Mikhail Tal (Eighth World Chess Champion) Bio

Mikhail Tal

Eighth World Chess Champion

Mikhail Tal was the eighth World Chess Champion. He lived from November 9, 1936 to June 28, 1992. Tal was a Latvian world chess champion. He achieved his title in the 1960 world chess championship, in Moscow, against Mikhail Botvinnik and became the youngest World Chess Champion at 23 years old (later on Gary Kasparov broke the record at age 22). A year later Botvinnik, who had never faced Tal before the title match began, won the return games against Tal in 1961, which was also held in Moscow.

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 delight of playing. Known as "The Magician from Riga", Tal was the archetype of the attacking player, developing a tremendously powerful and imaginative style of play. His approach over the board was very practical – in that respect, he is one of the heirs of ex-World Champion Emanuel Lasker. He often sacrificedmaterial in pursuit of the initiative, which is defined by the ability to make threats to which the opponent must respond. With such intuitive sacrifices, he created immense complications, and many masters found it impossible to solve all the problems he created over the board, though deeper post-game analysis found flaws in some of his ideas. 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 disturbed Botvinnik failed to find the correct reaction.

Tal was a prolific and highly respected chess writer, serving as editor of the Latvian chess magazine Šahs ("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 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.

Botvinnik versus Tal

1960