Mikhail Tal

     I am in agreement with Miwala on this.  Tal has been my favorite for many years.  He played so many great games it is difficult to pick out just one.   Recently the book THE CHESS PSYCHOLOGIST - WORLD CHAMPION TAL has been republished in paperback (or soft cover).  This book was written and compiled by Alexander Liepnieks and published in 1961 by the North American Latvian Chess Association.  A few Latvians put this book together to celebrate Tal's victory over Botvinnik in the World Championship, they were so proud of him.  A few annotations were written by the Chicago master Paul Tautvaisus.  They all wanted to do this.  The book was printed in Chicago's Lincoln Park neighborhood by Alfreds Kalnaj's Printing Company, 719 Willow St. Chicago Illinois, I'm guessing in his basement print shop.

    Many players believe the best way to improve your game is to study the games of the best grandmasters.  I recommend this book, with 60 of Tal's games and his history of that time.  Only 8 of them are the 1960 World Championship match.  You can follow his career as a young player.  It starts with the student teams championship in Uppsala, Sweden 1956.  The 4th World Students in Reyjavik 1957 where he plays Larsen.  He meets Geller, Polugayevsky, Spassky and Keres in the 24 - 26th USSR Championships.  He plays Fischer at Portoroz 1958 and Zurich 1959 and there are two games against Fischer at the World Candidates, Yugoslavia 1959.  This book was about Tal's chess career and inevitable triumph. 

    Tal popularized the Modern Benoni Defense with his very sharp sacrificial play.  His game in that defense with Yuri Averbach is included in this book.  Like Fischer he played the King's Indian and Sicilian Defenses.  He plays a nice Tarrasch Defense against Keres (starting out 1. d4   1. Nf6).   He beat both Taimanov (in 31 moves) and Spassky playing the Nimzo-Indian Defense (and Taimanov wrote a book on it) while Spassky used his special line for White.   

    So Tal has my vote, even though Fischer and Capablanca played some strong and interesting games.  Tal must surely have been a great influence on Gary Kasparov.  There have been loads of great games by great masters, but if you learn to play like Tal you will feel good about yourself.  Tal was an exciting player.  Many grandmasters were not.       

Mikhail Tal (Latvian: Mihails Tāls; Russian: Михаил Нехемьевич Таль, Mikhail Nekhemievich Tal, IPA: [mʲixa'iɫ̺ n̻ʲɛ'xɛmjɛvʲiʨ t̺al̻]; sometimes transliterated Mihails Tals or Mihail Tal) (November 9, 1936 – June 28, 1992)^[1] was a Soviet-Latvian chess player, a Grandmaster, and the eighth World Chess Champion. He was often called "Misha", which is a diminutive for Mikhail. He was also called "the magician from Riga". Both The Mammoth Book of the World's Greatest Chess Games (Burgess, Nunn & Emms 2004) and Modern Chess Brilliancies (Evans 1970) include more games by Tal than any other player. Tal was also a highly-regarded chess writer. Many authorities consider him to have been the greatest attacking player of all time.

In 1988 I worked at the World Chess Festival where Tal won the second World Blitz Championship. I was in the players' lounge one day and Tal was playing blitz with some IM I can't remember. I'm thinking Shirazi who spent a night or two at my place. I honestly can't remember who was in the room, but there were probably a dozen GMs gathered, another dozen IMs, and a few others. Envision players like Korchnoi, Vaganiam, Chernin, Spraggett, Yusupov, etc. I think Karpov was there too.

What I remember was Tal was absolutely obliterating his opponent. It wasn't a typical plus situation for me, in fact it was a complicated looking board. But Tal pulled rabbit after rabbit out of his hat and chased the other's King all over the map. Ya, so what. But when GM's are going "oooh. aaaah!" continually, and getting more and more excited with each move, you know it's not just you that feels stupid. The final blow met a round of applause and handshakes. The kind of peer acknowledgement that speaks of true genius.

His winning the championship was special too. We had probably 300 watching with a big screen video projection hooked up to the board, the first time ever.

We were all cheering for Tal and we wanted to see him play Kasparov, the then WC. In fact we wanted to see him destroy Garry! Oh well, Georgiev beat Garry who was then beaten by Vaganian. It was still an electrifying final. When Tal won, the standing ovation was electrifying.

http://www3.sympatico.ca/g.giffen/worldchessfest.htm

Menace,

    Victor Korchnoi wasn't bad either.  He would play any opening under the sun.  Confidence.  Some people might put Kasparov right behind Tal.  You were certainly in the inner circle at the 2nd World Blitz.  Sort of like the chess gods coming down from mount olympus I'll bet.

   We can find Korchnoi - Tal  USSR 1962 here on Chess Showcase/Best Chess games. 

   Sadly, Tal's career was limited by kidney disease, and he died at a relatively young age. 

  If I was going to play the Modern Benoni Defense I would study Tal's games with it.

Mikhail Tal was the greatest attacking player ever. Some say that Alekhine or Kasparov were better, but none could match Tal's imagination and flare for the excitement of the game. Although I do not consider all of Tal's games to be sound, (it is commonly known that many of his combinations were speculative) the way he created his problems OTB and complicated every position caused GM after GM to give way and collapse under pressure.

His games are a great inspiration to me, and studying them has helped me with my tactics. Along with Kasparov, Alekhine, Karpov, and Botvinnik, I would rate Tal as one of the greatest players of all time.

Tal was great during his early years - his game waned somewhat as he got older- maybe because of his failing healh. His attacking play would probably falter against Rybka but was perfect against humans with emotions and the pressure of time.

I think the best book on Tal is the one he wrote Mikhail Tal's Life and Games--originally published by RHM it was re-done by Cadogan (Everyman)

Tal was my favorite player --however I got to spend a day driving him around NYC (a friend asked me to and of course I jumped at the chance)--I took a day off work and was very excited. To say he was rude, ungrateful and not polite is an understatement. I wish I had never met him as now my opinions of him are quite jaded.

The Count said,

"Tal was great during his early years - his game waned somewhat as he got older- maybe because of his failing healh. His attacking play would probably falter against Rybka but was perfect against humans with emotions and the pressure of time". 

     That is exactly why Tal Chess Psychologist is BETTER.  I agree with the Count.  Frank Marshall would have had the same problem with Rybka.

  I have owned both books.  aansel has obviously read only the one, so how could he be the judge?  To coin a phrase, buy the book.  Good thing RHM is republishing Tal's Life and Games.  My copy fell to pieces it was so poorly bound.  60 of Tal's early games are in Chess Psycologist, the games he made his reputation on.  How could anyone consentrate on all of Tal's games without indigestion?  I have retained a lot because I have been looking at these same games (off and own) for 45 years.  I say again, having owned both books I'll pass on Tal's Life and Games (unless you can't get Chess Psycologist).  As I have said numerous times here, go to Powell's Books on line for chess books, especially out of print books.  They stock over six million books.  Hello.  

Indeed, nobody matched Tal when it comes to tactics and imagination. He's exceptional. But to compare him with other attackers like Alekhine and Kasparov, I think it's quite odd.

True, they are relentless attackers - give them the initiative and you are toast. HOWEVER, how they get to attack is a different matter. Alekhine and Kasparov have more similarities in this respect - their attacks come from a position of strength...strategically strong positions and they convert that to attacks and we all know what would happen next. :D

Mikhail Tal, on the other hand, would create attacks, not from a position of strength, BUT from complications! He even said: "If the position after a sacrifice is more complicated than it was, then my sacrifice has succeeded." Don't quote me on that though, but what he said was something along the lines of the above. :D

I wish I could learn how to play like that. Maybe it's not exactly healthy - to complicate positions and work your way through it, BUT regardless, his style is exciting.

The Fighting Chess Amateur

http://how-to-improve-in-chess.com

It is interesting to play through the games of Vladimir Bagirov playing  Alekhine's Defense and the Nimzo-Larsen Opening.  He was chess coach to both Gary Kasparov and Mikhail Tal.

testing

I wouldn't say Tal was the greatest attacking player of all time, but without a doubt he was the greatest psychologist. But it didn't work against everyone - for the most part Korchnoi, Keres, and Spassky had his number. Nevertheless he probably created more interesting and beautiful games than anyone. One of my favorite players.