Tal Memorial underway, by James O'Fee

Monday, November 12. 2007

Tal Memorial

The exceedingly strong Second Mikhail Tal Memorial Tournament is currently underway in Moscow, with play continuing from November 9th to 23rd.

Tal came from Riga and the family name had formerly been Blumental. Tal's name in Latvian is Mihails Tāls. Tal's style of play was unique. Tal would sacrifice in seemingly innocent positions and he gained the description as 'the Magican of Riga'. Who but Tal would sacrifice a rook in the opening against an experienced grandmaster in a World Championship qualifier? Yet Tal did, against the Hungarian Portisch.

It is a pity that the Memorial Tournament is not to be held in Tal's native Riga. Moscow is not completely inappropriate since it was in that city that Tal won the World Championship. Tal wanted to defend his crown in Riga in a return match against Botvinnik. Yet the Soviet Union did not operate like that and the return match, too, like all World Championship matches in the monolithic Soviet Union, was held in Moscow.

Links

Russian Chess Federation

Live play

Previous blogs

Last year's Tal Memorial

Tal plays Keene

The young Tal

A Tal anecdote

Monument to Tal in Riga

Posted by James O'Fee at 16:07 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

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