"You must lead your opponent into a deep, dark forest, where 2 + 2 = 5 and where the path back out is only broad enough for one of you." Mikhail Tal

Mikhail Tal was one of the greatest geniuses in chess history. Feared and admired for his dazzling attacks, the ‘Magician from Riga’ took the chess world by storm. In 1960, at the age of twenty-three, he wrested the world title from Mikhail Botvinnik to become the youngest World Champion ever.

In this book Karsten Müller and Raymund Stolze have created an instructional guide by investigating and explaining the secrets of Tal’s breathtaking tactics. Additionally, they present one hundred exercises selected from his games that will teach amateurs how to distinguish between correct and incorrect combinations, and how to defend against them.

A special feature are the contributions from legendary grandmasters such as Spassky, Yusupuv and Kramnik, who share their personal impressions and describe their games with the 8th World Champion.

The result is both an intimate portrait of one of the all-time greats of chess and an instructive guide for lovers of Tal’s legendary combinational style.

content:
007 About this book

009 Prologue – Knowledge? Intuition? Risk? – by Mikhail Tal

011 Reflections on Mikhail T., by Mikhail Botvinnik

032 Chapter I – Warm-up

106 Chapter II - Correct Sacrifices

156 Chapter III - Speculative Sacrifices

240 Chapter IV - The Correct Way to Defend against the Magician

320 Epilogue

321 Appendix