Mikhail Tal - biography, information, personal life. Chess King Mikhail Tal Tal chess

Tal, Mikhail Nekhemievich(1936, Riga, - 1992, Moscow; buried in Riga) - chess player, eighth world chess champion (1960–61).

Born into a doctor's family. During the war, the family was evacuated.

Tal showed great abilities at the age of 6-7 years. He began studying chess at the age of 7 under the guidance of his father; a decisive role in his life was played by his meeting with the chess coach A. Koblenz (1916-1993).

Monument to Mikhail Tal in Riga (Vermana Park)

At the age of 21, Tal became the USSR champion for the first time (1957), then won the USSR championship six times. Honored Master of Sports (1960).

Then he won a series of zonal and interzonal tournaments. He repeatedly won international tournaments (international grandmaster in 1957), won the Candidates Tournament in Yugoslavia in 1959.

In 1960, he became the youngest world champion in the history of chess, taking the title from M. Botvinnik (6 wins, 2 losses and 13 draws), but in 1961 he lost in a rematch. Before these episodes, Tal was seriously ill for a year.

In 1965, Tal won matches against Hungarian chess player Lajos Portisch and Bengt Larsen of Denmark in a new type of candidates tournament, but was defeated by Boris Spassky in the final. In 1968, he again received the right to participate in the Candidates Tournament match.

Tal won the international chess tournament in Tallinn five times (1971, 1973, 1977, 1981, 1983) and shared first place with Karpov in the Tournament of Stars in Montreal in 1979. In 1988 he won the World Blitz Championship in Canada.

Tal entered the history of chess as a virtuoso of combination games. Tal was an unsurpassed master of chess attack (together with Ya. Damsky he wrote the book “Into the Fire of Attack,” M., 1978) and had a unique gaming intuition. Tal's playing is characterized by a remarkable use of balances and imbalances. He used imbalance repeatedly in extremely long-range combination attacks. As a result, his chess games continued in the tradition of Emanuel Lasker and Alekhine, rather than the more patient playing styles of Capablanca and Botvinnik.

Tal's chess articles in the Soviet press contain in-depth analyzes of open variations and endgame positions.

In the early 1990s. Tal participated in regional competitions of foreign teams (in Germany and France).

In the late 1960s, Tal refused a request from a group of Zionists from Riga to sign an open letter demanding freedom for Jews to emigrate to Israel. Showing little interest in Jewish tradition, Tal was devoted to Yiddish and Jewish songs. When attending tournaments in Poland, he invariably defiantly laid wreaths at the monument to the participants

Mikhail Nekhemievich Tal (1936-1992) - Russian athlete, chess player, 8th world chess champion, international grandmaster (1957), Honored Master of Sports (1960). World champion (I960-61), six-time USSR champion (1957-78), journalist.

He grew up as a brilliant child. Already at the age of seven he was multiplying three-digit numbers and was able to repeat word for word the lecture of his father, a famous doctor in Riga. I started studying in the third grade. At the age of 15, he received a matriculation certificate and entered the philological faculty of the University of Riga.

Mikhail started playing chess at the age of ten. At the age of 17 he became the champion of Latvia, and at the age of 21 he won the USSR Championship (1957). His game was characterized by quick thinking, accurate calculations of options, puzzling combinations with a cascade of victims. In 1958, he confidently led the interzonal tournament in Portorož (Yugoslavia) and received the right to participate in the world championship. He played particularly successful games in Yugoslavia, where several chess clubs were named after him during the athlete’s lifetime. In 1959 he won the candidates tournament, which took place in three cities - Bled, Zagreb, Belgrade. Tal scored 20 points out of a possible 28 and was one and a half points ahead of his opponent, P.P. Keres, in the final.

In 1960, in Moscow, he played a world championship match with M. Botvinnik, winning it with a score of 12.5: 8.5. and became the eighth in history and the youngest world champion. A year later (1961) a rematch took place between Botvinnik and Tal. The latter was not psychologically ready for the fight and lost it with a score of 8:13.

In 1961 he won a victory at a major international tournament in Bled. For almost a quarter of a century (1962-85), the chess player remained among the contenders for the world championship. He successfully combined his sports career with journalistic activities. He starred in the popular science film “Seven Steps Beyond the Horizon” (1969), which told about his session of simultaneous blind play on 10 boards with first-class chess players.

Tal was the winner of about 40 international tournaments, 8 times as a member of the USSR national team he became the leader of the World Chess Olympiads (1958-1982). In 1988, he won the first unofficial world blitz championship (each chess player was given 5 minutes to complete the game), beating world champion G. Kasparov and ex-world champion A. Karpov.

He was the editor-in-chief of the magazine "Shahe" in Riga from 1960 to 1970. In the last years of his life, the athlete was seriously ill, but this did not affect the quality of his game, which became even more professional. For his achievements in the field of chess, Tal was awarded the Order of the Badge of Honor (1960) and the Order of Friendship of Peoples (1981).

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Mikhail TAL – Bent LARSEN
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Mikhail Nekhemievich Tal (Latvian: Mihails Tāls). Born on November 9, 1936 in Riga - died on June 28, 1992 in Moscow. Soviet and Latvian chess player, grandmaster (1957), 8th world chess champion (1960-1961).

Honored Master of Sports of the USSR (1960), six-time champion of the USSR (1957, 1958, 1967, 1972, 1974, 1978), champion of Latvia (1953, 1965), eight-time winner of chess Olympiads as part of the USSR team, six-time European champion and three-time world champion among students in the team competition, winner of interzonal tournaments (1958, 1964, 1979), candidates tournament (1959), participant in two world championship matches and seven candidates matches, winner of 44 international tournaments, journalist, editor-in-chief of the magazine “Chess” (1960 -1970).

Mikhail Tal was born in Riga into the family of Nehemiah and Ida Tal, who were each other’s cousins. According to a number of Tal’s biographers, Mikhail’s real father, as both he and his circle of acquaintances knew, was family friend Robert. At the same time, Tal's widow Angelina and daughter Zhanna denied this. At the age of six months he was very seriously ill with meningitis. Tal learned to read at the age of three and had an aptitude for mathematics (already at the age of five he was multiplying three-digit numbers in his head). In 1941, Tal's family was evacuated to the village of Yurla (now Komi-Permyak district of the Perm region). They lived in Yurla until 1945. When he was seven years old (according to other sources - ten), his father taught him to play chess.

Tal studied at Riga Secondary School No. 22 and at the same time attended the chess club of the Riga Pioneer Palace, where his coach was candidate master Janis Kruzkops. At the age of 13 - member of the youth team of the Latvian SSR; at 17 - champion of the republic. At the USSR team championship (1953) he shared 1st-2nd place on the 2nd board and received the right to a match for the title of Master of Sports of the USSR, which he won (1954) against multiple champion of Belarus V. Saigin. In 1955 he took 1st place in the semi-finals of the 23rd USSR Championship and made his debut (1956) in the All-Union Championship: 5th-7th place.

In the fall of 1956, Tal shared 5-6 places in the semi-finals of the All-Union Championship, and the following year he again took part in the final tournament (the 24th USSR Championship). At the start, Tal scored several victories, including over Bronstein, a participant in the world championship match. In the middle of the tournament, he lost two games and fell behind a little, but at the finish in his personal game he defeated one of the leaders, Keres, and topped the table along with Bronstein and Tolush. In the last round, Tal and Tolush played each other and Tal won with a spectacular attack. Since Bronstein played the last game in a draw, Tal became the national champion. For this success he was awarded the title of grandmaster. Tal's game was characterized by an aggressive style and willingness to take risks, which attracted fans.

Tal's subsequent performances - the World Student Championship (1957) and the European Championship (1957) - were also successful. The 25th national championship (1958) again ended in victory for Tal. At the interzonal tournament in Portorož, Tal had to not only get into the top six, but also take no lower than second place among the Soviet grandmasters, since, by FIDE decision, more than four chess players from one country could not participate in the candidates’ tournament, and Keres and Smyslov had already secured this right . Tal took first place with 13½ points out of 20, losing only to Matanovic and ahead of Gligoric by half a point and Benko and Petrosyan by a point. In the same tournament, the fifteen-year-old took sixth place. Tal confirmed the right to compete for the title of world champion at the 13th Olympiad in Munich, showing the absolutely best result: 13½ points out of 15 (1958), 26 USSR Championship in 1959 (2-3rd place) and at the international tournament in Zurich - 1 1st place, 1959. In the Candidates Tournament (Bled - Zagreb - Belgrade (Yugoslavia), 1959) Tal won (20 out of 28, Tal won micro-matches against Smyslov, Gligoric, Fischer, F. Olafsson and Benko, drew with Petrosyan and lost a micro-match only to Paul Keres) and won the right to a match with the world champion.

The match for the world championship title for a majority of twenty-four games started on March 15, 1960 at the Pushkin Theater in Moscow. Before this match, Tal had never played each other. Tal won the first game, then several draws followed. Tal also won the sixth and seventh games, the sixth thanks to an incorrect sacrifice of a knight for a pawn. Botvinnik won the next two games. The eleventh game became important, which Tal won in a classic manner, gradually increasing his positional advantage and then playing a strong endgame. This was followed by a series of draws, and finally, in the seventeenth game, Tal escalated the game and, under time pressure, Botvinnik overlooked a tactical strike. Tal's advantage again grew to three points and he brought the match to victory. After a draw in the twenty-first game on May 7, the match ended early with a score of 12½:8½ (6:2 in victories).

Tal became the youngest world champion(Only in 1985 his record was surpassed by Kasparov). The new champion was greeted by crowds of people in Riga. Tal's success was explained by the fact that he imposed positions that were inconvenient for Botvinnik, forcing him to leave the laid rails. In order to complicate the game, Tal made material sacrifices or worsened his position, but this worked repeatedly at the board; Botvinnik chose suboptimal continuations, which Tal took advantage of.

As a champion, Tal competed at the 14th Olympiad in Leipzig (1960) and won the international tournament in Stockholm (1961). In the rematch, Tal lost to Botvinnik, who played excellently (lost 10 games, won only 5).

During 1961, Tal won a very strong tournament in Bled (14½ out of 19; Fischer, to whom Tal lost his only game, was a point behind, Keres, Petrosyan and Gligoric - two) and shared 4-5 places with Vasyukov in the next USSR championship. As a former champion, Tal was admitted to the Candidates Tournament in Curacao, but illness prevented him from competing. Two months before the tournament, Tal underwent kidney surgery, and after three rounds, when Tal had three wins with eight draws and ten losses, he dropped out of the tournament. In 1962, Tal was included as a second reserve in the Soviet team at the Varna Olympics and took first place on his board (+7 -0 =6), and also shared 2-3 places in the USSR Championship (won by Korchnoi). The following year, Tal won the Astálos Memorial in Miskolc, Hungary, and commentated on the match between Petrosian and Botvinnik.

At the beginning of the new Candidates' cycle (1964-1966), Tal shared 1-4 places with Smyslov, Spassky and Larsen in the interzonal tournament, which allowed him to enter the Candidates' matches (this system replaced the Candidates' tournaments). Tal beat Portisch ahead of schedule (5½:2½) and with great difficulty - Larsen (5½:4½, in the decisive game Tal sacrificed a piece in the opening and Larsen did not find the correct defense). In the final match against Spassky, Tal lost 4:7.