Life & Games of Mikhail Tal (Paperback)

~ (Author) "JOURNALIST. Well now, 'Shall we begin?'..." (more)
Key Phrases: adjourned position, sealed move, strongest continuation, Sicilian Defence, Team Championship, World Champion (more...)

Product Details

• Paperback: 528 pages
• Publisher: Everyman Publishers; 2nd edition (November 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1857442024
• ISBN-13: 978-1857442021
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.8 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (39 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #77,277 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of the greatest chess books ever written., September 23, 1998

By	[e-mail] (Toms River, New Jersey, USA) - See all my reviews

I own the original edition of this book got in the 1970s. It's binding is now held together with duct tape, pages are falling out, margins are filled with scribbling... well, you get the point. I used to carry it with me everywhere I went, until I became afraid of losing pages. It was and is my favorite chess book. Tal is a great writer with a wry sense of humor and an incredible imagination. His games are among the most entertaining in the history of chess. Opening this book to any page will reveal something that will amuse, astonish or instruct. It was with great pleasure that I greeted the news that this classic was once again in print. Every chessplayer should own a copy. The new edition from Cadogan (the original was from RHM, now defunct), is in algebraic notation ( I prefer the descriptive in the original edition, but only because my eyesight has worsened, and the descriptive notation was larger ) and Tal's complete tournament and match record is included ( this volume covers his career up to 1975, but he played great chess up until his death in 1992 ). Not much else is different. This book ranks up with the greatest classics of the game (Bobby Fischer's 60 Memorable Games, Alekhine's Best Games of Chess, Timman's The Art of Chess Analysis and Kasparov's Fighting Chess). The re-release of this book around the same time as the publishing of Shirov's "Fire On Board", is the attacking player's dream. It has made my year.

26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An all-time classic, April 28, 2004

By	G. Camara (Sao Jose dos Campos, SP Brazil) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I've been a chessplayer for 40 years (best rating was 2250 ELO) and I still enjoy Internet chess. During my chess life I have read dozens of chess books, mostly in openings which are quickly outdated. Not this book. This is a great book by one of the five all-time best chess players (the others being Kasparov, Fischer, Alekhine and Capablanca). It's a book I return very often, simply for enjoying myself. In Chess, beauty does not lie in winning a game, but in the ideas and the conceptions that are required for the battle. Mikhail Tal had it all: an amazing mind, and the free-thinking that illuminates the lifes of lesser mortals. And the book is exceptionally well-written and well commented. I agree with other reviewers: this is probably the best chess book ever written.

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Truly Great Book, December 17, 1999

By	Franklin Carroll (Chicago) - See all my reviews

This book is pervaded with a literary and anecdotal air that is rarely found in Chess literature (and, as I see it, is much needed). One gets the sense that he is reading the work of a man who deeply loved life and who took great pleasure in those little disjoint stories of which it is comprised whether or not they occured at the board. This book reads like a true biography with brilliantly annotated games acting as much welcomed photographs. Upon seeing the position from Tal's 1959 Interzonal game against Fischer, anyone interested in Tal will be captivated to hear Tal speak of how he tricked Fischer into losing a won position. The games and stories presented in this volume compliment each other masterfully. Quite simply, this is one of the greatest chess books ever written: In it one finds both great chess and great comedy. One must conclude that Tal was not only a master of chess but also of the pen!