242 on 30/10/2015 at 15:56

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I just watched this old documentary, took great pleasure.

[video=youtube;Rxy1wYFN29M]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rxy1wYFN29M[/video]

I remember those epic Karpov-Kasparov matches. Even though I was very young and didn't quite understand what was going on in their games, I watched sport news on TV because of the match and supported Kasparov. It may seem strange, but in the USSR, those matches were seen by many as a kind of the struggle between the old commie regime and new politicians. Karpov just always had support of the pre-Perestroika Soviet officials.

Now I like them both.

PS: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_6memS77L8)

faetal on 31/10/2015 at 15:22

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If you fancy a re-match, I'm game.

Gryzemuis on 11/11/2015 at 00:41

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(http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessplayer?pid=14380) Mikhail Tal without a doubt. I don't have any heroes in real-life. (I am a little cynical grumpy misanthrope, after all). But if I ever had to pick a hero, it might be (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Tal) Mikhail Tal (wiki).

In the fifties, the chess world was dominated by the Russians. Botvinnik was world-champion. Botvinnik had his own chess-school in Moscow. Loads of great GrandMasters were educated by Botvinnik's school. Botvinnik saw chess as science. The goal was always to find the best move. When both parties play the best moves, the game ends in a draw. All the romance and adventure of 19th century chess had been removed from the game. Botvinnik's attitude dominated the game.

Then came Tal. Tal was from Riga. He wasn't educated by Botvinnik's school. In fact, he had never even played Botvinnik. At age 20 he was a rising star. He would just beat everybody and win everything. And he did it in unbelievable style !! He attacked. He always attacked. He would set the board ablaze. His nickname was "The magician from Riga". He would make moves that were not always the best move objectively. But with those magic moves, he would put so much pressure on his opponents, that at some point they would collapse. The old school Botvinnik crowd hated it.

Tal won the Candidates tournament. He earned the right to challenge the world champion in 1960. The world champion was Botvinnik himself ! Botvinnik was 48, Tal was 24. The first game of the worldchampionship-match was the first time they played each other. Tal won. He became the 8th world-champion.

Tal was plagued by health issues. His kidneys were always giving him troubles. The other organs too. He died in 1992, only 55 years old. His health made him lose the worldchampionship back to Botvinnik. He stayed in the top 10 for 40 more years, until his death. He smoked and drank like there was no tomorrow. He was always cheerful, always friendly to everyone. All he ever wanted to do was play chess. A few days before he died, he supposedly snuck out of the hospital to attend a Blitz-tournament in Moscow. His last game ever was a Blitz-game against Kasparov (which he won, Kasparov ran out of time). At the time he looked like a ghost. When someone greeted him, "hello Mikhail", he answered: "thank you". When asked why he thanked the greeter, Tal answered: "thank you for recognizing me". A few days later he died.

Tal at age 24 and at age 55:
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-GXERyBh-sJY/T3Xtah57LzI/AAAAAAAAAFw/OXqFThoggvw/s320/mikhailtal.jpg http://canal-h.net/webs/rguerrero001/tal2.jpg

(https://www.google.nl/search?q=mikhail+tal+through+the+years&num=20&newwindow=1&complete=0&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0CAgQ_AUoAWoVChMI-bu_z4mHyQIVw18PCh3NmgSu&biw=1170&bih=749#imgrc=_) More images of Tal.

Look at this game.
(http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1139492&m=34)
Look at the position after move 33. The game looks like someone put pieces on the board randomly. Btw, can you predict what the winning move 34 for white is ? (When you click the above link, the position will be just before move 34. Don't cheat by looking at the moves. :))

I got a few more chess-players that I cheer for. My country-men Anish Giri and Loek van Wely of course. Maxime Vachier-Lagrave played (http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesscollection?cid=1008016) some amazing games. Every chess-player roots for Ivanchuk. Anand is a nice guy. Shirov was the successor to Tal. In modern tournaments I often root for Grischuk and Kamsky. And if you like Tal, you will also love (http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessplayer?pid=37199) Nezhmetdinov.

But there is only one chess-player that I truly admire. And that is Tal.

demagogue on 12/11/2015 at 14:49

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Yeah Paul Morphy was one of my early inspirations. I always loved creative tactics, and it's one of the things I'm better at, not the strategy side.

Maybe because of that, I was also always fascinated by Nimzowitsch and the shift to modern positional play, since it's still kind of alien to my natural thinking, and it gives me this idea that chess strategy is this bottomless well into another dimension that you dive into blindly and pick up whatever alien artifacts you can get your hands on and carry back to the surface. He was known more for his writing and ideas than his actual play, and he was more abstract and complex about chess. It's not just a simple game of moving pieces around anymore.

And generally I guess, the era of Alekhine-Capablanca-Nimzowitch is intersting to me, when chess made the real shift from a 19th Century parlor game to something really mindbending like we're in the atomic age now and the classical world just got upended.

I guess. I don't know. I don't know if I'm at a level I can really claim kinship with any GM's way of thinking yet. If it's just their personality or flair, Kasparov would be up there too.