Life & Games of Mikhail Tal
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The Life and Games of Mikhail Tal by Mikhail Tal
a short review by Jerry Monaco
Those of us who came to chess in the late 1960's, just before the Fischer boom, could not help but come under the spell of Mikhail Tal. He was the youngest World Chess Champion until Garry Kasparov, and the wildest, the most charismatic. His nickname 'the magician of Riga' fit him well and i can't help but relate him to other magicians in the world of art - Mozart, Orson Welles, Vladimir Nabokov. His wild sacrifices and evil eye for the main chance to win in any game seemed to flaunt all of the rules of symmetry, balance and the accumulation of small advantages. These were parts of the modernist and hyper modernist line of thought in chess from Nimzovich to Botvinnik.
Tal was perhaps our first post-modernist chess grand-master. He divided the chess board into fields of force and lines of information, where certain squares, pieces, and the skeletal structure of pawns, pulsated with weak and strong forces, and where the 'matter' of a sacrificed piece could be transformed into the energy of an explosive mating attack.
This book is entitled "The Life and Games of Mikhail Tal." It is the closest to a great autobiography that any chess player has yet written. In it the reader will find a witty conversationalist who is quite honest about his way of thinking and of feeling his way into a chess position. Sometimes what was going through his mind when he was calculating a chess position would have surprised those who observed his intense focus of concentration on the chessboard. The following is Tal's description of his 'calculations' of the trees of variation in a crucial and complicated position in a crucial tournament.
This is a quote from one of the 'self-interviews' that Tal drops into his book. Yes, I said 'self-interview.' In these interviews Tal imagines a Journalist who asks pertinent and absurd questions and then imagines himself as 'The Chessplayer' giving absurd and pertinent answers. Think of Fellini and one can comprehend Tal's playfulness and self-mocking style. At times Tal's chess games and his life in chess and his commentary on both seem to 'naturally' take a Felliniesque quality.
Tal was also quite willing to speak of his various illnesses and his love of alcohol and tobacco. On the board Tal was a great fantasist. In life he was a realist. He was also honest to himself and others about his weaknesses and strengths. Above all he loved chess and gave his life to it.
Jerry Monaco
New York City
16 March 2005
Shandean Postscripts to Politics, Philosophy & Culture
a short review by Jerry Monaco
Those of us who came to chess in the late 1960's, just before the Fischer boom, could not help but come under the spell of Mikhail Tal. He was the youngest World Chess Champion until Garry Kasparov, and the wildest, the most charismatic. His nickname 'the magician of Riga' fit him well and i can't help but relate him to other magicians in the world of art - Mozart, Orson Welles, Vladimir Nabokov. His wild sacrifices and evil eye for the main chance to win in any game seemed to flaunt all of the rules of symmetry, balance and the accumulation of small advantages. These were parts of the modernist and hyper modernist line of thought in chess from Nimzovich to Botvinnik.
Tal was perhaps our first post-modernist chess grand-master. He divided the chess board into fields of force and lines of information, where certain squares, pieces, and the skeletal structure of pawns, pulsated with weak and strong forces, and where the 'matter' of a sacrificed piece could be transformed into the energy of an explosive mating attack.
This book is entitled "The Life and Games of Mikhail Tal." It is the closest to a great autobiography that any chess player has yet written. In it the reader will find a witty conversationalist who is quite honest about his way of thinking and of feeling his way into a chess position. Sometimes what was going through his mind when he was calculating a chess position would have surprised those who observed his intense focus of concentration on the chessboard. The following is Tal's description of his 'calculations' of the trees of variation in a crucial and complicated position in a crucial tournament.
Then suddenly, for some reason, I remembered the classic couplet by Kourney Ivanovich Chukovsky:
Oh, what a difficult job it was
To drag out of the marsh the hippopotamus
I don't know from what associations this hippopotamus got onto the chessboard, but although the spectators were convinced that I was continuing to study the position, I, despite my humanitarian education, was trying at this time to work out: just how would you drag a hippopotamus out of a marsh? I remember how jacks figured in my thoughts, as well as levers, helicopters, and even a rope ladder. After lengthy considerations I admitted defeat as an engineer, and thought spitefully: 'Well let it drown!' Suddenly the hippopotamus disappeared, went from the chessboard just as he had come on - of his own accord! Straight away the position did not appear to be so complicated. I somehow realized that it was not possible to calculate all the variations, and that knight sacrifice was, by its very nature, purely intuitive. Since it promised and interesting game, I could not refrain from making it.
This is a quote from one of the 'self-interviews' that Tal drops into his book. Yes, I said 'self-interview.' In these interviews Tal imagines a Journalist who asks pertinent and absurd questions and then imagines himself as 'The Chessplayer' giving absurd and pertinent answers. Think of Fellini and one can comprehend Tal's playfulness and self-mocking style. At times Tal's chess games and his life in chess and his commentary on both seem to 'naturally' take a Felliniesque quality.
Tal was also quite willing to speak of his various illnesses and his love of alcohol and tobacco. On the board Tal was a great fantasist. In life he was a realist. He was also honest to himself and others about his weaknesses and strengths. Above all he loved chess and gave his life to it.
Jerry Monaco
New York City
16 March 2005
Shandean Postscripts to Politics, Philosophy & Culture
