About M. Tal's CLASSIC 'Life and Games'

Eyal: <I picked up a copy of his games/autobiog book over the weekend - the one everyone says is among the best books ever, <The Life and Games of Mikhail Tal>> Btw, I can highly recommend his book on the 1960 match with Botvinnik as well - I've been going over it lately and it's definitely the best match book I've read. I can't really put it better than Dvoretsky, so here's a quote of what he has to say about the book:

<This is a wonderful book; in my view, one of the best in all of chess literature. Tal's annotations are quite genuine, and very detailed: each game receives several pages of entertaining text. Tal was an outstanding writer, with a lively, picturesque style. His comments never devolve – as so often happens these days, now that computers have gotten involved in analysis – into an endless rehash of variations. Quite the contrary: at every point in the game, Tal offers us his view of what is happening on the board – a positional assessment – and not a formalized one, either, but a lively, dynamic one. The most valuable characteristic of this book is the way it overflows with psychological observations and considerations. Psychology is a vital element of the chess struggle; yet it is portrayed in the pages of chess literature in either too primitive, or too formalistic and unconvincing a fashion. But here we can observe a believable psychological picture of a great match and each game of that match in particular, described by one of its main participants. An additional important element, and also rarely seen, is that the times after each move are noted.>

Interestingly, when you check with an engine the detailed variations that he gives - especially in the sidelines - you can find quite a lot of tactical mistakes. Dvoretsky comments about that:

Yes, he was possessed of a considerable talent for literature, no doubt.

"You must take your opponent into a deep dark forest where 2+2=5, and the path leading out is only wide enough for one."

And here is one about Bobby Fischer:

I've never understood this quote.

But I do like the one about "I've beaten Bobby so many times that gives me the right to sign for him." They were joking about that in Chess Life for a while. "How do I get an autographed picture of Bobby Fischer?" "Write to M. Tal, Shakmatny, Riga, USSR".

Tal had another great quote that I don't have right now, but basically he said that commenting on the Soviet Championship was more fun than playing in it because you could just sit in the press room and say "So-and-so is a fish".

<Mother, I have just become Ex-World Champion.>

-- Tal (upon losing to Botvinnik)

I think, after winning the first match Tal underestimated Botvinnik's chances in the re-match.

Aside from not being in good health, Tal's preparation for the match was inadequate. Botvinnik, on the other hand, during that one year, worked harder, and prepared better than he had ever before. The match proved it.

I assume that Botvinnik, being as conscientious as he was, wanted to see the "proof" first. He then did propose the postponement of the match. I don't know about "..belligerently..".

Lasker failed many times before finally succeeding, while Alekhine took to the bottle but still only succeeded with the smallest possible margin, and only for a short time. Fischer was so afraid of failing to do it that he had to quit to succeed.

Kasparov failed many times and understandably avoided Shirov to give the match to Kramnik instead. Kramnik had to put the title at stake in a tournament to manage, when even forfeiting a game didn't help against Topalov.

Smyslov 1958- = 50 years and counting

Euwe 1937-81 = 44 years

Spassky 1972- = 36 years and counting

Botvinnik 1957-58, 1960-61, 1963-95 = 34 years

Fischer 1975-2008 = 33 years

Tal 1961-92 = 31 years