Mikhail Tal Sacrifices EVERYTHING

ladies and gentlemen, chess is a beautiful, magical, mysterious and captivating game with a very rich history and some very rich personalities who have played it over the years and one of those personalities is called mik tal. He is known as the Magician of Ria because his chess was magical and he was born in Ria shocking. He had a fascinating playing style and was just an incredible individual with a fascinating story as well. He did a video a while ago called The Man Who Invented Brilliant Moves, so if you haven't seen that video. It's worth watching, but in this video we are discovering a fascinating detail about Mik's life and in particular when he obtained the title of Grandmaster, you can see if you are a chess fan or not a chess fan at all.

This is one of your first. chess videos we have a title called grandmas, it's the ultimate title, but the Grandmaster title hasn't even existed for 100 years, in fact it's only been 75, it was first officially recognized in 1950 and Tyle didn't have the title of Grand Master that he received. The title of Grandmaster in 1957 due to a tournament played a tournament and won the USSR Championship the Soviet Union Championship 21 games 22 players 21 games was round robin won first place with 14 points alone at the age of 20 years old I was a 20-year-old young man who won the Soviet Chess Championship against assassins and in today's video I will show you several of those games from the 1957 USSR Championship, the only tournament that convinced everyone to remove the restrictions and hit Mik Tal The Grandmaster. title, can you imagine that you play a tournament and they go very well, that's all this G needed, these games, I have four games for you, these are amazing games, uh, I just had this, just this Aura, and it did he do that? in many different ways, so sit back, relax, and let me take you down this historic path.

I know many of you enjoy historical chess videos, so one of his opponents was named uh bhuti ganza and the fascinating thing about ganza is that he was one of the original Georgian Grandmasters, he was a 12-time Georgian national champion and he invented multiple openings. There is an opening in the caroon defense after D4 D5 Knight C3 G6 that is literally called a ganza and named after him. You imagine? you made a complete opening and it is played in the modern era now, in the past Lanza played D4 with the white pieces, but that is what he used to play with black.

T played Knight F6 C4 and T played C5 and an invitation to play the Defense Bonon after D5 and E6 is nowadays considered a slightly dubious way to play at the ultra Elite level because White maintains a very good space advantage in the center, but it is microscopic and if it suits your playing style you should play it with black. The whole approach is based on the open E-file, plus placing the bishop on this diagonal and because White moved a flank pawn to the center, White has a central advantage of two pawns against one, but Black can play a bit on the flank with his pawns, so put all that to work T play Bishop G7 Bishop E2 both sides Castle you see both sides getting their kings to safety which you know you have to do Rook E8 aim for the pawn Knight D2 you You will ask why Ganza moved his Knight to D2 blocking his Queen and bishop, well he wants to support his pawn and the knight will go there along with the A4 move suppressing what Black wants and from this square the knight presses the queen side and the weak pawn on D6, so every chess opening comes with a starter kit of this is what you should do with white and this is what you should do with black and for a while you will follow games that have already happened and then you will leave that territory and then it is up to you Knight A6 a strange move simultaneously perhaps threatening to advance uh also choosing to retreat to apply pressure to the center and support this move B5 that is exactly what T does well, we see White doing exactly what What it's supposed to do, which is control the advancement of B5 and now in this position we have B6 so it basically says look, I'm not going to be able to play this in one go, so we're going to build all this up very slowly.

Gorgon needs to have played Queen C2 alone, you know. simple, easy, standard idea, uh, which is to try to support the center and now it will expand now here so decided n G4 and T decided that I need to end up in a Gotham YouTube video about 67 years later 57 43 43 24 67 yes Knight to G4 basically saying: look bukti, you have to take my KN, my horse is annoying. He's targeting a lot of things near your king, but I don't want to take your knight, why would he trade the bishop recreationally? for the Knight the Bishops are better than the Knights right that's what he should have done and then he would have started applying pressure with his Knights instead he messed with t and played H3 and was like Misha what is doing the Knight here? like me, what's the point you're going to put on E5 next?

I don't understand, no, mik tal sacrificed his horse if you left things near your king that were only protected by your king, this man would ruin your life now, the best move for white is to literally ignore the Knight, yeah, boui was like a friend, what's this guy like in something like he probably inhaled the fumes from the samovar uh that's what they used to do t Bishop uh Queen H4 check King F1 but now what's not It's not right, that was the thing, if you mess with Misha , then you know you would face all your demons.

Bishop D4, the threat is made, but what Knight D1 and buhui had clearly calculated is that there is no checkmate, so now Mikel is going to do it. sacrifice his bishop, which makes sense, but he won't accept it if you take his companion, I understand that, but then he was going to go to the rook, here the bishop would have returned and then bahoi would have played as Knight E3 and the game would have continued . What he had not realized when Mikel made this move was that Mikel is misguided, he thinks all the wrong things in chess, he finds all the moves that no one thinks of and Mik Tal had seen in this position that he was not going to sacrifice the bishop to open. raise the king, he will sacrifice the queen and that presents a unique set of problems because if you had sacrificed the bishop, I don't have to take you, but if you sacrifice the queen, I don't have to take you because I get mate.

But this comes with a number of unique problems. Bukusi now defends, but here comes Queen H2 and it is an avalanche that falls on the white position. Knight C4, the center is open, the clouds are parting, the bishop is shooting at you from the other triangle and it's only a matter of time Rook to E5, you can't take it because you're trapped here comes the other rook and Mik T is bulldozing you with 25 attack mechanic points and then just when you thought it was him, he has one. such a piece has a piece that hasn't moved yet and puts it into the game oh my god, that move doesn't even seem possible because you can take Rook shots that you can't take with the Knight because you open the diagonal and queen G1 is mate, this one man mishal would simply get all his pieces Only the pieces that were dead were simply gone they were standing around the Knight D5 Rook D5 obliterates the white position and forces a resignation after 27 moves because once you take the Queen Once you take with the queen is check and it's mate oh my goodness oh my goodness and we're just getting started this man actually played Queen H3 against one of the legends of the game Gorgan just amazing his tactical vision, you couldn't let him get going, ya You know, this is a fascinating matchup, this is T, who is a dynamic genius and an attacking powerhouse against probably the greatest defensive player of all time, you can argue today, it's like Hikaru knows you can argue that.

Hikaru is one of the best defenders, but at that time petan petan tigran vovi petan he was on another level, so he played a French defense. This is a wau and is a line where Black takes the knight and damages White's pawn structure. and we get into a very fascinating game where white is pushed back, he takes D4 and this seems like a very dynamic and complicated position and so and so is trying to achieve it, I mean, so and so is trying to give up all his pawns correctly and then he is trying to create an attack, yeah, uh, petan knows best, he says I'm not going to go into all that, yeah, look at just G4, just throw all the pieces forward, facing H5, opening the G file to create some kind attack, but again pjan, one of the best defensive players in the world, says no, look at this, I'm using moves that don't even seem possible and now we're going to get stability, the position has stabilized, one of the best players in stroke. of that generation versus one of the best defenders is like a sport, right, it's like a sport, I mean, it's like in tennis, a player has a tool that he likes to use versus an opponent's tool, it's that, you know, is hitting head-on, like What happens when the best offensive team in a sport plays the best defensive team?

That's what we have now, we have stability. These pawns are a bit stuck. This pawn is stuck. I'm going to try to press here. Can you blow Petran? completely out of the water I don't know Queen G5 petran is going for an endgame he is giving away the pawn on G7 you will see if petran played King f8 here then after the Rook G1 it is really difficult to defend this pawn right? So he says: Okay, take the pawn, me, take the pawn, you think you think I need the pawn, I don't need the pawn, the queen, f f, let's exchange the queens.

Misha is like no. Q. Shan, of course, seriously, let's exchange queens. Mish is like, no, we. I'm doing it on my terms and Petan knows that if he can get the queens if he can get a little stability,

everything

will be fine,

everything

will be fine in the long run, get the bishop into the game, okay, Petan. uh, T starts bringing his King in now, the surprising thing here T finds an idea that is crazy, he finds a way to march his King towards the center of the board, it's an endgame, but it's a very unbalanced ending where There are many like open lines for the other party, there are strange structures like this.

The pawn is here for some reason, it's leftovers from playing a French wow right now, the H6 move is highly preferred by dry fish, you can't perform it because of Checo and I win. Rook, but the other idea is to sneak the pawn to H7, after which Black will be under a lot of pressure, obviously Todd has his reasons for not playing this move, he probably thought it was an overcommitment, he probably didn't like the pawn could be weakened, so he brought his King and he brought his King and he brought his Rook to take control of the only open row and then he tried to swap the knights and his idea of ​​swapping the knights was very simple.

He doesn't care if they took it or not, he just wanted to put his King in the center of the board and now he has a very, very nice advantage, he doesn't have any pawn advantage, but he feels that way because he's about to take one right now. . F5 was Instead, an important compromise is that F6 is preferred by a modern computer to basically try to absorb this very depressing position and say, I'm not going to lose, but F5, right, T had this way of turning even the best and most reserved players in the world. he panicked and when this started happening instead of buckling down and playing a pawn down ending, pjan attacked F5 it was already a step in the wrong direction, he should have gone to F6 which was even worse than F5, was advancing with F4, pushed those four and opened. the diagonal that now allows the pawn to go to H7 in the future and that's exactly what the height was for it exchanges there is a golden rule in endgames if you want to win an endgame and there are four rooks on the board two and two, not four for you if you have four rooks, God bless you, but if it's two and two, trade one if you're trying to win, trade one sometimes, trading two is fine too and what I mean by that is like in an endgame like In this one you can exchange all the rooks because your outside pass pawn is very strong, but not always, but now H6 and now the king takes the pawn, the bishop goes to G6 and the way the such sets up a winning setup here is amazing, look at this King.

D4 Where is the progress? He puts all his pawns on dark squares, look, look at this mission that he accomplishes, it's because the black bishop can't touch those pawns and now he looks like you can't take the CU bishop like the queen can't take. the pawn because I take your pawn, he anchors the bishop here, there will be pressure for life, he defends the pawn and now he is masterful, he gets there and finishes this game in high style, he takes, he takes the pawn promotion, but no such can resist. he just can't resist playing like that it's a D5 race trying to get the bishop out of purgatory both sides are going to make queens but it doesn't matter Talis has a bishop and four pawns that's mate and that's going to be very mate soon I discovered the attack and no there is nothing to do Queen C1 can you give me a million checks my king goes around the board there is a way to reach a stalemate but in this position uh tigran petan resigns and uh what a victory and you know It's fascinating to see a player like Tal defeat a player like Petan in this battle of styles in this Clash of offensive defense Dynamics versus stability and pragmatism and only the smallestof the imbalances used brought to his King. up this pawn was the one that made the difference uh and uh just a very good victory now uh I could also do it in different ways like pet uh petan is an incredible player brunin brunin is uh perhaps the best chess player who was never a world champion, that is what you know that's a video in itself and maybe it already exists because you're watching this in 2026 or whatever watch this game so this game started as a SLO defense, ironic because you know the players but G6 doesn't It's a move that White played, so it's not symmetrical and now, instead of keeping it symmetrical like this, seeing that your opponent is committing to this move takes high, so it creates stability and basically says look, your bishop is just useless, I mean, it's a little worse for me, right?

I think both Castillo, you want my Bishop, come get it, now you have to take it like this, which would then isolate your knight on the edge of the board, so Brunin says no, no, no, Misha, I want to take the bishop, but I want do it this way now, the bishop. hides F7 like this and now so basically it's going to put pressure on the side of the board, except it's not going to do that at all and attack the center, aim for the center, okay, I mean, I would have thought it was You know, operates on that side of the board, but no, he aims for the center and is going to try to attack with E4, E5, uh, and you know, etc., so these bishops are passive, so let's see what happens with the B8 rook and Brunin starts playing as B5 and plays B4, but what are you going to do with the knight on C4?

Nothing, he's just going to take A7 and say, see if David is going to give me the pawn, the fantastic bishop E8 and now he looks like it's the queen. is about to get trapped, basically you can go to C5, but then I'll play the Rook like again G4 Rook F7 Queen C5 there's the C7 Rook and it's f8, so the queen is trapped, so now Tal says I'm going to take your knight, so Bishop E8 I'm going to get rid of your knight and we're going to play Knights against Rook of Bishops F7 I can take out my queen now this is the position we're going to take and now white is going to try to play this position for a win on the right, White is going to advance because he has two pass pawns, so the queen B2 Brun stain plays G5 has to play G5 has to play G5 because da has to give White something to think about if you know if you just you play King h8 King G8 white goes here, you play King G8 white plays B5 and this is white's game plan so you have to give white something to think about so now T puts the queen on D2 , what is the point? if G4 now there is no bishop H6 and everything is protected and I'm going to put my rooks behind my pawns, I'm just going to go so that he offers the queen's pawn D2, offer the pawn to capture it.

The Knight takes D5 hits The Rook The Rook retreats, the Knight deviates and goes towards the end of the game. He is going to try to invade that pawn. Now the D-Pawn prevents the Bishop from seeing his Pawn. The A pawn stopped the Bishop from getting there to dominate the Bishops on an open board basically you just have to cut their objectives you have to make them useless it's a very difficult skill to do now these pawns fall off the board and we exchange all the rooks and such it's like he has a pawn advantage and it's very useful pawn now watch as he dominates he places the knights on all the light squares he starts to control all the light squares he's going to go back to the black position look at this and because everyone the pawns are too extended from the previous phase of the game, The black king is quite weak, he doesn't care about the F2 pawn.

You know why he doesn't care about the F2 pawn. Because the black king is trapped in the bunker with those bishops and this pawn will move now if you play. something like Queen D2 here I'll take your bishop and I'll go for your king and there's nothing you can do look at this absolute dominance knights pawn queen like a little diamond in the center of the board shining the threat of this the threat of removing the bishop if you move your bishop like I don't know, let's say A3 it's mate, it's mate King h8 Knight F7 my mouse is doing some weird things King G8 okay I guess my mouse is just broken, that's cool, I know I don't know what it's happening uh uh my mouse is oh my god it's like just refusing to move what the hell is happening I hate when this happens I might have to order a new mouse after this video Queen G6 Checkmate that's what would happen instead of us it has H4, it doesn't really matter, he takes f8 King G3 the king is safe Queen E7 and in this position brunin resigned because King G8 queens d8 king H7 that F6 this is mate, this is F7, so he's done, he does it versus all these players in such amazing ways uh and the last game I have to show you is against a strong chess master from the Soviet Union Constantine uh clamor clamor uh and uh this is just high so if you're 20 minutes in This we'll end on a good note we'll end exactly the same way that this Mishal plays chess, which is like playing the Sicilian Defense against him.

You just know you're asking for it. Knight F3 Knight C6 speaking of that, remember ganza uh this player who invented the openings has a variation on this same opening in the uh in Rosal's castles Lio Bishop G7 Rook to E1 and there is a line here E5 there is actually a very strong here Pawn to B4 It's a very strange Gambit, but it's actually been played at the highest level and the idea is to deflect some pieces from the center and then White tries to take some initiative with A3, so Guran invented this too, so he invented two openings that a guy appears in this video directly I invented two openings just being a Soviet master is amazing, you can leave such an impression in the game, um, in this game, even if you play D4, take, take and we have a variation of Rouser from Spanish, where high, I mean, this is like you.

I know it was automatic, I mean, it was pre-moving, I was going to have the Knight damage the long castle structure and say, come on, let's have some fun, so Clone played Tower C8, obviously, you know, trying to fight in the C file open and a lot of people here would play King B1 because it's a little scary no no T was like come on F4 uh I would like to attack you first I changed my Bishop from dark squir so I want to accumulate in the dark squares certain clamon now I lost the Direct to Castle instead brought his towers into the game, but you know you could argue that the king is quite strong here, so it's a very solid setup, the only way to take him down will be to try to take some risk and open. up the position and maybe White is actually weaker than Black Black plays E6 immediately taking advantage of that diagonal T plays the bishop H3 now Black's best move was probably F5 to try to open the diagonal in this way, but again you're playing high So you're a little afraid to open the center, so do this bishop H3 T says queen exchange, what's wrong with you?

How else am I going to get into a YouTube video 67 years in the future and Black Blade B5 and I mean black black? He's doing what the black guy is supposed to do in this position, it's very complicated, but when you give T things like this, this is like feeding a caffeine addict or a really good cappuccino, or Americano, or flat white, or chopped, or whatever. is that you drink makiato Rook E1 so he finally plays his King to B1 his Queen side is stabilized and he is ready with Knight D4 and there it is and I mean in this position they claim he must have wanted to experience parachuting in chess form, you know? some people are adrenaline junkies they want to skydive they want to do certain things they want to swim with sharks they want to experience interesting things in life drinking honey from a beehive or a bear fits that description like he could have played A5 and moved on with his pawns and maybe play bishop E7 and slowly develop the attack no, it's like queen four we4 let's see what happens taking a pawn with a queen and a king directly in the line of sight of the T position F5 here is very strong obviously , if he takes, you just lose, you lose your queen, uh, but if black plays E5, then you know that light scores are weak.

I can play Knight F4 Knight D5 maybe Knight F4 Knight E6 maybe Knight F4 Knight H5 but instead he plays Knight D4, the first queen goes back to B7, he just plays Queen D3 and he says, hey, how are you going to defend your H7 pawn? By the way, one of the possible moves in this position is to play Rook h8, but that is extremely depressing for the other. one is to play King d8 and try to get the king to safety, which is funny, he goes here, although I was like, "Okay, I'm going to get my pawn back." Thank you very much and now Bishop G4 has this and this in mind. as well as F5, as well as an H pawn like he had against the king petan A1, so the king is completely hidden in the corner of the board and now CA plays F5.

His idea is to bring the bishop into the game, but yes, that's how it is. a nasty counterpuncher and uh he doesn't play Bishop H5, he just takes the damn pawn and I think at this point Costu might have realized that I stole the Bears, honey, and I probably shouldn't have, he takes on F5 and loses a bishop sacri ACF putting a bishop is not enough for mik T, who in this position has to add sacrifice. The Tower The tower takes E7, so it now has four less material points, effectively making it a tower. He has one less rook because he has a bishop. back but he lost, you know he lost that material before, but how do you protect your king? and you generally know that these kinds of things end in check, check, checkmate.

Set check, just move the queen H6, how do you protect your rook, how do you protect? F6 and how do you protect the last row at the same time? You can play Tower F7 but then you lose in the back row. You can move your Rook and then you lose F6. Then what do you do? You do not do anything. That combination Uncorked by such removes the black. king defends him and he's going to get his rook back and it's going to generate some interest now that he's two pawns up and this is just a classic tale.

By the way, don't take the rook because that's behind you rowmate, instead just play the rook. C1 and I have news for you, it is going to open the C file as well, so Bishop A4 Queen D4 now goes for the final check of Queen C4 and in this position black gave up because it is a fork on E6 and if you play King D7 on You actually make it even worse for yourself, you could have defended a little better, maybe you could have played something like Rook d8, but it is completely lost, it is lost because even the endgame is lost after the Queen G7, but the Knight C5 is a fork you can't take. it's also a fork of this Gentleman, you know, it's a completely lost position uh and uh yes, a high one uh the tournament with 14 points from 21 games at the age of 20.

I think the youngest winner at that time uh and maybe ever because of the way and because of the performance he was awarded the title of grandmother, so he played a tournament and got the title of Grandmaster, something that he had never happened up to that point. I mean the title of Grandmaster he was only 7 years old but he got it at 19.57 and obviously a couple of years later he became world champion and won the World Championship at the age of 22 23 yeah you talk about a successful career , especially at the beginning, I mean an absolute genius, uh with so many games defeating so many legends who, if you only knew, were older than him, more experienced than him and they went over them, and in the past they played tournaments that lasted 20 games, for which a chess tournament lasted a whole month.

Let me know. If you want me to do deeper historical dives, particularly into 20th or 19th century chess. I always love watching such games. I always love looking at the storylines and some of the legendary games he had. I'll see you in the next video get out of here