Rediscovering Tal

It is only lately that I began to appreciate the games of Mikhail Tal. The first time I have "re-played' a Tal chess game, I had difficulty understanding the logic behind his moves. Well, it was the time I was just trying to learn chess. It was the time where the only way to win a chessgame is to simply capture more pieces of your opponent while avoiding checkmate. 

Kotov vs. Tal (final position; after 48.__Rd1)

The idea of "sacrificing a piece" is not appealing to me as someone who is beginning to play chess. But, whenever a sacrifice is made and it turned out successful, it immediately emphasizes the beauty of chess. Chess is more than capturing the pieces of your opponent. The main goal of chess is to checkmate your adversary's King. It goes without saying that, in chess you still win the game even if you have very few pieces compared to your opponent.

If we look at the games of Mikhail Tal, we can see magic and beauty in chess. Rather than boring maneuverings and positioning, Tal creates thrill on the chessboard with his unexpected and outrageous chess moves. He creates surprises  frustrating most of his opponents. In tournament games, it takes a lot of courage to sacrifice a piece. Tal has that uncanny ability to take calculated or intuitive risks and getting  the desired result.  He can often pull a rabbit out of an empty hat so to speak.

With Tal, attack becomes both an art and a  wizardry. His games is a display of various attacking motifs such as the pin, discovered attack and fork. It is always a fight for the ever valuable initiative. Thus, if you want to play good or better chess, it is worth the time to study the games of Mikhail Tal.