My opinion: He was a creative and very strong player in complex middlegames. His persistent attention in simpler positions as the interesting parts were winding down was his (relative) weakest point. I enjoy playing over his games.
Playstyle of Mark Taimanov
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Taimanov was a dynamic player with a very interesting, lively style. He had wins over six world champions. He was sometimes criticized for being over-optimistic and underestimating his opponent's resources. You might want to check out his impressive wins over Geller and Petrosian in the 1953 Zurich tournament as well has his crushing win, as black, over Karpov in 1977
Taimanov was also a concert-level pianist. With his first wife he recorded a series of piano duets, and he was a friend of Shostakovich
With his wife, they were a famous and superclass duet and hence he was arguably at least as prominent a pianist as he was as a chess player. The NY Times obit said,
"But when Philips Classics put together its “Great Pianists of the 20th Century” series, which included 200 compact discs, the Taimanovs were one of only two duos in the set."
Feb 14, 2021
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#5
paretobox wrote:
With his wife, they were a famous and superclass duet and hence he was arguably at least as prominent a pianist as he was as a chess player.
Not quite the same level of prominence, I think. In chess, he was top ten in the world for a while. Whereas, I remember that when he and Bruk were included on that Great Pianists edition, a lot of serious pianophiles said, "Who?" Still, the two of them are quite good (I wish there were recordings where one could hear Taimanov playing alone -- anyone know of any?), and to have reached this level of accomplishment in even one field, let alone two, is rare.
Smyslov, by the way, was only a notch below in his musical accomplishments (and a notch above in his chess accomplishments). He was a promising baritone who'd have had a chance at a professional career -- but he decided his chess chances were greater and went that route. I gather the two of them sometimes gave recitals at tournaments.
Didn't he also play the Reti Opening a lot? I have printed out a number of his games because for a time I was very interested in this opening.
He played quite a few openings, including the Reti. He had quite a long career, so he had a chance to play everything. As Black he was quite an authority in the Nimzo and the Taimanov Sicilian, of course
I think you're correct Antonin.
According to chesstempo.com he opened with 1.Nf3 300 times. Quite alot of games but - as Laskersnephew mentions - he had a very very long career, so alot of time to accumulate games.
According to openingtree.com he prefered to open the game with 1.d4 (456 games) followed by 1. Nf3 (289 games) - from 1052 total games in which Mr. Taimanov played the white side.
I would guess that if you toss in 1.c4, you've got around 90% of all his white games. Definitely not a 1,e4 guy!
I suspect the english edition of his collection of his best games is out of print. That's too bad, because he wrote very interesting notes. You got the impression of a very likeable person
I recently found out that GM Taimanov played quite alot of games in my favorite opening
- the Nimzo-Larsen Attack (1. Nf3 d5 2.b3 OR 1. Nf3 Nf6 2. b3).
This peaked my interest in this great player.
Has anyone analysed his games?
Whats your opinion on Mr. Taimanov?
How does one describe his playing style?
What were his values (dynamic vs static, etc.) ?
Was he more of an universal (like Kasparov) or one-dimensional player (like Ulf Andersson)?
From what I can tell he absolutely loved the Nimzo and the Sicilian. Lets discuss