|
< Earlier Kibitzing · PAGE 3 OF 3 ·
Later Kibitzing> |
Oct-17-05
 | | LIFE Master AJ: OK - let me rephrase - any English book references? (I have a few books that are in foreign languages, but the bulk of my collection is in the English language.) |
|
| Oct-18-05 | | Runemaster: <Resignation Trap> <According to contemporary comments, Tal "played like a pirate" against Smyslov in this tournament. I'm not quite sure what is meant by that. Perhaps he said "Arrgh, matey!" at the conclusion of his games?!> LOL. Did anyone notice (and this is not a joke of mine) that a few weeks ago - around the time of <RT>'s post, there was celebrated "International Talk Like a Pirate Day"? I had never heard of it until someone mentioned it, so I did a quick internet search and it really does exist - apparently it's an annual event. |
|
| Jan-30-06 | | whatthefat: Tal really did <play like a pirate> against Smyslov in Bled 1959! (Whether he talked like one, I don't know.) He purposely played a very aggressive, intimidating style against him. I am sure that this decision on Tal's part was influenced by the fact that the two had never played each other before then. Smyslov must have been at least a little edgy about facing this tactical genius, whose reputation had preceded him. Especially as tactics were admittedly never Smyslov's strongest point. Some of Tal's play was definitely unsound, but he played the odds. This was psychological warfare, and the risk paid off: Tal beat the tournament favourite, Smyslov, <2.5-1.5> |
|
| Feb-17-06 | | Resignation Trap: <LIFE Master AJ> This game appears in "The Chess Psychologist: World Champion Tal", published by the North American Latvian Chess Association (in English) while Tal was World Champion. |
|
| Aug-19-06 | | Aspirador: The game-score is wrong here (see discussion above). Can somebody please correct this? |
|
| Aug-20-06 | | Albertan: Sep-21-05 penarol: BTW, 40...Rd7 refers to what of both rooks? Could be the one in the second rank...
Sep-21-05
Resignation Trap: <penarol> You found the explanation: an ambiguous move! Smyslov actually played 40...Rdg7. No overlooked mate involved! I agree I found this game in my chessbase database and Smyslov did play 40...Rgd7 and after 41.Rf6 Smyslov resigned. I have submitted the correct game score to chessgames.com |
|
| Sep-27-06 | | Aspirador: cg.com,
this is still not corrected. It was 40...Rgd7 instead of 40...Rdd7. Otherwise 41.Rf6 doesn't make sense. |
|
| Nov-11-06 | | Resignation Trap: A cartoonist's view of Tal as a pirate: http://www.hotel-boos.de/schach/bil... . |
|
Nov-11-06
 | | Phony Benoni: I have got to get new glasses. That cartoon looks more like Petrosian to me. |
|
| Nov-12-06 | | Amulet: Tal had his head full of his hair when he won the chess championship. |
|
| May-29-07 | | inthestepsofTal: According to Tal himself, Smyslovs last move 40.Rgd7, (again not the other rook!) was a blunder... As I recall he wrote "...the game against Smyslov, where I needlessly threw myself into the attack, ran up against an excellent defense, then half-blundered, half-sacrificed a piece, and only in the time-scramble managed to win after a blunder by my opponent on the 40th move." Does that mean that black could have fought on a bit longer beyond move 40? |
|
| Oct-22-09 | | Plato: <inthestepsoftal: Does that mean that black could have fought on a bit longer beyond move 40?> no, Smyslov's position went from completely winning after move 39 to completely lost after move 40. I posted this on the Smyslov page, but it seems relevant here given the discussion above. Tal won the Candidates tournament in dominating fashion and won his mini-match vs Smyslov 2.5-1.5, with two wins, one loss and a draw. But it is noteworthy that Smyslov had completely winning positions in three out of four games and blundered in time trouble three times. In this game Smyslov had a completely winning position on move 39, blundered on move 40 as the time control was reached, and resigned. Head-to-head Smyslov edged out Tal 4 games to 3 over their careers, though it is clear that Tal was the superior tournament player. Tal's enterprising style was better suited for beating the weaker opponents, whereas Smyslov drew against them more often. Going over their games, though, one gets the feeling that Smyslov was overall the more accurate player. This is not suprising, given their styles. Smyslov was a perfectionist while Tal was a player who made great practical decisions over the board, aiming for "messy" positions where he could usually outplay his opponents. |
|
| Feb-08-10 | | DrDave: "OK - let me rephrase - any English book references?"
I've just edited the re-issue of Harry Golombek's booklet from 1960.
"The spectators had their money's worth in excitement, at any rate, in the 22nd round. The focus for this was the Tal-Smyslov game in which Tal sacrificed a piece for an attack that certainly should not have been sufficient. All seemed over and I had left the scene to type out my report giving the result as Smyslov 1 Tal 0, when the assistant director of the tournament came over to me and said that Smyslov had resigned. In fact Smyslov’s last move was a complete blunder throwing away the game. I had to rewrite my report whilst the Russian journalist who had already informed Moscow that Tal had lost had to contact Moscow again by telephone and eat his words."
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Candidates-... |
|
| Sep-28-11 | | Everett: Well I am hoping 40..Rg6 keeps the win for Black, as I can't find another viable move. |
|
| Dec-02-14 | | MindCtrol9: Everet:40....Rg6 41.RxR pxR 42.Qh6+ Qh7 43.Rf8+ RxR 44.QxR+ |
|
| Sep-16-15 | | ToTheDeath: Totally wamboozled. It's amazing what Tal got away with in his time. |
|
| Apr-29-20 | | ewan14: Tal thought he was invincible. In this tournament not quite , but sufficient |
|
Apr-11-25
 | | Honza Cervenka: Well, after 40...Qd7! this pirate could have been hanged. Btw, 41.Rg6 was winning too. Especially 41.Rg6 Bg7 42.Qf8+ Rxf8 43.Rxf8+ Bxf8 44.Rg8# is a juicy final. 41.Rg6 hxg6 42.Qh6+ Rh7 43.Rf8+ Rxf8 44.Qxf8# is quite cute too. |
|
Apr-11-25
 | | HeMateMe: One of the giants of chess just annihilated. Tal was frightening. Guys who can beat Bobby Fischer 4-0 are scary. Scary good. |
|
| Apr-11-25 | | Muttley101: <HeMateMe: One of the giants of chess just annihilated. Tal was frightening. Guys who can beat Bobby Fischer 4-0 are scary. Scary good.> Fischer was 15 at the time, and playing in his first candidates' tournament. Tal was 24, and at the peak of his play (though later he disputed this). But yeah, Tal was scary. Neil McDonald related that when he was younger he played in a tournament with Tal (then a lot order, of course), and when Tal produced a stream of variations he had seen in the post mortem of their game McDonald realised he would never be world champion :D Final word courtesy of Kramnik: "None of us can hold a candle to Tal." |
|
| Apr-11-25 | | sfm: Wonderful!! The eternal battle of being the one to make the 'next to the last blunder'. Black, with 24.-,g5!, makes 15 winning moves in succession, then one losing, last move within the first time control. In his book about the last Karpov-Korchnoi match, Larsen once said 'They are equally strong, but on diabolical invention will cost Korchnoi the match, the chess clock."
In this match, Smyslov was even stronger most of the way, but - the chess clock. |
|
Apr-11-25
 | | Teyss: Good pun that relates to an actual event: puns don't always have to be funny, they can just be accurate. In this case the Latvian pirate ship, with limited firepower being a Bishop down, fiercely attacked the official Soviet vessel who successfully sustained the raid until the captain succumbed at the last moment. <Resignation Trap: (...) According to contemporary comments, Tal "played like a pirate" against Smyslov in this tournament.> Does anyone have the actual source? Fully agree with <Muttley101> even if Fischer was actually 16 and Tal 22 (close to 23) but it doesn't matter much for the point made. |
|
Apr-15-25
 | | perfidious: <Muttley101.... Neil McDonald related that when he was younger he played in a tournament with Tal (then a lot order, of course), and when Tal produced a stream of variations he had seen in the post mortem of their game McDonald realised he would never be world champion :D> Wolff, having seconded Anand in his first run at the title, spoke of experiencing the same sort of emotions in the aftermath. One of the most enjoyable tales I have read on Tal was mentioned by Nunn in his best games compendium. Nunn showed the great man a queen ending and declared it a draw, only to have Tal quickly and convincingly prove him wrong. <....Final word courtesy of Kramnik: "None of us can hold a candle to Tal."> As I have posted elsewhere, Tal is one of the two most brilliant people I have met at the chessboard. Kramnik is bang on. |
|
| Apr-18-25 | | Muttley101: Thanks <Teyss> for both the correction over respective ages of Fischer and Tal, and proportionality. fwiw I just didn't think it was worth the time to check either's actual DOB and dates of games to be correct about their age, but it's no excuse for inaccuracy. I would be taken to task for this by Winter (and rightly so :)) On Tal, the thing that impresses me most is his universality and ethic, not just in chess, but as a person. His training as a journalist stood him in good stead- "Life and Games" is wonderful and clearly his voice. It's a real shame he didn't write a follow up. He has both a light touch, concision, but is also penetrating in his take on games, positions, and opponents. He is fair, self-critical, and laughs at himself. Not for nothing was he once described as "the Paganini of chess" as a nod to the level of "con brio" in his play. No-one has a bad word about him, other than his taste for carousing, and even these stories are funny :D Like Fischer, he never got to play another world championship match after his two against Botvinnik, but unlike Fischer he continued to live chess and produce endless pearls for all of us to enjoy. It would be hard to find someone who created not just so many jaw-dropping moves and ideas in his time, but the combinations and variations that arose out of them. I'll leave this with the story of his final game in his candidates semi-final against Larsen, in which he played the Nd5 sac against Larsen's Sicilian, and won. The soundness of Tal's play was debated back and forth for 18 months in the pages of Soviet periodicals, and a journalist caught up with Tal and asked him what he thought of the conclusion that his sac was unsound. "How long did they take to come to this conclusion?" Tal asked. "18 months." "But, you only have 2 1/2 hours thinking time in a game ..." he replied. Classic Tal, and related by him in L&G. None of us can hold a candle to Tal, but all of us can enjoy his games and celebrate his life for eternity. |
|
Apr-18-25
| | HeMateMe: Most people who have read a lot of chess books put Tal's auto bio top five. |
|
 |
|
|
< Earlier Kibitzing · PAGE 3 OF 3 ·
Later Kibitzing> |
Kibitzing
Annotations by 
sac: 25.Qf5
