Mikhail Tal

Mikhail Tal was born in Riga in 1936 and developed his chess at the city’s Palace of Young Pioneers. He won the Soviet championship in 1957 at twenty. FIDE awarded him the Grandmaster title that year on the strength of this result, despite his limited international tournament experience. He retained the Soviet title in 1958 and won the Portorož Interzonal. Victory in the 1959 Candidates Tournament gave him the right to challenge Mikhail Botvinnik.

Tal defeated Botvinnik in 1960 to become the eighth world champion, aged twenty-three. Botvinnik regained the title in their 1961 return match. Tal’s games frequently involved sacrifices designed to create complicated positions and difficult practical decisions for his opponents. He won or shared the Soviet championship six times during his career. He also played on eight Soviet Olympiad teams, each of which won the team gold medal. Chronic health problems interrupted his career but did not end his competitive activity.

Tal went ninety-five consecutive games without defeat between October 1973 and October 1974. At fifty-one he won the 1988 World Blitz Championship in Saint John, Canada. His books include Tal-Botvinnik, 1960 and The Life and Games of Mikhail Tal. These combine annotated games with accounts of his matches and tournament experiences. He continued playing shortly before his death in Moscow in 1992. The Tal Memorial tournament was subsequently established in his honour.