Did Tal really know what he was doing?

Ok, so I want to open this topic because I have a very curious question that I would like some opinions on. When looking back at supposedly brilliant combinations played by grandmasters such as Tal, how do we know for sure that he calculated every part of the combination well ahead of time? How we do know that we wasn't just taking risks that seemed good which then happened to produce amazing combinations? We look back and study them and think "WOW", what an amazing combination, and how did he forsee that many moves ahead...But how do we know he really did? What if just liked to play lots of daring and aggressive assaults which just turned out to be brilliant after analysis? When you play as many blitz games as he did, you're bound to produce some crazy combination accidentally that people can look back on and say it's amazing. I know I've played tons of bullet games and made tons of poor moves, but every once in a while I'll accidentally play a move that happens to be a really good one that I couldn't have forsaw. 

What are your opinions about this? 

From my old account:

http://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-players/how-good-was-tal

He didn't, there's a famous quote which I will copy here from wikipedia:

Journalist:   It might be inconvenient to interrupt our profound discussion and change the subject slightly, but I would like to know whether extraneous, abstract thoughts ever enter your head while playing a game?

Tal:   Yes. For example, I will never forget my game with GM Vasiukov on a USSR Championship. We reached a very complicated position where I was intending to sacrifice a knight. The sacrifice was not obvious; there was a large number of possible variations; but when I began to study hard and work through them, I found to my horror that nothing would come of it. Ideas piled up one after another. I would transport a subtle reply by my opponent, which worked in one case, to another situation where it would naturally prove to be quite useless. As a result my head became filled with a completely chaotic pile of all sorts of moves, and the infamous "tree of variations", from which the chess trainers recommend that you cut off the small branches, in this case spread with unbelievable rapidity.
And then suddenly, for some reason, I remembered the classic couplet by Korney Ivanović Chukovsky: "Oh, what a difficult job it was. To drag out of the marsh the hippopotamus".^[23]

I do not know from what associations the hippopotamus got into the chess board, but although the spectators were convinced that I was continuing to study the position, I, despite my humanitarian education, was trying at this time to work out: just how WOULD you drag a hippopotamus out of the marsh? I remember how jacks figured in my thoughts, as well as levers, helicopters, and even a rope ladder.
After a lengthy consideration I admitted defeat as an engineer, and thought spitefully to myself: "Well, just let it drown!" And suddenly the hippopotamus disappeared. Went right off the chessboard just as he had come on ... of his own accord! And straightaway the position did not appear to be so complicated. Now I somehow realized that it was not possible to calculate all the variations, and that the knight sacrifice was, by its very nature, purely intuitive. And since it promised an interesting game, I could not refrain from making it.

And the following day, it was with pleasure that I read in the paper how Mikhail Tal, after carefully thinking over the position for 40 minutes, made an accurately calculated piece sacrifice.

— Mikhail Tal, The Life and Games of Mikhail Tal.

Tal was well known for making unclear sacrifices "on spec". That is - sacrificing material without being able to calculate through to the end of the combination.

His King's Indian Defense game against Botvinnik in their first World Championship match is an example. His Knight sac in the Sicilian Defense against Larsen is another.

... and to set false modesty aside... his two piece sacrifice against me (in Saint John, 1988) was also clearly made on spec, because I succeeded in refuting it over-the-board.

Yes (as witness post #2).

I'm very rarely sarcastic, but this little bit brought it out of me. Plus, I've been working tactics puzzles for while, I didn't sleep enough last night, and I need a little break. So please indulge my sarcasm. I'm posting this just to entertain myself, not to be hurtful, but to answer your question, just uncharacteristically sarcastically. 

You write: When you play as many blitz games as he did, you're bound to produce some crazy combination accidentally that people can look back on and say it's amazing. I know I've played tons of bullet games and made tons of poor moves, but every once in a while I'll accidentally play a move that happens to be a really good one that I couldn't have forsaw. 

you're right, he was a lucky gambler and the similarity between you and Tal is amaaazing! Like you, he made tons of reckless moves to increase the odds that he'd accidentaly make a good one. He became the youngest world champion ever in 1960 by playing lots of blitz.

Kevin, just keep playing those bullet moves and if you play enough of them you too could be world champion (and see the many threads on chess.com with titles like "can anyone be a grandmaster", etc., There's a lot of important information in those threads about how to become one, but I'll save you the time. You become a grandmaster by will and luck. If you don't become a GM you obviously don't have enough will or luck, one or the other, or both).

Tal had the longest unbroken winning streak in history, and then broke his own record. You do that by making lots of moves so you can have more accidents. Oh, also, you have to play really bad players. That's something that Tal and Morphy had in common; they both knew that to become great you have to play terrible opponents. 

Tal's record against people like Karpov (something like 20 draws, one loss, no wins), was because he was a brilliant gambler.  Karpov just couldn't gamble like Tal.  His even record against Botvinnik, too, shows the value of lucky accidents in chess more than anythng else. 

Korchnoi and Petrosian have positive records against him because they were even better gamblers than he was.  Petrosian, esp, was far more reckless than Tal. 

And besides, chess is a game invented by computers so computers could play each other during their spare time, so combinations that prove unsound 15 moves deep are obviously wrong moves. You gotta make lots of 'em to get one good one.  And that's where computers excel, making lots of moves. That's why they're so strong at chess.  

The training goal for humans to become better chess players is to make lots of blitz moves, and then have a computer look to find if there's a good one in there somewhere.

That's how I train, and that's why I'm so good (USCF-equivalent about 700). I play lots of 1/0 games, and I subject them all to rigorous computer analysis.  Follow me, and I'll see you at a WC match someday.

Disclosure statement: My second is a rabbit's foot. 

alright, back to tactics. Gonna have to do a lot of them so I can reach USCF 300 by Summer.  "Lose 400 points in under 400 days." I'm working on an article; 'gonna be a book eventually.

>”...how do we know for sure that he calculated >every part of the combination well ahead of time? >...how did he forsee that many moves ahead...But do >we know he did?”

I know this is over 7 years old and stunning on a lot of levels, but the chess craze from “Queen’s Gambit” is in full swing and it hit me that in TV, movies, & books, “how many moves ahead can you see?” is always framed as the thing that supposedly matters above all else for the chess player. Watch any movie or TV show about chess from the last few decades and suddenly the number of moves one can “see ahead” is the question, the answer, the measuring stick of the protagonist’s progress, and, of course, the very heart of that last tension-filled, dramatic chess game.

[“Don’t move until you see it.”]*

So after I got over the initial shock of the “Maybe Tal was just really lucky” sacrilege — sacrilege to math almost as much as to Tal — I considered the fact that new people are getting interested in chess all the time and I feel a bit of a duty to the next generation to make sure they know that:

1) Mikhail Tal was an absolute rock star, &

2) the whole “seeing x moves ahead” focus is — at best —over-mythologized.

Openings are a good example:
There’s a fair number of chess openings but they all have some pretty basics tenets, and broadly speaking, are shockingly similar; especially where pieces are concerned. More or less loosely, pieces have squares where they’re best placed, a general sequence for best developing them, and (in openings, specifically) limited options/space for movement. More importantly, it’s not like you’re inventing the wheel with each new game. Where the new player might see an impossible number of options in an early game and may instinctively concentrate on capturing material, experienced players aren’t sweating out what their third move is going to be and they’re focused on getting their pieces into the place that furthers their strategy. It’s like the difference in thought that goes into driving somewhere the 2nd time versus the 102nd time.

This short clip of Bobby Fischer on Carson explains why “how many moves ahead can you see” isn’t the best focus

*From “Searching for Bobby Fischer”

 Wow.

He didn't know what he was doing he just played in a generation with weak players/ a few decent other player but overall he's just good but LUCKY

What are your evidence for these he doesn't actually explain the variations that he calculated.Magnus is better at attacking even. Magnus attacks in an even more lethal and powerful way without sacrificing, he's also probably the best player of all time and basically is good at every area of the game like he has no weakness

No matter how offensively dumb a topic is, there will always be some person 10 years later who will resurrect it to be even more offensively dumb.

Caralsoon is a kitten drinking stockfish milk, without stocky analysis may be he is a 2200_ the great tal on the other hand is the greatest genius of attacking chess

Mikhail Tal was amazing because he had such an intuitive grasp of the tactical dynamics of the position, including the initiative. He was relentlessly aggressive, and he played very enterprising and active moves. His sacrifices were often very intuitive and they didn’t need as much calculation, since even if they are able to refuted he usually got SOMETHING out of them, and that refutation would take a long time to think of. There was a game Tal played once against an opponent that lasted 2.5 hours, and after Tal won with black his strong opponent had to wonder where chess could be going, since Tal sacrificed at least one piece to my recollection and yet spent 15 MINUTES to his opponent’s 2.25 hours. When he gambled, he was the best at it and always got some compensation - time, piece activity, etc. When he played strategically or played endgames, he was also extremely strong, one of the best ever. When he played risky moves or gambits/sacrifices, PERIOD, he usually calculated them all the way through, because he was also an incredible calculator. And whenever he played at all, he was a relentless psychological opponent who is anything but overrated. 

Also, Chess.com claims, despite all his ‘refutable’ sacrifices and his massive low periods due to health issues, he was more accurate than Spassky, Petrosian, or Botvinnik, the next(ish lol) 3 World Champions!

'If Tal sacrifices a piece, take it.
If Petrosian sacrifices a piece, don't take it.' - Botvinnik

https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1032520