Mikhail Tal (November 9, 1936, Riga - June 28, 1992, Moscow) was a Latvian chess player, Grandmaster, the 8th World Chess Champion, eightfold winner of the World Chess Olympiads, sixfold European Champion, sixfold Soviet Champion, Latvian Champion on two occasions and a reputable chess writer.

He is considered to be one of the most original and brilliant chess players in the world that is indicated by the fact that the publications The Mammoth Book of the World’s Greatest Chess Games (Burgess, Nunn & Emms, 2004) and the Modern Chess Brilliancies (Evans, 1970) contain more games from Tal than from any other chess players.

He loved the beautiful, aesthetic games, as he once described “Chess, first of all, is art”. Because of his energetic and ingenious attacks he was called the “Magician from Riga”

He was born into a Jewish family and learned to play chess at the age of eight while watching his father, who was a doctor. He was considered to be a prodigy. He could read at the age of three and multiply three-digit numbers in his head at the age of five. He enrolled at university at the age of 15.

He loved bohemian life, drinking and dancing, he even ran into conflicts with the authorities on some occasions. He was a heavy smoker even at the expense of his health (kidney disease).

His first wife wrote the following about him:

„Misha was not very practical… When he travelled to a tournament he could not even pack his suitcase on his own… He did not know how to light the gas stove for cooking. When I had a headache and nobody else was at home he started to panic: “How shall I prepare the hot water bottle? When I drove a car he looked at me as if I were from a different planet. Obviously, he could have learnt these things if he wanted to but he found these boring and thought that he simply did not need them. Many people say: if Tal had taken care of himself and had not led such a loose life, etc.  but the question “what might have happened if” in a person’s life like Tal is rather absurd. It would not have been Tal then.”

He won the Soviet Championship in 1957 (at the age of 20) so he became the youngest Soviet Champion. After that he triumphed four times in 1967, 1972, 1974 and 1978.

He qualified for the World Championship series after winning the Soviet Championship, which was also a zonal tournament, in 1958. After winning the Interzonal final in Portoroz he participated in the Candidates Tournament that was held in Yugoslavia in 1959. Here Tal achieved first place by gaining 20 points in 28 games overtaking Paul Keres (18½), Tigran Petrosian, Vasily Smyslov, Bobby Fischer, Svetozar Gligorić, Friðrik Ólafsson, and Pál Benkő with it.

He could defeat Mikhail Botvinnik 12½–8½ (6 wins, 2 losses and 13 draws) in the final of the World Chess Championship at the age of 23 in 1960 what made him the youngest ever World Champion gaining the title from Garry Kasparov, who could achieve this at the age of 22.

In the following year, in 1961, Botvinnik won 13-8 (10 wins, 5 losses, 6 draws) and gained the World Champion title back. This was due to the fact that Botvinnik analyzed Tal’s moves between the two matches and he could avoid the long, tactical middle game that was Tal’s strength. The chronicle also includes that Tal had a chronic kidney disease and the doctors in Riga advised him to postpone the match. Botvinnik would have agreed only if the doctors in Moscow reinforced the diagnosis (the encounter took place in Moscow), however, Tal continued playing.

He reengaged in the fights in the subsequent World Chess Championship cycle in 1963 in the Candidates tournament. In 1962, he only took 7th place at the 8-player Candidates Tournament in Curaçao.

In the World Chess Championship cycle in 1966 he reached the final where he was defeated by Spassky 7-4.

In 1969, he played for 3rd place in the pairing based match in the Candidates after being defeated by Viktor Korchnoi in the semifinal 5,5-4,5. Then he did not succeed against the Danish Bernt Larsen 5,5-2,5.

After that he participated in the Candidates series on six more occasions but did not proceed to the final and could not get close to the world champion title.

He participated in the Olympiads eight times between 1958 and 1982 in the Soviet team and won eight gold medals in team and received five individual gold and two silver medals.

He played in six European Team Chess Championships as a member of the Soviet team and won gold medals in team in all the six championships, three individual gold, one silver, and one bronze medal on his board.

His highest rating according to Chessmetrics historical rating system was 2799. He was ranked first in 38 different months between October 1958 and July 1966.

Sources: https://hu.wikipedia.org; http://www.chessmetrics.com