Boris Spassky vs Mikhail Tal (1959)

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Boris Spassky vs Mikhail Tal
Riga (1959), Riga URS, rd 3, Dec-07
Spanish Game: Closed Variations. Chigorin Defense (C97) · 1-0

ANALYSIS [x]

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Oct-11-06		M.D. Wilson: During Tal's famous year (1959), Spassky was virtually the only fellow GM who could defeat, let alone compete against, the great Mischa!

Oct-11-06		Runemaster: Yes, a good win for Spassky. A lot of Black's problems in this game stem from his queen's knight. It goes to a5 on move 9, as is common in the Ruy Lopez. It then stays there until move 31, when it hobbles back to the poor square b7. Spassky immediately plays 32.b4 to stop the knight's possible re-entry via the c5 square. From then on the poor beast stays out of the game until it pointlessly commits suicide on move 53. In the meantime, the knight became a target and there was no good way (and never enough time) to rehabilitate it. Moving to d8 would have at times blocked communication between the Black rooks, which could have caused problems, and even then, the e6 and c6 squares were not available. So this was truly a "bad knight", well exploited (perhaps 'dominated' is the technical term for it) by Spassky, so that Tal was effectively playing a piece down for a lot of the game.

Dec-02-09		M.D. Wilson: I believe that judged by his style of play, Spassky is much closer to Alekhine and Tal than to Smyslov, Botvinnik, or Petrosian. This is probably why, when Spassky was in his best form, neither Tal nor Korchnoi could really put up much resistance against him. Spassky could read their play (especially that of Tal) like an open book. – Garry Kasparov

Dec-01-15		Zugzwangovich: <During Tal's famous year (1959), Spassky was virtually the only fellow GM who could defeat, let alone compete against, the great Mischa!> One might also mention Paul Keres, whose 1959 record vis-a-vis the great Mischa was 4W, 4D, 1L.

Aug-15-24		ewan14: Korchnoi usually defeated Tal IIRC Korchnoi had a good record against Spassky apart from 1968 , when the latter really was universal !

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