This collection is part of Game Collection: Tal's Tournament and Matches 1949-1973

These are all the games Mikhail Tal played at the <USSR Republics Team Championship 1967>, dated and in correct round order.1

Both the preliminary and final rounds were held in Moscow (23 July - 3 Aug).2 Tal remarked that "Latvia found itself in a strong preliminary group, from which we only reached the second final group."3 It was surely a strong group, featuring Ukraine, with Leonid Stein and Efim Geller and Belarus, with Alexey Suetin and Isaac Boleslavsky. 4,5 Tal and Aivars Gipslis, the 1st and 2d boards for Latvia, both scored +1 -0 =4, which wasn't good enough.6 Latvia finished 3d and advanced only to "Final Group B."7 Tal also noted that he "played several interesting games,"3 and mentions his preliminary round 2 win with the black pieces against Anatoly Ufimtsev, which features this fine positional exchange sac:

21.Rh4 -e4!

click for larger view

Perhaps one of the more interesting aspects of this game was that Tal actually ended up getting 2 points for the win. In Final Group B the 1st round was not played. Instead, whichever teams were scheduled to be paired in that round had the result of their preliminary round pairing carried forward. In Tal's case, Latvia would have played Kazakhstan in Final round 1, so his preliminary round win against the Kazakhstani player Ufimtsev was carried over into his final score, which was recorded as +3 -0 =2, even though he only played four games.6,8

Final Group B may have been second best but it wasn't weak. Tal made a short draw with Paul Keres, and also drew the Uzbeki Georgy Borisenko, one of the more intriguing players in the event. He was an international master, but of correspondence chess! Tal posted wins against the untitled Armenian Karen Grigorian and the Azerbaijani international master Vladimir Bagirov to lead Latvia to first place.6

Notes

1 Hilary Thomas, "Complete Games of Mikhail Tal 1967-1973" (Batsford 1979), pp.7-9; Khalifman, ed. "Mikhail Tal Games II 1963-1972" pp.180-184

2 Di Felice, "Chess Results 1964-1967," pp.453-462

3 Mikhail Tal, "The Life and Games of Mikhail Tal" (Cadogan 1997), p.336

4 Olimpbase, "10th Soviet Team Chess Championship: Moscow 1967-Ukrainian SSR" http://www.olimpbase.org/1967st/196...

5 Olimpbase, "10th Soviet Team Chess Championship: Moscow 1967-Belorussian SSR" http://www.olimpbase.org/1967st/196...

6 Olimpbase, "10th Soviet Team Chess Championship: Moscow 1967-Latvian SSR" http://www.olimpbase.org/1967st/196...

7 Olimpbase, "10th Soviet Team Chess Championship: Moscow 1967-Final B" http://www.olimpbase.org/1967st/196...

8. Thomas, p.8

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More "Tal at the USSR Team Championships":

Game Collection: Tal at the USSR Clubs Team Championship 1954

Game Collection: Tal at the USSR Republics Team Championship 1955

Game Collection: Tal at the USSR Republics Team Championship 1959

Game Collection: Tal at the USSR Clubs Team Championship 1961

Game Collection: Tal at the USSR Republics Team Championship 1962

Game Collection: Tal at the USSR Republics Team Championship 1963

Game Collection: Tal at the USSR Clubs Team Championship 1964

Game Collection: Tal at the USSR Clubs Team Championship 1966

Game Collection: Tal at the USSR Clubs Team Championship 1968

Game Collection: Tal at the USSR Clubs Team Championship 1971

Game Collection: Tal at the USSR Republics Team Championship 1972