I would like to know more about the provenance of this game.

It is not listed in either Hilary Thomas "Complete Games of Mikhail Tal 1936-1959" (Batsford 1980); or Khalifman et al, "Mikhail Tal - 8th World Champion" (PC-CD).

Both <Tal> and <Nevitzky> indeed played in the <USSR Junior Team Championship Semifinal 1949> but they both played for Latvia in this event:

http://al20102007.narod.ru/ch_urs/1...

Note this part of the Rusbase page:

<Latvia: Pasman M.,Zilber I.,Kliavinsh Y.,Rapoport,Peterson A.,Trenko Z.,Nevitsky, Tal M.,Mednis>

They wouldn't have played each other, at least not at this event, which is listed at the top of the game on this page.

So the event listing for this game is wrong, or the answer might even be more complicated than that. Might it be an "offhand game" played between them during the course of the tournament?

Unfortunately, the Rusbase download link for games form this tournament does not include any of Tal's games:

http://al20102007.narod.ru/ch_urs/1....

Aha- Here is the actual provenance for this game score, courtesy of User: zanzibar

The game was played at the <Riga Junior Semifinal Championship>:

(1) Nevitsky-Tal, March 30, 1949
Riga Youth Championship, Semi-finals
1 e4 Nf6 2 Nc3 e5 3 Nf3 Nc6 4 Bb5 Bb4 5 O-O d6 6 d3 O-O 7 Bg5 Bxc3 8 bxc3 h6 9 Bh4 Qe7 10 Qd2 Nd8 11 Rfe1 c6 12 Bc4 Be6 13 Bb3 Bxb3 14 axb3 Ne6 15 d4 Nf4 16 g3 Ng6 17 c4 Rfd8 18 Ra4 a6 19 c3 b5 20 cxb5 axb5 21 Rb4 Ra5 22 c4 Rda8 23 cxb5 cxb5 24 Qc3 Nxh4 25 Nxh4 g6 26 Nf3 Ng4 27 h3 exd4 28 Nxd4 Nf6 29 Nc6 Qc7 30 Rc1 R5a6 31 f3 d5 32 e5 32...Ra2 33 Rxb5 Nh5 34 Rxd5 Nxg3 35
Rd2 Ne2+ 36 Rxe2 Rxe2 37 Qc5 Kh7 38
Kf1 Raa2 39 Nd4 Qxc5 40 Rxc5 Red2 41
Rc1 Rxd4 42 Ke1 Rdd2 43 b4 Rh2 0-1

(The signatures of both players appear at the
end of the game score)

Information from User: OlimpBase (website- http://www.olimpbase.org/):

"Nevitsky" is nonexistant name, it is 95% "Levitsky".

Rusbase uses the spelling "Nevitzky" as a member of the Latvian team at this event: http://al20102007.narod.ru/ch_urs/1....

I don't doubt this is a mistake-

If he is "Levitzky," he is not one of the Levitzkys listed in our database- http://www.chessgames.com/perl/ches... - because the years/nationalities don't match the two events we know that <(L)evitzky> played in:

1. <Riga Junior Semifinal Championship 1949>

More on the "Nevitzky-Levitzky" topic, from User: zanzibar:

Doing a search with Cyrillic on google (Таль Невицкий шахматы 1946 Рига) I found:

<With Valentin Kuznetsov me close introduced in 1974, my then-head of sector head of the Komsomol Arthur Nevitsky. Both were avid chess players.>

http://www.e-reading.ws/bookreader....

More on this topic from User: SwitchingQuylthulg:

I googled for "Таль Невицкий" as well, and turned up this: http://vesti.vesti.lv/crime/414-623...