Mikhail Tal is the world champion in chess. Biography

He perfectly suited the stereotypes of genius: a burning look, negligence in the external appearance, complete concentration on the most important and inattention to the details of life. Mikhail Tal occupied the world throne for a very short time, but is still considered a genius of chess, an embodiment of their higher meaning as a game based both on excitement, improvisation, enlightenment, and methodical miscalculation of options. His main human achievement was that he remained optimistic and benevolent to others until the end, despite the suffering and ills that accompanied him all his short life.

Not like everyone else

Unconventionality accompanied him from birth - the right hand was three-fingered, which friends jokingly called evidence of Tal's alien origin. More practical biographers see the reason for such an anomaly in the fact that his parents were blood relatives - cousins and sisters, which is fraught with genetic failures.

Mikhail Tal was born on November 9, 1936 in Riga, in a family of doctors. As he said later: "I played with black fates with blacks." Her first move was dangerous: six months after birth, the boy fell ill with an infection similar to meningitis. Parents, as physicians, understood the scanty chances of survival, and they also knew that this inflammation affects the brain in an unexpected way, sometimes multiplying the effectiveness of his work with a successful outcome of the disease. The child survived.

Shortened childhood

By the age of five he could multiply three-digit figures in his mind, and he had already read since he was three. The Talei family spent the war in the evacuation, in the Perm region. At school, the boy was accepted immediately into the third class, and to the University of Riga, to the philological faculty, Mikhail Tal was enrolled, exceptionally, from the age of 15.

Tal's memory was phenomenal. The boy verbatim reproduced the texts of the book, which, as it seemed to others, he scanned through the minutes. That information, which he considered particularly valuable, remained in his memory forever.

At the same time, Mikhail did not consider himself a child prodigy. His boyish interests did not differ from the hobbies of his peers - he liked to play football and spent a lot of time running with the ball, despite the early discovered pathology in the work of the kidneys. But gradually in his life appeared the main meaning - chess.

The beginning of the way

At the age of 6, Mikhail Tal, whose biography will now forever be associated with this ancient game, first saw the board with figures. It happened when the child was at work with his father and waited in the waiting room of his medical office. Patients spent time playing chess, waiting for the reception. The father showed him how the figures go, and introduced the basic rules. At first the boy reacted calmly to the game. The excitement, which the future chess champion later differed, boiled in him when at the age of 9 he received from a visiting cousin a "children's mate".

Since 10 years he began to go to the chess club at the Riga Palace of Pioneers. At the age of 12 he received the 2nd rank, at 14 he became the first, at the age of 17 he became a master. The first chess teacher Talya - Janis Kruskops - himself was a supporter of a combination, active game. In the case of Mikhail, this was superimposed on outstanding abilities and a fiery temperament. Tal-chess player never was afraid of risky continuations, complicating a position. The legendary "ill-conceived" victims of Tal are also largely from his "pioneer" childhood.

Literature teacher

Interest in the study of literature and history, apparently, arose under the influence of the mother - Ida Grigoryevna, in her youth had an acquaintance with Ehrenburg, Picasso, other humanities. The theme of the thesis, after the defense of which the young teacher Mikhail Tal was released from the university, was "Satire and humor in the works of Ilya Ilf and Yevgeny Petrov." It is obvious that the brilliant sense of humor inherent in Tal, noted by everyone - and long-known people, and hardly familiar - had a solid foundation.

After receiving the diploma, he worked for a while at school, but by that time chess became the main profession. Philological training greatly helped Tal in his studies in journalism, in particular, when he edited the magazine Chess published in Riga, highly regarded around the world.

Sally

In his game, they always looked for the imprint of the influence of supernatural, demonic forces - the style of Mikhail Tal was too bright, unordinary, full of risk, boundless imagination and unpredictable intuitive insights. Losers were looking for an explanation of their failures in the hypnotic view of the master, in his psychic abilities. Those who knew Michael closer, these attempts caused a smile - it was different.

Simply Tal-chess player was the product of his general attitude to life. The desire to quickly achieve success, to know the fullness of the sensations, the lack of restraint in the desires and means for their embodiment accompanied him all his life.

When preparations were underway for the most important fight with Botvinnik, who decided the fate of the world champion, he conducted an entire operation to conquer the heart of Riga's beauty Sulamith Landau. Both goals were achieved: Sally became his wife, and he - the world champion.

Way to Olympus

Rapid ascent of Tal to the chess summit, as well as the rapid acquisition of a prefix to his world title, are legendary pages in the world history of chess. In 1957, a young Riga resident became the USSR champion in chess, ahead of the venerable David Bronstein and Paul Keres - pretenders to the world crown. In the future, he won the All-Union Chess Championship five more times.

The next stages of the path to the chess Olympus were international tournaments. There were victories in the interzonal tournament of applicants in Portoroz, Slovenia (1958) and the 13th Chess Olympiad in Munich (1958). Tal won an international chess tournament in Zurich (1959) and a tournament of contenders in Yugoslavia that included all the then stars in the sport: Smyslov, Gligorich, Petrosyan, F. Olafson, Keres and 15-year-old Robert Fisher.

Match with Mikhail Botvinnik for the title of world champion was held from March 15 to May 7, 1960 and ended with an early victory of 24-year-old Tal, who won 6 games, lost 2 and first reached 12 and a half points.

The youngest world champion

Young and charismatic, witty and intelligent, possessing an unprecedentedly bold and energetic style of playing Tal became the idol of chess lovers around the world. When the professional masters were surprised by the unexpected appearance of the "upstart", when they found out closer to the new champion, the feeling of sympathy for him became universal and universal. Even known among the grandmasters and the chess public, the misanthrope and sociopath Bobby Fisher easily spent whole day alone with Tal, playing blitz.

In Riga Tal was greeted by a huge crowd, from the station in her arms carrying a car with a young champion. He willingly met with fans of chess of different ages in Riga and throughout the Union. Soon in the USSR there were few who were unfamiliar with Tal's surname. Mikhail Nehemievich also earned respect due to the fact that he did not change his place of residence even in the harshest times, he never allowed himself to indulge in indiscriminate indignity at the country where he was born, although the boldness of his statements abroad caused constant interest from government agencies - at one time he Was not allowed to leave.

The Afterlife

In the course of preparation for the match-revenge with Botvinnik in the spring of 1961, the aggravation of Tal's kidney problems interfered. He was even offered to ask about the postponement of the match, but he respectfully agreed to all the conditions of Botvinnik. As a result, Tal was not ready for a new fight for the title and lost.

Subsequently, he repeatedly entered the battle for the world chess crown, but without success. He participated in the team A. Karpov in preparation for the match with Korchnoi and Fisher, making a significant contribution to the acquisition of the championship title.

Despite the increasing health problems, he did not want to slow down the pace of life. After the birth of his son, the divorce from Sally, the second and third marriage, the birth of his daughter, he remained an expensive man for all whom he met on the path of life, behaving with women artlessly and simply. He did not want to lose simple and natural pleasures - tasty, but harmful food, good alcohol, smoked a lot ... True, sometimes it was due to the need to drown out the constant pain. To remove the pain, you had to resort to strong medications.

Left undefeated

In 1988, M. Tal won the world chess championship with a shorter schedule and becomes the first world champion in blitz. In his creative biography in 1970-80 there were periods when a win-win series in various tournaments counted 90 parties in a row, which is an impressive achievement for any master.

The last official game in the classic chess tournaments, Tal also won, it happened on May 5, 1992 in Barcelona, his opponent was Vladimir Hakobyan. And shortly before his death, he literally fled the hospital to participate in the blitz championship in Moscow, where he won the then world champion Garry Kasparov. It was his last chess tournament. He passed away on July 28, 1992.

Mikhail Nekhemievich Tal has remained in history not only as a brilliant chess player, one of the last romantics of this ancient game, but also an outstanding man of his personal qualities, who is kept by a lot of people in our country and abroad.