Tal "the Magician from Riga", born in Latvia in 1936, was relatively unknown to the chess world compared to his famous Soviet compatriots, viz., Botvinnik, Smyslov, Keres, Bronstein, Spassky, Petrosian, etc., until the late 1950's, when his name shot around the chess world when he won the Championship of the Soviet Union both in 1957 and 1958, and then winning the World Championship Interzonal Tournament in 1959 to become the official challenger to Botvinnik's chess throne. In the 1959 tournament, he even scored 4-0 against the young, but brilliant future World Champion, Bobby Fischer. Tal's style mesmerized the chess world, and GM Ragozin explained the reason best: "Tal does not move chess pieces by hand, he uses a magic wand".
Tal was one of the greatest attacking geniuses in the history of recorded chess. His attacking style consisted of beautiful displays of multiple, cascading fireworks, where the true nature of the positions during the execution of his combinations was unfathomable by his opponents, even Tal himself!, in the scant time limit imposed in human over-the-board chess games.
Tal purposely played moves that created the maximum complications for both sides. He once said, "One doesn't have to play well. Tal was so intimidating in those years that he made seasoned Grandmaster opponents shudder with fear. A case in point is a game played between GM Tal (as Black) and Hungarian GM Pal Benko (as White) at the Interzonal Tournament in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, 1959. So Benko took with him sunglasses and wore them while at the chessboard. But Tal, who had heard of Benko's plan to wear sunglasses before the game started, borrowed enormous dark glasses from GM Petrosian. When Tal put on these ridiculously enormous glasses, not only did the spectators laugh, but other participants in the tournament did, as did the tournament controllers, and finally even Benko himself laughed. But unlike Tal, Benko did not remove his glasses until the 20th move when his position was hopeless.
After winning the 1959 Interzonal, skeptics still thought that Botvinnik was such a solid, positional player, that Tal's attacking style, somewhat purposely flawed by Tal's design, would not be able to penetrate Botvinnik's granite-like defense. But in 1960, when Tal played Botvinnik for the World Championship, he won the 6th game with an outrageously complicated and risky piece sacrifice, because Botvinnik couldn't navigate through all of the complicated variations that Tal created on the board. Tal then went on and won the match and was crowned the 8th Chess Champion of the World.
However, Tal faded away as quickly as he sprang out of anonymity. Not that he started playing badly or sloppily; he remained one of the strongest chess players in the world until his death in 1992. But in 1961, he played against Botvinnik in the obligatory return match and found that Botvinnik had spent the time since the first match doing his homework and systematically finding ways to take advantage of the kinks in Tal's incredibly complicated attacking style. Botvinnik retained his World Championship title, and Tal never reached the pinnacle ever again, due to the succession of chess geniuses Petrosian, Spassky, Fischer, Karpov and Kasparov.
Tal was one of the greatest attacking geniuses in the history of recorded chess. His attacking style consisted of beautiful displays of multiple, cascading fireworks, where the true nature of the positions during the execution of his combinations was unfathomable by his opponents, even Tal himself!, in the scant time limit imposed in human over-the-board chess games.
Tal purposely played moves that created the maximum complications for both sides. He once said, "One doesn't have to play well. Tal was so intimidating in those years that he made seasoned Grandmaster opponents shudder with fear. A case in point is a game played between GM Tal (as Black) and Hungarian GM Pal Benko (as White) at the Interzonal Tournament in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, 1959. So Benko took with him sunglasses and wore them while at the chessboard. But Tal, who had heard of Benko's plan to wear sunglasses before the game started, borrowed enormous dark glasses from GM Petrosian. When Tal put on these ridiculously enormous glasses, not only did the spectators laugh, but other participants in the tournament did, as did the tournament controllers, and finally even Benko himself laughed. But unlike Tal, Benko did not remove his glasses until the 20th move when his position was hopeless.
After winning the 1959 Interzonal, skeptics still thought that Botvinnik was such a solid, positional player, that Tal's attacking style, somewhat purposely flawed by Tal's design, would not be able to penetrate Botvinnik's granite-like defense. But in 1960, when Tal played Botvinnik for the World Championship, he won the 6th game with an outrageously complicated and risky piece sacrifice, because Botvinnik couldn't navigate through all of the complicated variations that Tal created on the board. Tal then went on and won the match and was crowned the 8th Chess Champion of the World.
However, Tal faded away as quickly as he sprang out of anonymity. Not that he started playing badly or sloppily; he remained one of the strongest chess players in the world until his death in 1992. But in 1961, he played against Botvinnik in the obligatory return match and found that Botvinnik had spent the time since the first match doing his homework and systematically finding ways to take advantage of the kinks in Tal's incredibly complicated attacking style. Botvinnik retained his World Championship title, and Tal never reached the pinnacle ever again, due to the succession of chess geniuses Petrosian, Spassky, Fischer, Karpov and Kasparov.
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