How a chess genius was buried ahead of time: Mikhail Tal

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

Mikhail Tal was a legendary personality of his time - no one of the chess players was talked about as much as about him. For the incredibly talented grandmaster knew how to play in a way that no one else has ever played in the history of chess. Fans considered him a genius, ill-wishers - an adventurer, and ordinary Soviet people - their own, people's champion. About the incredible life story of the great chess player, further - in our publication.

Mikhail Nekhemievich Tal - Soviet and Latvian chess player, grandmaster, honored master of sports, behind whom there were many not only domestic, but also international titles and awards.

Tal achieved world fame thanks to his excellent ability to play chess. Being the eighth world chess champion, he also became the champion of the USSR six times, was an eight-time winner of chess Olympiads as part of the USSR team, six-time European champion and three-time world champion in the team event, winner of 44 international tournaments.

In addition to his grandmaster career, Mikhail Tal was a journalist and for a decade was the editor-in-chief of the Chess magazine. He also commented on chess matches that were broadcast on radio and television for many years, wrote reports for various print media, was an incredible storyteller.

Tal lived a rather short but bright life. He left at 55, leaving many interesting combinations unfinished, which only he could bring to their logical conclusion. Former world champion Vladimir Kramnik called the Riga grandmaster an alien. Probably for his incomprehensible passion, being involved in which, Tal sacrificed pieces to the right and left. And at the same time, in most cases, he won, which seemed magical and adventurous.

Turning the pages of the amazing biography of the Riga grandmaster

Mikhail Tal was born in 1936 in Riga into the Jewish family of Nehemiah Mozusovich and Ida Grigorievna Tal. According to one version, his parents were cousins to each other. Therefore, it was believed that the boy at birth received a genetic anomaly associated with incest - he had only 3 fingers on his right hand.

According to another version, the chess player's father was a family friend Robert Borisovich Papirmeister, who after the death of Nehemiah Mozusovich married the mother of the future genius. And the anomaly in the newborn baby was already attributed to the shock suffered by Ida Grigorievna in the last stages of pregnancy, from the huge rat seen very close by, which pretty much frightened her. The shock of the expectant mother was so strong that doctors began to seriously fear for the condition of the unborn child. And not without reason … Although the birth went without complications, the baby was born with a significant physical handicap - without two fingers on his right hand and congenital kidney disease. Despite all the confusion with biological paternity, Mikhail himself considered only Nehemiah Tal to be his real father.

Fate, which had tested the boy for endurance from the very beginning, continued to present troubles and trials. In addition to the fact that Tal had a whole tangle of diseases in infancy, at half a year he fell ill with a severe form of meningitis. The doctors practically did not give the baby a chance for life. Consoling his grief-stricken mother, they said: if the boy still survives, a great future awaits him. And, surprisingly, everyone scrambled out.

And the doctors' prophecy was not long in coming: Mikhail Tal's genius manifested itself from early childhood. At the age of three, he easily began to read and show aptitude for mathematics, at the age of five, he multiplied three-digit numbers in his mind. Curiously enough, the absence of two fingers on his hand did not prevent him from learning to play the piano well enough. But his life's work will be a completely different game - chess, with which the 7-year-old boy was first introduced by his father. However, then Mikhail did not experience much excitement. Everything changed three years later, when a relative who came to visit gave him a "children's mat".

It is not surprising that a child prodigy with a mathematical mindset was taken to school immediately in the third grade. Throughout his studies, Mikhail demonstrated phenomenal long-term memory: it was enough for him to read a large passage of text in order to immediately repeat it with ease. At the age of 15, Tal easily became a university student. For himself, he chose the Faculty of Philology at one of the universities in Riga. He was an erudite in many fields, he knew literature very well - he read voraciously, very quickly and memorized everything. He was fond of history, music. He played the piano - often performed works by Tchaikovsky and Chopin.

Rapid career of a young chess player

The gifted boy learned the basics of playing chess at the age of seven, but only at ten he began to attend a circle at the Riga Palace of Pioneers. And in just a few years, Misha Tal turned from a beginner into a rising star in the chess world. At the age of 13 he was already a member of the youth national team of the Latvian SSR, at 17 - the champion of the republic.

The famous Mikhail Botvinnik was the idol of the young chess player. Therefore, when one day the world champion came to the Riga seaside to rest, twelve-year-old Tal appeared on the doorstep of Mikhail Moiseevich's house and told his wife that he wanted to play a game of chess with the owner of the house. The astonished woman replied dryly to the teenager that Botvinnik was resting, and that he was not playing with various impudent boys at all. She then could not have imagined that some eleven years would pass and Tal would still get to Botvinnik to remove the world chess crown from his head.

At 23 - world champion

Young Mikhail Tal, who burst into the ranks of the world's leading chess players, swam against the tide, literally battling opponents with an unusual, ardent manner of play, with cavalry swoops, incredible sacrifices, and a whirlwind of combinations. Tal could break any position of the opponent, which caused shock and confusion, created incredible chaos on the board, which eventually turned into beautiful victories. Yes, and he looked demonic, inspiring awe - a thin face, a humped nose, eyes burning from under his bangs.

In a word, Tal burst into the chess world like a comet. In 1957, 21-year-old Mikhail, having defeated the best chess players in the country, became the champion of the Soviet Union. And a year later, he won the interzonal tournament and the Candidates Tournament. In 1960, having become a participant in the match for the title of world champion, Mikhail played the first game Botvinnik - Tal in Moscow. The incomprehensible style of the brilliant 23-year-old chess player turned out to be too tough for the world champion: and already in May the challenger won an early victory.

Tal for the first time in the history of chess games at the age of 23 became the World Champion - before him at such a young age no one had received the chess crown. Subsequently, this result will be surpassed only by 22-year-old Garry Kasparov, who defeated Anatoly Karpov. However, Tal was the world champion for exactly one year, after which 49-year-old Mikhail Botvinnik, having thoroughly prepared, will beat Tal in a rematch with a score of 8:13. Botvinnik prepared for a duel as thoroughly and tensely as he had never done in his life. And in the end he took a convincing revenge. Alas, no one could have imagined then that Tal's sidereal time would be so short …

Hypnotic abilities

Unlike many grandmasters who strive to play as rationally as possible, Tal thrilled both the audience and opponents with his risky moves and unexpected sacrifices. What struck everyone in this man most of all was his incredible impulsiveness and recklessness.

There were also persistent rumors in the chess community that Tal's enchanting success lay in the fact that he hypnotized opponents with his eyes, paralyzing their consciousness. The fear of falling under the influence of hypnosis sometimes drove his rivals to comic curiosities. So in 1959, at the Candidates Tournament, American Pal Benko came to the match with Tal wearing black glasses, thus deciding to "disarm" his opponent. Tal, realizing what was the matter, immediately borrowed huge beach glasses from a colleague. The audience in the hall could hardly restrain laughter, and Tal won an easy and quick victory, smashing his opponent to smithereens.

In the late 1980s, answering a question about hypnosis, Tal once said: This is how he spoke about his low achievements at the end of his career.

Merciless disease

In the fate of Mikhail Tal, it turned out that his poor health reminded of itself all his life. And over the years, a serious illness more and more undermined his body, the disease persistently approached and drove the grandmaster into a corner. He could no longer play as before. During games, he swallowed pills by handfuls to relieve pain. And more and more often he used strong "medicines", constantly smoked his beloved "Kent" … The painful kidney pains he constantly experienced led to the fact that the famous chess player became addicted to morphine, which was injected by ambulances in emergency situations. The drugs briefly eased Tal's condition and he felt much better. And when, on instructions from above, they stopped giving him injections, Tal replaced the drugs with alcohol. With age, he began to drink a lot, even in tournaments. By the way, a chess player underwent twelve operations in his life!

The kidney disease that plagued him for many years progressed. Back in the 1970s, Tal had one kidney removed. The surgeons who operated on him were incredibly confused: the disease was so neglected that it was not clear how the patient survived at all. However, Tal scrambled out again and only the closest ones knew that he consumed a whole mountain of drugs to stay afloat. By the way, the only chess player who visited Tal in the hospital was Bobby Fischer. This friendly gesture deeply touched Mikhail.

Curiously, just then, leaving the hospital, Tal had to read his obituary, which was written in advance by the editor of the magazine where the chess player worked, in case of his death.

By the end of the 1980s, medications were no longer helping. The son, who lived in Israel, called his father to come and receive medical treatment. - Tal answered him in his own style and, of course, did not go anywhere.

At the end of May 1992, he played at the Moscow Blitz Championship, finishing third behind Garry Kasparov and Evgeny Bareev. Tal hoped that his health would improve at least a little, and at the Chess Olympiad he would be able to play for the Latvian national team, which was playing as a separate team for the first time.

But in June, the grandmaster ended up in a hospital bed, from which he could no longer get up. On June 28, 1992, Mikhail Nekhemievich died in a Moscow city hospital. He was buried in his beloved Riga, at the Shmerli Jewish cemetery.

The wives and women of Mikhail Tal

Talking about Tal and not touching on his relationship with women is simply impossible. Mikhail Tal lived the same way he played chess. His games were always adventurous and very stormy. His personal life was also stormy. He, like in the game, sacrificed someone in order to achieve victory.

Despite his very frail health, Mikhail Nekhemievich lived to the fullest. He was very fond of noisy merry companies, strong drinks, good cigarettes and beautiful women. The grandmaster had many love stories, and even more was attributed to him. He was neither tall nor statuesque. But on women, he acted so hypnotically that they poured into his arms, like ripe apples.

There were three official marriages in Tal's life. His two wives from Riga: the first - Sally Landau and the last - Angelina gave birth to the grandmaster of heirs, Sally - the boy George in 1960, and Gela - the girl Jeanne fifteen years later. The second marriage with a Georgian actress could hardly be called a marriage. Having formalized a relationship with Tal, the woman ran away literally the next day, explaining that she just … wanted to make her fiance jealous. Tal was popular with women and was known for his love affairs and intrigues. Among his mistresses were named actress Larisa Sobolevskaya, pianist Bella Davidovich, dancer Mira Koltsova.

Mikhail Tal's first marriage

The future world champion fell in love with Sally at first sight and did everything to make her his wife. Finally, Tal conquered the singer when he sat down at the piano and played Chopin for her. And this despite the fact that he had only three fingers on his right hand.

Sally Landau and Mikhail Tal were a very effective couple. They loved each other to madness, but each led an independent life, and their marriage was doomed. Sally was a Latvian actress and pop singer, performed in a popular ensemble, so Sally was not going to sacrifice her artistic career even for Tal. As for Tal, it soon became clear that the beautiful Sally was not the only one with him. The proud singer quickly found solace on the side, she was not used to being number two.

You can read more about their amazing love story in the publication: Sally Landau and Mikhail Tal: And at night he taught her to play chess …The real divorce of Mikhail and Sally took place in 1970. Thus, they were husband and wife for twelve years. But they always remained close people - they often met in different cities and countries, constantly called back.

in 1981, Sally married Belgian jeweler Joe Kramarz. When he found out that the ex-wife of the ex-world champion was in front of him, he was shocked. Sometimes it even seemed to Sally that Joe married her only because she had previously bore the name Tal.

Mikhail did not remain alone for long - the novel followed the novel. But Tal recalled his second marriage with a Georgian beauty with great reluctance. This was his only defeat on the personal front. The second marriage proceeded at a blitz pace. The newlywed married the grandmaster with the sole purpose of taking revenge on her Georgian friend, a famous wrestler, whom she loved for many years, but he did not reciprocate. As soon as Tal walked off his second wedding in the capital of Georgia on a grand scale, an unlucky competitor appeared and stole his newly made wife from the chess player.

Third marriage

Having married for the third time to the first-class athlete Angelina Petukhova, the grandmaster found himself on a short leash, though not for long. Unlike Sally Gel, she devoted herself entirely to her family and for some time kept her unpredictable husband tight-lipped. But, alas, he was not born for the family hearth and could not sit within four walls. Tal's hot temper took its toll, and ultimately the third marriage also failed. In the end, the wife and her daughter emigrated to Germany. In the new country, everything was not easy for them, but over time everything worked out.

Tal adored his children, but did not want a chess future for them. …, - said the ex-world champion.

The grandmaster never married again, but novels did happen. In the early 90s, Marina Filatova was inseparable from Tal. The last months of the chess player's life, the girl supported and rescued the ailing Tal, and in the last days she took on the most difficult responsibilities. Marina was the only woman who was next to him in his last moments. And Gel, who flew in on the day of her death from Cologne, rushed around the city in search of medicines that were already useless. Upon learning of the misfortune, Sally appeared in Moscow a couple of days later. Tal was buried in Riga by both his ex-wives.

P. S."If I ever die, you will have to erect a monument on my grave."

Once, when Sally and Mikhail were still young, Tal joked:. Amazingly, this is how it happened. Arriving six years after Tal's death in Riga and visiting the Jewish cemetery, Sally was horrified: there was nothing on the grave, except for a small mound of earth. - the ex-wife thought bitterly. And in 1998 it was Sally who erected the monument to the chess genius.

At one time, his friend satirist wrote a lot about the genius of chess. Arkady Arkanov, whose personal life was also full of unexpected turns and tragic events.