Mikhail Tal

In this name that follows Eastern Slavic naming customs, the patronymic is Nekhemyevich and the family name is Tal.

Mikhail Tal
Tal in 1962
Full nameMikhail Nekhemyevich Tal
Country
Born9 November 1936 (1936-11-09)
Riga, Latvia
Died27 June 1992 (1992-06-28) (aged 55)[1]
Moscow, Russia
TitleGrandmaster (1957)
World Champion1960–1961
Peak rating2705 (January 1980)
Peak rankingNo. 2 (January 1980)

Mikhail Nekhemyevich Tal[a] (9 November 1936 – 28 June 1992)[1] was a Soviet and Latvian chess player and the eighth World Chess Champion. He is considered a creative genius and is widely regarded as one of the most influential players in chess history. Tal played in an attacking and daring combinatorial style.[2][3] His play was known above all for improvisation and unpredictability. Vladislav Zubok said of him, "Every game for him was as inimitable and invaluable as a poem".[4]

His nickname was "Misha", a diminutive for Mikhail, and he earned the nickname "The Magician from Riga". Both The Mammoth Book of the World's Greatest Chess Games[5] and Modern Chess Brilliancies[6] include more games by Tal than any other player. He also held the record for the longest unbeaten streak in competitive chess history with 95 games (46 wins, 49 draws) between 23 October 1973 and 16 October 1974, until Ding Liren's streak of 100 games (29 wins, 71 draws) between 9 August 2017 and 11 November 2018.[7][8] In addition, Tal was a highly regarded chess writer.

Tal died on 28 June 1992 in Moscow, Russia. The Mikhail Tal Memorial chess tournament has been held in Moscow annually since 2006.

  1. ^ a b Tal's gravestone has 27 June as the date of his death. All other sources consulted give 28 June, including Kasparov, Garry, My Great Predecessors, part II, p. 382, and The Life and Games of Mikhail Tal, p. 6.
  2. ^ Zubok, V. M. (2011) Zhivago's children: the last Russian intelligentsia, Harvard University Press, ISBN 0674062329
  3. ^ Clarke, P. H. (1969) Tal's Best Games of Chess, Bell, ISBN 0713502045
  4. ^ Zubok, Vladislav. Zhivago's Children. Harvard University Press, 2009. p. 179 ISBN 9780674033443
  5. ^ Cite error: The named reference Burgess was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ Cite error: The named reference Evans was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ Soltis, Andrew (2002) Chess Lists Second Edition, 2nd ed., McFarland & Company, Jefferson, North Carolina and London, pp. 43–44, ISBN 0786412968.
  8. ^ "Official FIDE Ding, Liren (CHN) Individual Calculations full report".


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