign from 1948 to 1963 (the other was Smyslov, world champion 195758).
His highest Elo rating was 2705, achieved in 1980. His highest Historical Chessmetrics Rating was 2799, in
September 1960. This capped his torrid stretch, which had begun in early 1957.

Later achievements
Soon after losing the rematch with Botvinnik, Tal won the 1961 Bled
supertournament by one point over Fischer, despite losing their individual
game, scoring 14 from nineteen games (+11 1 =7) with the worldclass players Tigran Petrosian, Keres, Gligori, Efim Geller, and Miguel
Najdorf among the other participants.
Tal played in a total of six Candidates' Tournaments and match cycles,
though he never again earned the right to play for the world title. In 1962
at Curaao, he had serious health problems, having undergone a major
operation shortly before the tournament, and had to withdraw threequarters of the way through, scoring just seven points (+3 10 =8) from
21 games. He tied for first place at the 1964 Amsterdam Interzonal to
advance to matches. Then in 1965, he lost the final match against Boris
Spassky, after defeating Lajos Portisch and Bent Larsen in matches.
Exempt from the 1967 Interzonal, he lost a 1968 semifinal match against
Viktor Korchnoi, after defeating Gligoric.
Poor health caused a slump in his play from late 1968 to late 1969, but
Tal in 1988
he recovered his form after having a kidney removed. He won the 1979
Riga Interzonal with an undefeated score of 14/17, but the next year lost
a quarter-final match to Lev Polugaevsky, one of the players to hold a positive score against him. He also played in
the 1985 Montpellier Candidates' Tournament, a round-robin of 16 qualifiers, finishing in a tie for fourth and fifth
places, and narrowly missing further advancement after drawing a playoff match with Jan Timman, who held the
tiebreak advantage from the tournament proper.
From July 1972 to April 1973, Tal played a record 86 consecutive games without a loss (47 wins and 39 draws).
Between 23 October 1973 and 16 October 1974, he played 95 consecutive games without a loss (46 wins and 49
draws), shattering his previous record. These are the two longest unbeaten streaks in modern chess history.[7]
Tal remained a formidable opponent as he got older. He played Anatoli Karpov 22 times (12 of them during the
latter's reign as World Champion) with a record of +12=19.
One of Tal's greatest achievements during his later career was an equal first place with Karpov (whom he seconded
in a number of tournaments and world championships) in the 1979 Montreal "Tournament of Stars", with an
unbeaten score of (+6 0 =12), the only undefeated player in the field, which also included Spassky, Portisch,
Vlastimil Hort, Robert Hbner, Ljubomir Ljubojevi, Lubomir Kavalek, Timman and Larsen.

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Tal played in 21 Soviet Championships,[18] winning it six times (1957, 1958, 1967, 1972, 1974, 1978). He was
also a five-time winner of the International Chess Tournament in Tallinn, Estonia, with victories in 1971, 1973,
1977, 1981, and 1983.
Tal also had successes in blitz chess; in 1970, he took second place to Fischer, who scored 19/22, in a blitz
tournament at Herceg Novi, Yugoslavia, ahead of Korchnoi, Petrosian and Smyslov. In 1988, at the age of 51, he
won the second official World Blitz Championship (the first was won by Kasparov the previous year in Brussels) at
Saint John, ahead of such players as Kasparov, the reigning world champion, and ex-champion Anatoly Karpov. In
the final, he defeated Rafael Vaganian by 3.
On 28 May 1992, at the Moscow blitz tournament (which he left hospital to play), he defeated Kasparov. He died
one month later.

Team competitions
In Olympiad play, Mikhail Tal was a member of eight Soviet teams, each of which won team gold medals (1958,
1960, 1962, 1966, 1972, 1974, 1980, and 1982), won 65 games, drew 34, and lost only two games (81.2
percent). This percentage makes him the player with the best score among those participating in at least four
Olympiads. Individually, Tal won seven Olympiad board medals, including five gold (1958, 1962, 1966, 1972,
1974), and two silver (1960, 1982).[13]
Tal also represented the Soviet Union at six European Team Championships (1957, 1961, 1970, 1973, 1977,
1980), winning team gold medals each time, and three board gold medals (1957, 1970, and 1977). He scored 14
wins, 20 draws, and three losses, for 64.9 percent.[13] Tal played board nine for the USSR in the first match
against the Rest of the World team at Belgrade 1970, scoring 2 out of 4. He was on board seven for the USSR in
the second match against the Rest of the World team at London 1984, scoring 2 out of 3. The USSR won both
team matches. He was an Honoured Master of Sport.[19]
From 1950 (when he won the Latvian junior championship) to 1991, Tal won or tied for first in 68 tournaments
(see table below). During his 41-year career he played about 2,700 tournament or match games, winning over 65%
of them.

Tournament and match wins (or equal first)


195066

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Year

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Tournament / Championship

1950

Riga Latvia Junior championship,[20] 1st

1953

Riga 10th Latvian championship, 1st


(14/19)

1955

Riga 23rd Soviet Championship Semifinal,


1st (12/18)

Match / Team competition

1956

Uppsala World students team championship, board


3 (6/7)

1957

Moscow 24th URS-ch, 1st (14/21)

Reykjavk Wch-team students, board 1 (8/10)


Baden/Vienna European Team Championship,
board 4, 1st2nd (3/5)

1958

Riga 25th URS-ch, 1st (12/19)


Portoro Interzonal, 1st (13/20)

Varna- Wch-team students, board 1 (8/10)


Munich 1958 Olympiad, board 5 (13/15)

1959

Riga Latvian Olympiad, 1st (7/7)


Zrich tournament, 1st (11/15)
BledZagrebBelgrade Candidates
tournament, 1st (20/28)
Hamburg Match FR Germany vs USSR, 1st (7/8)
Moscow Match for the World title with Mikhail
Botvinnik: (+6 2 =13)

1960
1960/61 Stockholm tournament, 1st (9/11)
1961

Bled tournament, 1st (14/19)

1962
1963

Varna 1962 Olympiad, board 6 (10/13)


Miskolc tournament, 1st (12/15)

1963/64 Hastings Premier tournament, 1st (7/9)


1964

Reykjavk tournament, 1st (12/13)


Amsterdam Interzonal, 1st4th (17/23)
Kislovodsk tournament, 1st (7/10)

1965

Riga, Latvian championship, 1st (10/13)

Match with Lajos Portisch: (+4 1 =3)


Match with Bent Larsen: (+3 2 =5)

1966

Sarajevo tournament, 1st2nd (11/15)


Palma de Mallorca tournament, 1st (12/15)

Havana 1966 Olympiad, board 3 (12/13)

196779

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Tournament / Championship

1967

Kharkov 35th URS-ch, = 1st (12/15)

1968

Gori tournament, 1st (7/10)

1969/70

Tbilisi, Goglidze memorial tournament, 1st2nd


(10/15)

1970

Poti Georgian Open championship (hors


concours), 1st (11/14)
Sochi Grandmasters vs Young Masters, 1st
(10/14)

1971

Tallinn tournament, 1st2nd (11/15)

1972

Sukhumi tournament, 1st (11/15)


Baku 40th URS-ch, 1st (15/21)

1973

Wijk aan Zee tournament, 1st (10/15)


Tallinn tournament, 1st (12/15)
Sochi Mikhail Chigorin memorial, 1st (11/15)
Dubna tournament, 1st2nd (10/15)

Match / Team competition


Belgrade, Match with Svetozar Gligori: (+3 1
=5)

Kapfenberg, European Team Championship,


board 6 (5/6)

Skopje 1972 Olympiad, board 4 (14/16)

1973/74 Hastings tournament, 1st4th (10/15)


1974

Lublin tournament, 1st (12/15)


Halle tournament, 1st (11/15)
Novi Sad tournament, 1st (11/15)
Leningrad 42nd URS-ch, = 1st (9/15)

1977

Tallinn Keres memorial, 1st (11/17)


Leningrad 60th October Rev., 1st2nd (11/17)
Sochi Chigorin memorial, 1st (11/15)

1978

Tbilisi 46th URS-ch, 1st (11/17)

1979

Montreal tournament, 1st2nd (12/18)


Riga Interzonal, 1st (14/17)

Nice 1974 Olympiad, board 5 (11/15)


Moscow, USSR Club Team Championship,
board 1, 1st (6/9)

198191

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Year

Tournament

1981

Tallinn Keres memorial, 1st


Mlaga tournament, 1st
Riga tournament, 1st (11/15)
Porz tournament, 1st
Lviv tournament, 1st2nd

1982

Moscow Alekhine memorial, 1st (9/13)


Erevan tournament, 1st (10/15)
Sochi Chigorin memorial, 1st (10/15)
Pforzheim tournament, 1st (9/11)

1983

Tallinn Keres memorial, 1st (10/15)

1984

Albena tournament, 1st2nd (7/11)

1985

Jrmala tournament, 1st (9/13)

1986

West Berlin open, 1st2nd (7/9)


Tbilisi Goglidze memorial, 1st2nd (9/13)

1987

Termas de Ro Hondo (Argentina), 1st (8/11)


Jrmala tournament, 1st4th (7/13)

1988

Chicago open, 1st6th (5/6)


2nd World blitz Championship at Saint John: 1st

1991

Buenos Aires Najdorf memorial, 1st3rd


(8/13)

Score with some major grandmasters


Only official tournament or match games have been taken into account. '+' corresponds to Tal's wins, '' to his
losses and '=' to draws.
Mikhail Botvinnik: +13 12

Paul Keres: +4 8 =20

Vasily Smyslov: +3 4 =21

=20

Efim Geller: +7 6 =23

Tigran Petrosian: +6 9

David Bronstein: +8 5

Lev Polugaevsky: +2 8

=27

=18

=25

Leonid Stein: +0 3 =15

Viktor Korchnoi: +7 11

Boris Spassky: +6 9 =25

Lajos Portisch: +9 5 =18

=5

Anatoly Karpov: +1 1

Bent Larsen: +12 7 =18

=19

Bobby Fischer: +4 2 =5

Health problems
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Naturally artistic, witty and impulsive, Tal led a bohemian life of chess playing,
heavy drinking and chain smoking, which on more than one occasion created an
embarrassment for the Soviet authorities. His already fragile health suffered as a
result, and he spent much time in hospital, including an operation to remove a
kidney in 1969.[21] He was also briefly addicted to morphine due to intense
pain.[22] On 28 June 1992,[1] Tal died in a Moscow hospital, officially of a
haemorrhage in the esophagus. But his friend and fellow Soviet grandmaster
Genna Sosonko reported that "in reality, all his organs had stopped
functioning.[23] Tal had the congenital deformity of ectrodactyly in his right hand
(visible in some photographs). Despite this, he was a skilled piano player.[24]
Tal in 1961

Playing style

Tal loved the game in itself and considered that "Chess, first of
all, is Art." He was known to play numerous blitz games
against unknown or relatively weak players purely for the joy
of playing.
Known as "The Magician from Riga", Tal was the archetype
of the attacking player, developing an extremely powerful and
imaginative style of play. His approach over the board was
very pragmatic in that respect, he is one of the heirs of exWorld Champion Emanuel Lasker. He often sacrificed
material in search of the initiative, which is defined by the
ability to make threats to which the opponent must respond.
With such intuitive sacrifices, he created vast complications,
Tal's gravestone, showing a death date of "1992
and many masters found it impossible to solve all the problems
27 VI" (27 June 1992)
he created over the board, though deeper post-game analysis
found flaws in some of his conceptions. The famous sixth
game of his first world championship match with Botvinnik is typical in that regard: Tal sacrificed a knight with little
compensation but prevailed when the unsettled Botvinnik failed to find the correct response.
Although his playing style at first was scorned by ex-World Champion Vasily Smyslov as nothing more than
"tricks", Tal convincingly beat virtually every notable grandmaster with his trademark aggression. Viktor Korchnoi
and Paul Keres are two of the very few with a significant plus record against him. It is also notable that he adopted
a more sedate and positional style in his later years; for many chess lovers, the apex of Tal's style corresponds with
the period (approximately from 1971 to 1979) when he was able to integrate the solidity of classical chess with the
imagination of his youth.[25]
Of the current top-level players, the Latvian-born Spaniard Alexei Shirov has been most often compared to Tal. 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".[26] Tal contributed little to opening theory, despite a deep knowledge of most systems, the Sicilian and the
Ruy Lopez in particular. But his aggressive use of the Modern Benoni, particularly in his early years, led to a
complete re-evaluation of this variation. A variation of the Nimzo-Indian Defence bears his name.
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Notable games
Mikhail Tal vs Alexander Tolush, USSR Championship, Moscow 1957, King's Indian Defence, Saemisch
Variation (E81), 10 (http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1139349,) In a critical last-round
game, Tal spares no fireworks as he scores the win which clinches his first Soviet title.
Boris Spassky vs Mikhail Tal, USSR Championship, Riga 1958, NimzoIndian Defence, Saemisch
Variation (E26), 01 (http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1128406,) Spassky plays for a win
to avoid a playoff for an Interzonal berth, but Tal hangs on by his fingernails before turning the tables in a
complex endgame; with the win, he captures his second straight Soviet title.
Mikhail Tal vs Vasily Smyslov, Yugoslavia Candidates' Tournament 1959, CaroKann Defence (B10), 10
(http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1139475,) A daring piece sacrifice to win a Brilliancy
Prize game.
Robert James Fischer vs Mikhail Tal, Belgrade, Candidates' Tournament 1959, Sicilian Defence, Fischer
Sozin Variation (B87), 01 (http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1044107,) Their games from
this time are full of interesting tactics.
Mikhail Botvinnik vs Mikhail Tal, World Championship Match, Moscow 1960, 6th game, King's Indian
Defence, Fianchetto Variation, Classical Main line (E69), 01
(http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1032537,) An excellent sample of Tal's style from the
first BotvinnikTal 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.
Istvan Bilek vs Mikhail Tal, Moscow 1967, King's Indian Attack, Spassky Variation (A05), 01
(http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1027628,) A risky counterattack is crowned with
success, winning the Brilliancy Prize.
Boris Spassky vs Mikhail Tal, Tallinn tt 1973, NimzoIndian Defence, Leningrad Variation (E30), 01
(http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1128896,) A game fuelled with tactics from its first
moves. Black attacks in the centre and then starts a king chase.
Mikhail Tal vs Tigran Petrosian, Moscow 1974, Pirc Defence (B08), 10
(http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1107032,) Tal destroys perhaps the greatest defensive
player of all time in a miniature.

Writings
Tal was a prolific and highly respected chess writer, serving as editor of the Latvian chess magazine ahs ("Chess")
from 1960 to 1970. He also wrote four books: one on his 1960 World Championship with Botvinnik, his
autobiography The Life and Games of Mikhail Tal, Attack with Mikhail Tal coauthored by Iakov Damsky, and
Tal's Winning Chess Combinations coauthored by Viktor Khenkin. His books are renowned for the detailed
narrative of his thinking during the games. American Grandmaster Andrew Soltis reviewed his book on the world
championship match as "simply the best book written about a world championship match by a contestant. That
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shouldn't be a surprise because Tal was the finest writer to become world champion". New Zealand Grandmaster
Murray Chandler wrote in the introduction to the 1997 reissued algebraic edition of The Life and Games of
Mikhail Tal that the book was possibly the best chess book ever written.
One amusing anecdote frequently quoted from Tal's autobiography takes the form of a hypothetical conversation
between Tal and a journalist (actually co-author Yakov Damsky). It offers a modest, self-deprecating view of his
reputation for unerring calculation at the board:

Journalist: It might be inconvenient to interrupt our profound discussion and change the
subject slightly, but I would like to know whether extraneous, abstract thoughts ever enter your
head while playing a game?
Tal: Yes. For example, I will never forget my game with GM Vasiukov on a USSR
Championship. We reached a very complicated position where I was intending to sacrifice a
knight. The sacrifice was not obvious; there was a large number of possible variations; but when I
began to study hard and 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 infamous "tree of
variations", from which the chess trainers recommend that you cut off the small branches, in this
case spread with unbelievable rapidity.
And then suddenly, for some reason, I remembered the classic couplet by Korney Ivanovi
Chukovsky: "Oh, what a difficult job it was. To drag out of the marsh the
hippopotamus".[27]
I do not know from what associations the hippopotamus got into the chess board, but although
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 lengthy consideration I admitted defeat as an engineer, and thought spitefully to myself:
"Well, just let it drown!" And suddenly the hippopotamus disappeared. Went right off the
chessboard 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 an 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.
Mikhail Tal, The Life and Games of Mikhail Tal.

Tal, Mikhail, Iakov Damsky and Ken Neat (tr.) (1994). Attack with Mikhail Tal. Everyman Chess.
ISBN 1-85744-043-9.
Tal, Mikhail (1997). The Life and Games of Mikhail Tal. Everyman Chess. ISBN 1-85744-202-4.
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Tal, Mikhail (2001). TalBotvinnik, 1960. Russell Enterprises. ISBN 1-888690-08-9.

References
Notes
1. Tal's gravestone has 27 June as the date of his death. All other sources consulted give 28 June, including
Kasparov, Garry My Great Predecessors, part II, p. 382, and The Life and Games of Mikhail Tal, p. 6.
2. Zubok, V. M. (2011) Zhivago's children: the last Russian intelligentsia, Harvard University Press, ISBN
0674062329
3. Clarke, P. H. (1969) Tal's Best Games of Chess, Bell, ISBN 0713502045
4. Salli Landau, Liubov i shakhmaty: Elegiia Mikhailu Taliu (Moscow: Russian Chess House, 2003)
5. Burgess, Graham; Nunn, John; Emms, John (2004). The Mammoth Book of the World's Greatest Chess Games
(2nd ed.). Carroll & Graf. ISBN 0-7867-1411-5.
6. Evans, Larry (1970). Modern Chess Brilliancies. Fireside. ISBN 0-671-22420-4.
7. Soltis, Andrew (2002) Chess Lists Second Edition, 2nd ed., McFarland & Company, Jefferson, North Carolina and
London, pp. 4344, ISBN 0786412968.
8. Sosonko, p. 24
9. Sosonko, p. 24
10. " : "
, - 22 . , ,
"" [Angelina, widow of eighth world champion Tal: "Before me, Tal didn't live with any
woman for more than two years, but with me, 22 years. Probably because I'm not a bitch."]
(https://web.archive.org/web/20091123072603/http://www.facts.kiev.ua/archive/2009-11-20/101796/index.html).
11. "Even Now, He Will Not Leave Me..." (http://www.gmsquare.com/SallyTal.html) Interview with Salli Landau,
Copyright 200304 by Chess Today and Grandmaster Square
12. Clarke, Peter H. (1991). Mikhail Tal Master of Sacrifice. B.T.Batsford Ltd. p. 4. ISBN 0-7134-6899-8.
13. Tal, Mikhail (http://www.olimpbase.org/playersy/o8maieuc.html). olimpbase. Retrieved on 24 October 2013.
14. Horowitz, Al (1973). "The World Chess Championship, A History". Macmillan. p. 188. LCCN 72080175
(http://lccn.loc.gov/72080175).
15. "1959 Yugoslavia Candidates Tournament" (http://www.mark-weeks.com/chess/5860$cix.htm). mark-weeks.com.
16. McFadden, R.D. (29 June 1992). "Mikhail Tal, a Chess Grandmaster Known for His Daring, Dies at 55"
(http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CE0D91739F93AA15755C0A964958260). New York Times.
17. Kingston, T. (2002). "Yuri Averbakh: An Interview with History Part 2"
(http://www.chesscafe.com/text/skittles183.pdf) (PDF). The Chess Cafe.
18. Including the 1983 final when Tal had to withdraw after five games
19. The Life and Games of Mikhail Tal, revised and updated edition, by Mikhail Tal, 1997, London, Everyman Chess.
20. Alexander Khalifman et al, "Mikhail Tal - 8th World Champion" (PC-CD); "Complete Games of Mikhail Tal 19361959," p.5
21. Sosonko, p. 23
22. Sosonko, p. 25
23. Sosonko, p. 30
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Tal

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Mikhail Tal - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

24. Sosonko, p. 24
25. Kramnik, V. (2005). "Kramnik Interview: From Steinitz to Kasparov"
(http://www.kramnik.com/eng/interviews/getinterview.aspx?id=61). Vladimir Kramnik.
26. Watson, J. (1 August 2007). "Shabalov Enters Elite Company With Fourth U.S. Championship Title"
(http://main.uschess.org/content/view/313/164). US Chess Federation. Section "The Champion Speaks" interview
with Alexander Shabalov
27. Alternative translation: Oh, what a task so harsh/ To drag a hippo from a marsh

Bibliography
Sosonko, G. (2009) Russian Silhouettes, New in Chess, 3rd ed., ISBN 9056912933

Further reading
Chernev, Irving (1995). Twelve Great Chess Players and Their Best Games. New York: Dover. pp. 7691.
ISBN 0-486-28674-6.
Tal, Mikhail (1997). The Life and Games of Mikhail Tal (2nd revised ed.). Everyman. ISBN 0-486-28674-6.
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.
Kasparov, Garry (2003). "My Great Predecessors, part II". Everyman Chess. ISBN 1-85744-342-X.
Winter, Edward G., ed. (1981). World chess champions. Pergamon. ISBN 0-08-024094-1.

External links
Media related to Mikhail Tal at Wikimedia Commons
Mikhail Tal (http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessplayer?pid=14380) player profile and games at
Chessgames.com
Kasparov interview about Tal (http://www.chess.com/news/garry-kasparov-talks-about-mikhail-tal-andsoviet-chess-history-1340)
Awards
Preceded by
Mikhail Botvinnik

World Chess Champion


196061

Succeeded by
Mikhail Botvinnik

Preceded by

World Blitz Chess Champion


1988

Succeeded by
Alexander Grischuk

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mikhail_Tal&oldid=652093687"


Categories: 1936 births 1992 deaths People from Riga World chess champions Chess grandmasters
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