Tal was never my hero. Of course, I knew his games, but I was always more drawn to Capablanca for example, being fascinated by the ease and smoothness of his play. But then came Dvoretsky’s book. What I am about to describe took place in the mid-90s, when I first got to read Dvoretsky’s book. The second part of the book, called Attack and Defence features analyses of games of such attacking greats like Alekhine and Tal. The appetizer was the game Alekhine-Junge from Prague 1942, which introduced me to the concept of “slow attack” and the difficulties the defender faces in such situations. But the real shocker were Tal’s games. In the comments below I will give my own understanding of the games at that time while I will also quote Dvoretsky.

The first game was featured under the subtitle “Science Fiction!” and it did live up to the name of the subtitle!

A true eye-opener for me! I thought for a long time trying to understand what happened in this game. My “hows” and “whys” eventually led me to realise one very important truth about chess – it is possible to play like this. Tal’s talent and skills aside, it is possible to incorporate some of these elements into one’s game. Risk, pressure, aggression, both psychological and on the board, all these can work! There is no need to feel constrained in the positional dogma and always play by the rules. Yes, balance is required as this type of play can often backfire, but for me the most important lesson was that after realising this I felt liberated, I could let my fantasy roam free while I could still curb it, if necessary, with the “positional dogma”.

The second Tal game from the book was no less impressive. It is from the same year, 1965, and from the same Candidates cycle, when Tal made it to the final where he lost to Spassky. The game was played in a moment when Larsen was leading by one point.

A similar scenario to the Portisch game and another elite player succumbs quickly after Tal applied his trademark pressure. These two games consolidated my newly-discovered truth about the possible ways to play chess and with it came the inner freedom I felt – there was no need always to play the “positional” move, sometimes it was possible to play what one wanted to play and it could work perfectly. I grasped the true impact Tal had on the understanding of chess as a whole, he showed that chess can be played in a different way and successfully too. These insights significantly broadened my horizons and even though I didn’t start sacrificing in every game I felt that I became a better player at this mysterious game called chess.

White plays a solid opening and openly for a draw, exchanging queens early. Then he even wins the bishop pair! Yet he goes down easily. I’ll try to explain the small inaccuracies and what they led to. Another instructive point is that when things have gone too far even if there is a saving way, it is so complicated that it’s impossible to find.

I learned a lot from this game and occasionally I replay it just to inspire myself and remind myself how chess should be played. I hope you can also draw valuable lessons from this exquisite masterclass by the World Champion.

The duels between the above types have been telling – the conflict seeking players almost always came out victorious. The Botvinnik matches, especially his return matches when he would always try to impose some irrelevant detail (the sealed move to be placed in two envelopes – just in case one of them got lost, postponing or advancing the match for several weeks because of the weather in Moscow) in order to impose his will and perhaps create conflict with the sole idea of extra motivation; the match Kasparov-Anand, with Kasparov banging the door when exiting the playing area and Anand keeping his rage inside and not reacting; the match Spassky-Fischer, with Fischer creating conflicts long before the match began, while Spassky tried to play the perfect gentleman. The matches Karpov-Korchnoi are a bit different, where the conflict seeking player was beaten, but he was beaten by a player who knew how to thrive on conflict when required – Karpov was always very adaptive to circumstances and didn’t mind the conflict at all. From the more recent history, the match Topalov-Kramnik in Elista was an exception, where the conflict seeking player actually lost to the conflict avoiding player.

The duels between these characters were always exciting and they captured the imagination of the public. Different characters attract different people because the people can recognise parts of themselves in the behaviour of the champions.

What do we have today when it comes to character and conflict? Very little from both. Today’s leading players are probably the best players in the history of chess (taking into consideration the advances in theory and understanding), but when it comes to character I cannot say it is visible from the way they behave outside the chessboard. The atmosphere at the tournaments today is sterile, the players are all friendly between themselves, there is no conflict; in fact, they are all trying to avoid it and just play chess. Almost all of them have worked for or with somebody they know too well, it is all too mixed up – no wonder they are all friendly (can you imagine Tal being hired by Botvinnik for his match against Petrosian?) Nakamura’s Sauron comments, Carlsen’s Mickey Mouse remarks and Giri’s boasting are just too meek compared to Korchnoi’s outbursts, Kasparov’s door-banging and Fischer’s cursing in the ping-pong room.

While today’s elite lacks spark outside the chessboard, they certainly compensate for it with the chess of the highest quality on the chessboard, for which I am grateful. But I would still like to see a bit more of the good old fashioned spite and malice. It just makes for a better spectacle.

They say that with age the main thing that does the most damage is the loss of energy. And everything else starts from there: no motivation, no desire to put in the hours of work necessary not only to progress, but also to keep your current level. All weak play and bad results in chess come from one single reason – lack of appropriate work.

Here’s an example of what I mean. The following is the second game in the match and Shirov, trailing 0-1, went for a line in which he made a forced draw against Wagner in April this year in a Bundesliga match. Since the position he went for is entirely in his style, Shirov must have been confident, but the young are not only confident, they also put in the hours and have powerful computers, so it wasn’t very difficult for Giri to refute Shirov’s opening. My take at this is that Shirov trusted his old analysis and liked the character of the position, so he didn’t check the critical position more thoroughly, while Giri trusted his work ethic and memory with the computer moves well remembered and produced on the chess board. Need I say who won?

It is curious to note that before playing this match, it was Shirov who represented youth in yet another match, this time against Evgeny Sveshnikov, aged 64. And Shirov was struggling in the openings against the veteran, but this time he won convincingly by 5.5-0.5. The reason was simple – Shirov was the stronger player. Once the games exited the opening phase, he consistently outplayed Sveshnikov. And another important thing was that Sveshnikov’s opening preparation, even though superior, didn’t bring the type of forced, computer-like positions where you can win the game by simple memorisation, like the game Giri-Shirov above. By playing 2 b3 and 2 c3 against the Sicilian, you cannot hope to win the game from the opening and once independent play started, Shirov was clearly superior. Here we have an example of an older player willing to put in the work and prepare thoroughly, but he didn’t really take into account the ensuing play – after all, the opening is just the beginning and you have to play well afterwards too. And in that play Shirov was simply better. This is the same reason for Fischer’s 6-0 results against Taimanov and Larsen – if you are better at playing chess, you can win (almost) every game.

And speaking of being better at chess, I can’t wait to see tomorrow’s start in Tashkent – will Caruana continue his winning ways without playing at his best?