Tal-Larsen Candidates 1965: Deciding Game

Mikhail Tal, the former world champion, and Bent Larsen, the Great Dane, met in a semifinal candidates match in 1965. Larsen was ahead after winning game one. Tal won game two. Games three and four were draws. Larsen won game five and Tal came back to win game six. After draws in the next three games, the match was still even. In game ten, Tal had white. On move sixteen, Tal offered a gift of a wooden horse. Just as the Iliad is read to this day, the sacrifice made by Tal and accepted by Larsen has been analyzed ever since. I have made some remarks and used the contributions of Tal, Larsen, Shamkovich, Kasparov, Boleslavsky, Nikitin, Burgess, Polugaevsky, Levy, and Soltis. Due to the size of this article, some readers may prefer to play through the moves of the game before delving into the analysis.