The Championships of Mikhail Tal
Hello readers,
I'm Here with the 2nd Part Of the Series - Mikhail Tal
This is the Final Episode.
Check The First Part by using the given Link
https://www.chess.com/blog/AadityaAG11/mikhail-tal-a-legend-of-chess-history
Soviet Champion
Tal made his first significant appearance at the 1956 USSR Chess Championship, sharing 5th–7th place with Lev Polugaevsky and Ratmir Kholmov.[13] Grigory Levenfish called him "the most colourful figure of the championship" and a "great talent" who strove for "sharp and complicated play".[13] However, he was criticised by the media for taking unnecessary risks and having restricted creative views.[13] Tal then went to play on board three at the students' championship in Sweden, scoring 6 out of 7.[14]
He became the youngest player to win the 1957 USSR Chess Championship, 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.[15]
Tal made three appearances for the USSR at Student Olympiads in 1956–1958, winning three team gold medals and three board gold medals. He won nineteen games, drew eight, and lost none, for 85.2 percent.[16]
He retained the title of champion at the 1958 USSR Chess Championship, and competed in the World Chess Championship 1960 for the first time. He won the 1958 Interzonal tournament at Portorož, Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, then helped the Soviet Union to win the 13th Chess Olympiad, being its fourth consecutive victory in Munich, West Germany
World Champion
In 1959, Tal won a very strong tournament in Zurich, Switzerland. Following the Interzonal, the top players carried on to the Candidates' Tournament, Yugoslavia, 1959. Tal won with 20/28 points, ahead of Paul Keres with 18½, followed by Tigran Petrosian, Vasily Smyslov, Bobby Fischer, Svetozar Gligorić, Friðrik Ólafsson, and Pal Benko. Tal's victory was attributed to his dominance over the lower half of the field;[17] whilst scoring only one win and three losses versus Keres, he won all four individual games against Fischer, and took 3½ points out of 4 from each of Gligorić, Olafsson, and Benko.[18] When Benko arrived for his match with Tal, he wore dark glasses in order to avert the gaze of Tal, which could be intimidating. In response and as a joke, Tal wore large sunglasses which he borrowed from a member of the crowd.[19]
In 1960, at the age of 23, Tal defeated the strategically-minded Mikhail Botvinnik in a World Championship match, held in Moscow, by 12½–8½ (six wins, two losses, and thirteen draws),[19] making him the youngest-ever World Champion (a record later broken by Garry Kasparov, who earned the title at 22, and broken again by Gukesh Dommaraju who earned the title at age 18). Botvinnik, who had never faced Tal before the title match began, won the return match against Tal in 1961, also held in Moscow, by 13–8 (ten wins to five, with six draws).[19] In the period between the matches Botvinnik had thoroughly analysed 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.[20] 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 claimed that Botvinnik would agree to a postponement only if Tal was certified unfit by Moscow doctors, and that Tal then decided to play.[21] 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 1957–58).
His highest Elo rating was 2705, achieved in 1980. His highest Historical Chessmetrics Rating was 2799, in September 1960.
