Mikhail Tal's splendid account of his world championship match victory is one of the masterpieces of the golden age of annotation -before insights and feelings and flashes of genius were reduced to mere moves and Informant Symbols. This is simply the best book written about a world championship match by a contestant. That shouldn't be a surprise because Tal was the finest writer to become world Champion.

- International Grandmaster and

popular chess columnist Andy Soltis

In 1960 Mikhail Botvinnik (left) was the pillar of "scientific" chess and the iron-willed champion of the world. The young attacking genius Mikhail Tal (above), the "Wizard of Riga," put the magic back into the game by defeating Botvinnik with spectacular tactics in one of the most dramatic and celebrated world championship matches of all time.

This is Tal's own classic work on the contest. In it he sets the stage and explains every one of the 21 games, telling both the on- and off-the-board story of this titanic clash of styles and thought.

List of Content

001 Tal: A Remembrance

003 From the Author

004 Before the Match

009 Game One

018 Game Two

027 Game Three

036 Game Four

045 Game Five

057 Game Six

072 Game Seven

081 Game Eight

092 Game Nine

103 Game Ten

118 Game Eleven

133 Game Twelve

143 Game Thirteen

148 Game Fourteen

154 Game Fifteen

165 Game Sixteen

175 Game Seventeen

187 Game Eighteen

197 Game Nineteen

204 Game Twenty

210 Game Twenty-one

213 Additional Games