The Magic Tac tics of Mikhail Tal

Karsten Mül ler & Raymund Stolze The Magic Tac tics of Mikhail Tal Learn from the Leg end New In Chess 2012

Contents About this book...7 Pro logue Knowl edge? In tu ition? Risk? by Mikhail Tal...9 Re flec tions on Mikhail T., by Mikhail Botvinnik....11 Chap ter I Warm-up...32 In ter mezzo The golden rules of at tack...34 Ex er cises...36 So lu tions....59 In ter mezzo Sieghart Dittmann: Com ments on a game of chess...89 Wolfgang Uhlmann: An instructive experience... 92 Hans-Joachim Hecht: En coun ters with Tal...97 Gennady Nesis: Misha never played the star...102 Evgeny Vasiukov: Tal a mag net for the pub lic...104 Chap ter II Cor rect Sacrifices...106 Exercises...110 So lu tions....124 In ter mezzo Andrzej Filipowicz: Misha was ex tremely crafty at the board...147 Rainer Knaak: Misha a mas ter of anal y sis...150 Boris Spassky: Tal was the chess mes siah....153 What Kar pov val ues in Tal In con ver sa tion with Al ex an der Bakh...155 Chapter III Speculative Sacrifices...156 Exercises...169 So lu tions....177 In ter mezzo Rob ert Hübner: In mem ory of Mikhail Tal...193 5

The Magic Tac tics of Mikhail Tal Chap ter IV The Correct Way to Defend against the Magician...240 Exercises...249 So lu tions....275 In ter mezzo Zurab Azmaiparashvili: He hyp no tised me...304 Helmut Pfleger: Ex ces sive to the last breath Per sonal im pres sions of Mikhail Tal...306 Tal played his very own brand of chess In conversation with Artur Yusupov...312 This star ra di ated so much en ergy that it fi nally burned out In conversation with Vladimir Kramnik...316 Misha lived his life In conversation with Engelina Tal...318 Ep i logue...320 An un bro ken love for chess, by Mikhail Tal...320 Ap pen dix...321 Bibliography....321 Acknowledgements...324 In dex of Names....325 Game List...329 6

About this book At the start the idea was an in ter est ing one and linked to the all-im por tant de cid ing ques tion: could a well-known Ger man grand mas ter and an equally well-known chess jour nal ist co op er ate in a pro duc tive man ner? In this spe cific case, this com - mon ef fort was made eas ier by the fact that each of them had been in volved in the broad est sense of the term as train ers of up and com ing play ers. And yet, an other prob lem reared its ugly head and would turn this pro ject into an enor mous chal lenge for us, like that of climb ers forg ing a new route up a cliff face: there are as many col lec tions of the games of Mikhail Tal and books on tac tics as there are grains of sand on a beach. Just why did we want to add yet an other one to that collection? Well, it is quite cer tain that the magic of Tal s chess will never die and it is al ways worth our while to delve into its se crets. But this ar gu ment on its own, as we soon agreed, is not enough to jus tify an other book about the chess wiz ard from Riga. So we know ingly went deeper into our goals in this book which is now be ing pre - sented to you af ter a good two years of in ten sive co op er a tion. Some thing which ap peared quite im por tant to us from the out set: we hope it has be come a very per sonal book which in vites its read ers to an ex cit ing jour ney through time. With the fire works of the com bi na tions of an im mor tal, as Vladi - mir Kramnik char ac ter ises his pre de ces sor on the Mount Olym pus of chess Mikhail Tal, and their elu ci da tion by mod ern chess com puter pro grams and the his toric sources avail able to us, we hope to con jure up pic tures of a time long past in which the clocks ticked in quite a dif fer ent way. There was still the Iron Cur tain and the pow er ful So viet bu reau cracy, from which chess it self as though it were in a re tort was not spared. For that rea son we have taken trou ble to pres ent not only fas ci nat ing sac ri fices and the con com i tant fan tas tic thought pro cesses of a ge nius, but also, where pos si ble and nec es sary, to in tro duce you to his op po nents of the day and also to sketch in their role in the ap - par ently ideal world of chess. This oc ca sion ally pain ful ret ro spec tive of the good old days with ad journed games, but in re turn with out com put ers (!), will cer tainly awaken in many read ers the nos tal gic de sire for the re turn of these con di tions along with Tal s im mor tal mas ter pieces. But, as we are well aware, these will re main in the past. So we also hope that our plan for the con tent will work, namely mov ing back and forth with a time ma chine in or der to hon our Tal s cre ative achieve ments, which with his cool flashes of in sight cast light on the fos sil ised world of chess of his day. 7

The Magic Tac tics of Mikhail Tal There is no ques tion but that most read ers will take great plea sure solv ing Misha s fan tas tic cas cade of sac ri fices in the first three chap ters. But one thing which the com put ers of mod ern days have taught us is that one should not un der-es ti mate the art of de fence. For that rea son we have also de voted a sig nif i cant part of the book to that im por tant sub ject, which we would par tic u larly like to com mend to you. We re ally hope that af ter it you will feel the de sire to be bolder in your own games, in other words to con sciously try to swim against the tide. Be cause one thing is cer tain: your op po nent can only take a sin gle one of your hang ing pieces with each move, as Mikhail Tal once put it so ap po sitely. Quite ob vi ously, such a pro ject could never have come into ex is tence with out the en er getic sup port of like-minded col leagues. To rep re sent these may we be per mit - ted at this point to cite only Dr. Rob ert Hübner and Dagobert Kohlmeyer. We are in - debted to the grand mas ter from Co logne for the ex cel lent anal y sis of one of the most ex cit ing games played by the chess ge nius and the chess jour nal ist from Berlin has been responsible for numerous contributions especially from those eye-wit nesses from the Tal era who do not speak Ger man. In ad di tion to these two, spe cial thanks are due to Prof. Dr. Sieghart Dittmann, Hans-Joachim Hecht, Rainer Knaak, Dr. Helmut Pfleger, Wolfgang Uhlmann and graphics art ist and type-set ter Ulrich Dirr. We hope that this book will be wor thy of the trust they placed in us. Ham burg/hönow bei Berlin, Au gust 2010 Dr. Karsten Müller Raymund Stolze 8

The Magic Tac tics of Mikhail Tal 4 Achilles heel Tal - Theodor Ghitescu 6th Asztalos Me mo rial, Miskolc 1963._.tT_.l _._D_J_M J_.i._Jj _Lj.i._N._._._.._._.qI I_B_._I._Rr.k. 1963 did not get off to a very pleas ant start for Tal, be cause his state of health had once again de te ri o rated to such a point that another kidney operation be - came nec es sary. As we know, it would not be the last one for the then still young man he was af ter all at this point only 26 years old. Of course, he was then burst ing with en ergy to be - come ac tive again af ter this rather long en forced pause. But it was not till the sum mer that he had a chance, along with Da vid Bronstein, to take part in a memorial tournament in honour of Lajos Asztalos in Miskolc, the fourth largest Hungarian city after Budapest, Debrecen and Szeged. Things went smoothly and eas ily and prac ti cally three or four rounds be fore the end I was able to se cure first place, he re mem bered. And in ac tual fact: ten wins and five draws (in one of them it was the East Ber liner Reinhart Fuchs who de nied him vic tory) spoke louder than words the chess world would once more have to reckon with Tal! Theodor Ghitescu also was able to re - cog nise this un grudg ingly, when in his own words he achieved a de ci sive ad - van tage with white by means of an an uncomplicated combination. Where is the Achil les heel in Black s king position? (Solution on page 60) 5 Skew ered Tal - Efim Geller 25th USSR Cham pi on ship, Riga 1958._.t._M.r._J_J J_.iDj.._._._.._Jq._.._._._I I_B_.iIk _._.t._. These national championships in the city of his birth were es pe cially im por - tant for Tal. They also con sti tuted a zonal tour na ment. That meant that play ers had to oc cupy one of the top four places in or der to con tinue tak ing part in the strug gle for the chess crown. And that was the goal which Misha had set him - self with his trainer Al ex an der Koblents. But up un til the half-way mark things were not go ing as he had hoped. His mea gre 50 per cent were not enough. But then the ti tle de fender stepped up the tempo, and Efim Geller, 11 years older than he was, would be a wit ness to that. The very ex pe ri enced in ter na - tional com pet i tor he had for ex am ple taken an hon our able sixth place in the famous Candidates tournament in Zurich in 1953 and even in creased that three years later in Am ster dam to fourth place made in their first en coun ter an unexpected mistake, which distorted 38

Intermezzo Boris Spassky: Tal was the chess mes siah I have al ways liked Mikhail Tal and that fond ness for him still lin gers in my mem ory to day. He was a re ally spe cial per son. Pre vi ously I once called him the Christ of chess. Why did I choose that com par i son? In do ing so I was in spired by a paint ing by the Rus sian art ist Al ex - ander Ivanov, who lived in St Pe ters burg in the 19th cen tury. This fa mous pic ture por trays how Christ ap pears to his peo - ple and re veals him self to them. To some ex tent that was Mikhail Tal s ef fect on the chess pub lic of his day when in the mid dle of the last cen tury he came to the sur face in a blaze of light. He was the chess mes siah. I have al ways thought highly of Tal, above all be cause his feet never left the ground. When deal ing with peo ple, the man sim ply made no dif fer ences be - tween them, he showed re spect to ev - ery body. When it came to chess play ers, it was of no in ter est to him what ti tle they had or what was their Elo rat ing. That was not im por tant for him. All that counted were their hu man val ues. Mikhail Tal him self was and re mains till this day some thing won der ful to ap pear in world chess. A co los sal, an im por tant and necessary personality. He was not particularly interested in money, for him it was only there so that he could buy some thing to eat or drink. There was not much more which he needed. Misha was gen er ous, he loved life and hardly de nied him self any plea - sures it had to of fer. Some times, how - ever, his ac tions were a bit thought less. I can remember the following dramatic ep i sode, it is some thing I re ally can not for get: at the Chess Olym piad in 1962 in Varna we shared a room. Tal al ways smoked a lot, even in bed. Once, when I had gone out, he fell asleep with a burn ing cig a rette. I did not get back till quite late, re turn ing to the ho tel about half past three in the morn ing. Mikhail s bed was al ready alight. If I had got in only a few min utes later he would not have sur vived the fire. That was how I saved Tal on my Olym piad pre miere. We were also ri vals of course, that is true. At the USSR Cham pi on ship of 1958 in Riga, which was at the same time a zonal tour na ment, I lost a very im por tant game with white to Misha. Of course that ran kled with me. Af ter this vic tory, Tal be came So viet Cham - pion for the sec ond time, but I missed out on an en try to the interzonal tour - na ment. From to day s point of view, how ever, that was not such a great ca - tas tro phe for me as it has of ten been de - scribed in chess lit er a ture. The set back was all my own fault, Misha had noth - ing to do with it. At that time I was too pre oc cu pied with prob lems of my own to be able to play better. Later I nev er - the less man aged to find my own way to the Mount Olym pus of chess. Whether I won or lost to Tal never af fected my friend ship with him. There were never any negative moments between the man from Riga and me. It is ob vi ous that at the board we were sport ing ri - vals, but that never had any bad in flu - ence on our per sonal re la tion ship. We 153

The Magic Tac tics of Mikhail Tal 5 Green light for through routes Tal - Jan Hein Donner Hoogoven Tournament, Wijk aan Zee 1968 T_._M_.t j._._jjj.ssbj_._ j._ji._.._._d_. Q_._N_.._I_.iIi r._r_.k. It is not rare for chess play ers to be real hypochondriacs, who continually pay at ten tion to what they are feel ing. And not just as far as their health is con - cerned. In this re spect, Mikhail Tal was no ex cep tion, and so he felt at the deep - est pos si ble level at the tra di tional Hoogoven Tournament of January 1968 (it kept this name till 1999, and then in view of the new main spon sor it was re - named the Corus Tournament), that there was not re ally a spring in his step and I was sim ply not in a good mood for chess. And at the same time this event in the small town of Wijk aan Zee in the Neth er lands was a gen eral re - hearsal for his WCh Candidates quarter-fi nal match against Svetozar Gligoric, which was com ing up in four months time. That Tal was re ally not in form can be seen from the first half of that match, which, af ter five games in Bel grade, saw the top Yu go slav player in the lead by one point, though the ex- World Cham pion was able to sum mon up the en ergy to win that match be fore the tenth game with a score of 5½-3½. How ever, Misha had a fine at tack ing vic tory in round 12 against Johannes Hendrikus Donner, who five years pre - vi ously had won the same tour na ment ahead of Da vid Bronstein and Yury Averbakh. In in di vid ual games the lo cal grand mas ter could be very dan ger ous even to world class play ers, as is proved by his sur pris ing vic tory over Bobby Fischer in the 15th Chess Olym piad in Varna in 1962. Tal s leit mo tif in his game against the Dutch player was the strug gle for ac tiv - ity for his dark-squared bishop, which after emerging via a3, then planted it - self firmly on d6. White had with out wor ry ing in vested two pawns to achieve this and was now ready to in - vest even more. How did Tal log i cally con tinue his at - tack and where did Donner miss a good chance for equal ity? (solution on page 183) 6 A forced pin sets the points Tal - Miroslav Filip Moscow 1967._LtT_M_ jj_.ljjj.d._j_s._.n._q._._b_. I_._._. IbI_.iIi r._r_.k. This game is highly rec om mended as an ex am ple to con sider how it can be pos si - ble to suc cess fully thwart the strat egy of an op po nent who chooses a quiet vari a - 172

The Magic Tac tics of Mikhail Tal Chapter IV The Correct Way to Defend against the Ma gi cian Of course, in your thor ough work with the speculative sacrifices you will have long since drawn the con clu sion that an im por tant as pect has to be cor rect de - fence. For ex am ple, if in the game we chose as an il lus tra tion from the Can di - dates tour na ment of 1959 (see pages 162-164), Vasily Smyslov against Mikhail Tal had not made the fate ful er ror 18...Àf6?, but had in stead adopted one of the two ac cept able de fen sive plans 18...Ãf6!? or 18...Ãc7!? the his tory of chess World Cham pi on ships would per haps have fol lowed a very dif fer ent path. So it is sur pris ing that even in the standard works The Art of Sac ri fice in Chess by Rudolf Spielmann and Art of At tack in Chess by Vladi mir Vukovic noth ing has been said about this sub - ject. The Aus trian mas ter, who has un for - tu nately been so un fairly for got ten by pos ter ity, gave a very plau si ble rea son for this in his man ual which ap peared in 1935: We just can not re sist the in - flam ma tory power of the sac ri fice, be - cause the en thu si asm for sac ri fice lies in the na ture of things. At the same time, how ever, Rudolf Spielmann draws our at ten tion to a cir - cum stance with which we have cer tainly made pain ful ac quain tance, and that more than once: Praxis dem on strates that mis takes are more fre quently made in de fence than in at tack. Very par tic u - larly so when ever the de fence has ex - traordinary tasks to accomplish. This means noth ing other than: if you want to play chess suc cess fully, then it is im - perative that you deliberately develop your de fen sive skills. You all know the motto At tack is the best form of de - fence! In fact we of ten strongly un der-es - timate the available defensive resources or we sim ply do not re cog nise them. Would you, for ex am ple, have gone in for such a bold way to fight off the white at tack by Friðrik Olafsson à la Tal? Sicilian Defence [B41] Friðrik Olafsson - Tal Candidates tournament, Yugoslavia 1959 In round 11 of the 1959 Can di dates tournament the following highly ex - plo sive po si ti o n was reached in a sharp Sicilian [B41] after 1.e4 c5 2.Àf3 e6 3.d4 cxd4 4.Àxd4 a6 5.c4 Àf6 6.Àc3 Ãb4 7.Ãd3 Àc6 8.Àe2 c7 9.0-0 Àe5 10.f4 Àxc4 11. h1 Ãe7 12.b3 Àb6 13.e5 Àfd5 14.Àe4 f5 15.exf6 Àxf6 16.À2g3 Àbd5 17.Ãb2 0-0 18.Õc1 d8 19. e2 b5 20.Àxf6+ Ãxf6 21. h5 T_Ld.tM._J_.jJ J_._Jl. J_S_._Q._._.i. I_B_.n. Ib._._Ii _.r._r_k Tal s judgement of the position here was: Black is in a bad way. The threat is 240

Chapter IV The Correct Way to Defend against the Ma gi cian mate in three moves, and af ter 21...h6 22.Ãe5! the threat of 23. g6 is very strong: of course it can be par ried with 22... e8, but then White would have at least a draw: 23.Ãg6 e7 24.Ãb1 e8(f7) 25.Ãg6. But be cause of the tour na ment sit u a tion, I ab so lutely needed a win. So to put things sim ply I thought about sac ri fic ing some - thing: 21...g6! But of course the mat ter was not purely linked to considerations outwith the game. In any case White loses some tempi by tak ing the pawn and re treat ing his pieces; in ad di tion some thing won - der ful opened up for an at tack on the white king the g-file. White was obliged whether he liked it or not to ac cept the chal lenge, since 22. e2 Ãxb2 23. xb2 Àxf4 loses a pawn. Fi nally, as far as this sur pris ing de ci sion is con cerned, Tal must cer tainly have re - cog nised that in the pres ent sit u a tion he had, ob jec tively speak ing, no other op - tion than an ac tive de fence. Then one must also be will ing to sacrifice... 22.Ãxg6 In the tour na ment book, the emo tional comment of Grandmaster Ragozin on this cap ture was: A small sen sa tion! The spec ta tors had got used to Tal sac ri - fic ing some thing. This time one of Tal s opponents was sacrificing! Nowadays even chess fans are ca pa ble of play ing combinations. Olafsson surely does n t want to force per pet ual check? That would be too lit tle. But be fore the spec - ta tors had fin ished their re flec tions Tal had made his move... 22... e7! That is the so lu tion to the puz zle, or as Ragozin wrote: Olafsson had a lovely re ply in mind: 22...hxg6 23. xg6+ h8 24.Àf5!! Ãxb2 25.Õf3, and the black king is lost. Af ter 24...exf5 25.Õf3! too, he can not es cape his fate. An effective combination did not work. Tal spot ted it and found the cor rect way to weaken the white at tack. We should add that in the vari a tion in - dicated by Ragozin 24.Õf3! is the stron - gest move and wins di rectly, whilst in the second continuation after 24.Àf5 exf5 25.Õf3! Àxf4 26. h6+ g8 the dif fi cult move 27.Õe1! still has to be found. Mikhail Tal, on the other hand, eval u - ates the position absolutely objectively: Af ter the text move, on the other hand, White loses time re treat ing, while Black com pletely fin ishes his development. Af ter 23.Ãxf6 Àxf6 24. f3 Õb8 25.Ãd3 Ãb7 26. e2 h8 Black fi nally took the wind out of the sails of the en emy at tack by re turn ing the ex tra pawn and went on to win the game af ter 71 moves af ter mer ci lessly weav ing a mat ing net: 27.Õce1 Õbe8 28.Àf5 b4 29. b2 Õc8 30.Àg3 c3 31. e2 Õg8 32.Àe4 d4 33.Àg5 Õg7 34. e3 xe3 35.Õxe3 Õc3 36.Õh3 b4 37. g1 e5 38.Õg3 e4 39.Ãc4 d5 40.Ãe2 d4 41.Ãc4 e3 42.Õd1 Ãd5 43.Ãf1 Õe7 44.Ãe2 d3 45.Ãxd3 Õxd3 46.Õxd3 e2 47.Õge3 e1 + 48.Õxe1 Õxe1+ 49. f2 Õa1 50.Õd2 h6 51. e3 Õe1+ 52. f2 Õe7 53. f1 hxg5 54.fxg5 Àg4 55.h3 Àe3+ 56. f2 Ãxg2 57.Õd4 a5 58.h4 g7 59.h5 Àf5 60.Õc4 Õd7 61.Õc5 Ãe4 62.Õe5 Õe7 63.Õxa5 Õc7 64.Õa6 Õc2+ 65. e1 Àd4 66.Õa7+ f8 67.g6 Àf3+ 68. d1 Õd2+ 69. c1 Õh2 70.Õf7+ e8 71. d1 Ãd3 0-1 241