Gufeld Tames Tal...an Artist and Another Create a Masterpiece!(1959)

In his book, "My Life in Chess" (1994, International Chess Enterprises), GM Eduard Gufeld (1936-2002) shares with us many duels with chess giants of his day....Tal, Polugaevsky, Bronstein, Geller, Krochnoi.

Gufeld writes of this encounter, which was played in 1959, at the height of Tal's meteoric rise to the World Championship crown in 1960.

 The position on the chessboard seems to be the one after 16.Kb1......Tal is about to play 16....Nb4                     

"This game was played when I was a modest debutant admiring famous chess players. One of them was Mikhail Tal, who had won two gold medals as the Soviet Chess Champion and had taken first place in the Portoroz Interzonal Tournament. Though Tal was my age, even at that time he was far ahead of me in chess development and erudition and it was with mixed feelings of astonishment and delight that I witnessed his fantastic leap to fame. During the game I felt a creative excitement and inspiration. Playing against a chess genius, you always get a charge of creative energy, trying to be a worthy opponent- no, not an opponent but a partner- in creating a chess masterpiece. You put more, much more fantasy and imagination into such games than into ordinary chess games!"