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Lajos Portisch vs Mikhail Tal
Amsterdam Interzonal (1964), Amsterdam NED, rd 2, May-21
Zukertort Opening: Symmetrical Variation (A04)  ·  1/2-1/2

8
7
6
5
4
3
2
a
1
b
c
d
e
f
g
h
White to move.
ANALYSIS [x]
1/2-1/2

rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/RNBQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1
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Kibitzer's Corner
< Earlier Kibitzing  · PAGE 2 OF 2 ·  Later Kibitzing>
Feb-07-06  who: Can someone post computer analysis to this game?
Feb-09-06  who: Since no one did, I took it into my own hands.
Not surprisingly Fritz dislikes 16...d4 (1.78 Bf5 0.82/10).

It also dislikes 22...Rc3 (3.31 Nc3 2.53/10),

25...h5 (4.78 Ng5 3.47)

and after 26...hxg4 (6.22 Kxg7 5.10/10) it should be curtains.

All Portisch needed to do was play 27.Bxc3 and after either 27...g3 28.Qd4! (28.hxg3? Qh3! and white can't avoid the perpetual) 28...gxh2+ 29.Kh1!(29.Kxh2 Qh3+ and the same perpetual) 29...Ng3+ 30.Kg2 Qh3+ 31.Kf2 white wins. I imagine that the first line gives enough complications that that's what Portisch was worried about. Or 27.Bxc3 Nxc3 28.Qd2 and white wins (7.69/13).

29.Nf3 (2.94 29.e3 Rxa3 30.Bh6 Rd3 31.Qe2 3.19)

31.Rf1 (0.00 31.Nc2 Qf2 32.Bd4 gxf3 33.Bxf2 fxe2+ 34.Kg1 exd1=Q 35.Rxd1 Rxc2 36.Rxe7 2.93/11)

31...Rxa3 (0.65 31...gxf3 32.exf3 Kxg7 33.Nc2 Bxf3+ 34.Rxf3 Qxf3 35.Qxf3 Rxf3 -0.66)

32.Qc1 (0.00 32.Bd4 gxf3! 33.Rxf3 Bxf3+ 34.exf3 Qxf3+ 35.Rxf3 +0.65/12)

Sep-28-06  ghaiethe: Wonderful Traw!!
Mar-10-07  HOTDOG: 27.Bxc3 g3 28.Qd4 gxh2+ 29.Kh1 Ng3+ 30.Kg2 Qh3+ 31.Kf2 e5 32.Qxd6 Nf5 33.Qxe5 Qh4+ 34.Kg2 Qg5+ 35.Kh1 Ng3+ 36.Kxh2 Qh4+ 37.Kg2 Qh3+ 38.Kf2 and White wins(from ''How to evaluate the position'',Anatoly Lysenko)
Sep-24-08  ToTheDeath: Beautiful bamboozling by Tal.
Feb-06-09
Premium Chessgames Member
  An Englishman: Good Evening: Yikes.
Feb-21-09  MrMelad: Wow!! What a game!

on 32.Bd4 gxf3 33.Bxe3 f6# mates!

This is what I admire about Tal, I can imagine his rivals pounding their head in despair... Portisch got all of black pieces but the king and black still hangs on. This chess can't be tought! Of course Fritz doesn't like it, but show me a human that doesn't love it :)

Feb-21-09  laskereshevsky: As I wrote some weeks ago in another page, talking about this game:

<..how many times Tal had shocked the opponents with obscures conseguence's moves?.... Expecial vs. classical and positional players like Portisch, or Glicoric for instance...

who know this game?!>

(I gived the above game link)

<Portisch vs Tal, 1964

Realizing that his just to be positionaly "squeezed" by Portisch, Tal goes to a rook sacrifice in change of...a doupled pawn!!. but after others "unsounds" sacrifices and astonishing moves the miracle came....

Portisch, looks to me absolutly confused by the crazy illogical Tal's play....

Of course the 1964's Tal had a much more "terrific" appeal, toward the opponents, then the 1976's ones...:)>

.... (Reffering to your own past words between <brackets> Its.....

....A kind of self-orgasmic kibitzer feeling?!..... )

.:)

Apr-01-11
Premium Chessgames Member
  AylerKupp: One of my all-time favorite games, for reasons that I can't quite explain. I remember the analysis in Chess Life shortly after the game was played when Tal was quoted as saying that after 13.Qc2 he realized that he had been outplayed by Portisch and that he had a choice between sacrificing a piece for more active play or being squeezed to death. Naturally, he chose the former. And with Tal, one piece leads to a rook, leads to . . .

At the end Tal had 4 pawns for his rook and Portisch was short of time, so Portisch took the draw. "Portisch wouldn't argue" is what Chess Life said. And Chess Life summed it best: "A game such as one seldom sees."

Dec-09-11  King Death: This was a murky game, even for Tal.

The opening is just a sideline in the King's Indian, not a Zukertort.

May-31-12
Premium Chessgames Member
  FSR: What an insane game! Somehow I had never seen or heard of it before.
May-31-12  LoveThatJoker: <FSR> This is indeed one heck of a game!

LTJ

May-31-12
Premium Chessgames Member
  FSR: Back in those days Portisch had a hard time against Tal. http://www.chessgames.com/perl/ches...
Jul-15-13  gars: <Whatthefat, AylerKupp> I have been told that after this game Tal said: "If I had more time I would have resigned!"
Jan-15-18
Premium Chessgames Member
  GrahamClayton: The White knight on a3 remained 'en prise' for 9 moves before being captured, while the White bishop on g7 remained 'en prise' for 8 moves before being captured.
Jan-15-18
Premium Chessgames Member
  AylerKupp: <gars> I can't believe that it's been so many years since I looked at this game. And I had never heard that quote from Tal. But it certainly sounds like something he would have said!
Jan-15-18  morfishine: Is this a real game? Looks like something even more bizarre than 3-D chess! Is 4-D possible?

For this 39-move game, one could interchange or substitute exclaims with question marks, for practically every move, and it wouldn't make much of a difference...

I've been through it twice and my head is beginning to hurt...think I'll hold off viewing a third time til maybe tomorrow at the earliest lol

*****

Jan-19-18  ColdSong: Really exciting and frightening.One has to be sure of all his defensive patterns when playing this Devil.
Jan-20-18  WorstPlayerEver: I guess So studied some Tal games lately ;)
Jan-20-18  Howard: This game was in Volume 2 of the recent-published trilogy of Tal's best games...and for damn good reason!
Sep-20-22  kereru: Tal's favourite word was "hooligan", a stigmatised word in Russia and the Soviet Union. And this game is pure hooliganism.
Jul-25-23
Premium Chessgames Member
  fredthebear: J-J-Jumpin' Jehoshaphat !!??!!
May-26-24  Cecco: I have always thought that a player's "notable games" were those in which he made a good impression the most. This is currently the first of the "notable games" of the great Lajos Portisch, but it seems to me that it doesn't make him look particularly good. It seems to me that we can talk about a missing win. Of course, many strong players, faced with Tal's brilliant unsound sacrifices, were unable to even draw. And, of course, you can't use an engine to judge how much moves are actually worth. We can probably come to the conclusion that Portisch' caution was fully justified, but it's a long way from there to considering this his most brilliant game. I absolutely don't want to start a controversy against chessgames.com, a site I admire. I'm just curious about the selection criteria.
May-26-24
Premium Chessgames Member
  beatgiant: <Cecco> See the Chessgames Help, where it says <The lists of notable games are calculated by finding the games which most frequently appear in our users' game collections.>
Jun-06-24  Cecco: Thanks, <beatgiant>.
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