Mikhail Tal, World Chess Champion in 1960 (for one year, as he lost the return match against Botvinnik), is one of the most admired playes of the past. Brilliant sacrifices, unforeseen combinations and attacking resource is what chess fans find in his games.

Although Mikhail Tal Opening Repertoire has changed over the years, his favorite openings are the Sicilian Defense (with both colors), the King’s Indian Defense, the Modern Benoni Defense and the Ruy Lopez.

As I said, Tal changed his style and his Openings over the years (as every GM would do) and in fact it is quite interesting that he has achieved very nice victories even with seemingly “slow” openings such as the Nimzo-Indian Defense, or the English Opening.

There are a few other patterns that I noticed while analyzing statistics of Mikhail Tal’s games. For example:

• He has won a number of creative games against the Caro-Kann defense, even in the World Championship 1960 against Botvinnik.
• Has has played an roughly equal number of combinations and sacrifices playing White or playing Black (!!).
• Even more often than sacrificing to attack the opponent’s king, Tal used to create material imbalances, for positional compensation.
• His favorite material imbalance was to give up Knight and Bishop for a Rook.
• Many of his famous sacrifices are considered as “playable” even by modern chess software.

Before we start…

Before we start I think it’s better to get into the mood of this article. Personally, I am often speechless when I see Tal’s sacrifices. They just look so bold and so insane that I would not know how to comment.

Before we go into the analysis of Mikhail Tal’s Opening Repertoire, and in particular into his favorite Openings, I think it’s worth looking at the following game, not very well known.

In a quiet position Tal sets a trap for his opponent. The trap is actually an invitation to take his queen, without any obvious drawback!

So Tal sacrifices his Queen for two minor pieces, Knight and Bishop. Then keeps on playing the position like if nothing had happened, and eventually delivers checkmate with rook and bishop.

I didn’t know this game until I made some additional research for this article. I think I read Tal’s biography countless times, but this game is not mentioned there! It truly fascinates me.

List of favorite Tal’s Chess Openings

Tal’s repertoire was very broad. If you compare it, for example, with Bobby Fischer’s Favorite Openings then you will find a clear difference.

Fischer liked to play the same Openings over and over again, because he simply wanted to become the best in the world in those positions.

Tal, on the other hand, truly enjoyed varying Openings every now and again. This was probably a good boost to his creativity, his most envy feature.

Therefore, it’s not easy to come up with a restricted list of Openings that can summarize well Tal’s entire repertoire. However, I did an accurate analysis in the largest database I could find and came up with some conclusions.

You can replicate my analysis if you want, you just need a large database and a chess software that lets you filter games by player’s name, opening and color. I think you will find useful tool in my Recommended Software page (the link is on the right border of this page).

So, here’s what I am going to analyze with you in this post about Mikhail Tal Openings.

• Tal’s attacking schemes in the Caro-Kann defense (as White). This was a crucial point especially in the World Championship Match 1960, that Tal won against Botvinnik. Botvinnik’s Caro-Kann was totally cracked by Misha!
• How Tal handled the Modern Benoni Defense (as Black). The Benoni is a very controversial defense, and very few top-GM play it nowadays, because it’s considered strategically unsound. However, Tal liked it because of the great dynamic possibilities it offers.
• Tal’s best games in the Ruy Lopez. He liked this opening with both colors, and there are beautiful games he played with the White pieces as well as with Black’s. As Black, he particularly enjoyed the Open Ruy Lopez, which is indeed a more dynamic variation than the Closed.
• The King’s Indian Defense. Tal loved the King’s Indian defense too (see the game above!), and in fact this openings shares quite a bit in common with the Modern Benoni.
• The Sicilian Defense. Of course, this uncompromising, sharp and hard-fought opening could not be missing in Tal’s repertoire. He played the Sicilian with both colors, with great results and showing his immense creativity in the attacking phases as well as in defense.

Sit tight and let’s start!

Tal and the Caro-Kann Defense

The Caro-Kann defense is a sound system with a pretty positional touch. Black builds up on his pawns chain, placing them on white squares, but also gets rid of the light-squard bishop that could potentially become passive.

In this sense, many say the Caro-Kann is an improved French defense, because in the French Black often struggles with his bad bishop. The truth is that both systems are sound and absolutely playable. The French is a more dynamic opening, whereas the Caro-Kann is slightly more static.

Let’s take a look at the first few moves.

Looking at the board above a few points are immediately evident:

• Black has given up the center in order to ease his development.
• Black intends to build a solid pawn chain with c6-e6, and his light-squared Bishop is already outside of the chain. It is actually a strong piece.
• White, on the other hand, enjoys more space in the center and has free hands about how to develop her initiative.

This static touch in the Caro-Kann is probably also the main reason why Botvinnik chose this opening as his main weapon against Tal during their World Championship Match in 1960.

Misha (Tal’s nickname) won two games with White against Botvinnik’s Caro-Kann. Both were attacking games, where Tal handled the Caro-Kann in such a way that Botvinnik could not avoid complications and tactical shots.

My favorite game with the Caro-Kann in the match is game 17th. Tal handled the White’s side of the Caro-Kann in such a brilliant and anti-positional way!

In his self-biography, Mikhail confesses that he knew he was taking way too many risks with those anti-positional moves, but he says that it all looked very interesting!

Here is the full game:

A few things worth mentioning:

• 10. Bg5 is a very strange move, so atypical in the Caro-Kann. White bishop is not doing much over there.
• 11. f4?!? is the most anti-positional move of the game. It weakens a lot of squares in White’s field. On the other hand, it forces Black to play more actively.
• Tal collects the full point in furious zeitnot and with a cute attack to Black’s king!

Botvinnik decided to play the Caro-Kann in the re-Match too. At that time, whenever the World Champion would loose his title, he would have the right to ask for a re-match, to be held one year later.

So Botvinnik and Tal played the re-match in 1961, and Botvinnik got his World Champion Title back. The Caro-Kann games in the rematch were quite different from the previous year, also because Tal decided to play the Advanced Variation more often.

The Advanced Variation in the Caro-Kann (1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. e5) is a more “forcing” line, where the development set-up is less flexible (for both sides), but positions are also very tactical and tricky to handle.

I can only assume Tal was hoping to drive the games into a street-fight sort of battle. However Botvinnik came in very well prepared and managed to win more than one game.

Tal, of course, won some model games too. In particular, the following game is my favorite from the re-Match, with the Caro-Kann.

As you can see, with the Advanced Variation White hopes to drive Black’s into a cramped position and then exploit his space advantage. I have to say, this is also my favorite choice and the variation that I have chosen in my Opening Repertoire!

Tal and the Modern Benoni

The Modern Benoni Defense is one of the most combative openings that you can choose to play with the Black pieces.

Let’s immediately see the main positions and then make some conclusions.

Basically, the whole idea behind Black’s move is that he accept a serious positional weakness (the pawn in d6), in exchange for dynamic pieces, most of all the Bishop in g7, and dynamic plans on both flanks (a6-b5 on the queenside, f5 break on the kingside).

However, White gets a clear space advantage in the center, and a target in d6. Many strong GMs believe that this position is strategically unsound for Black. In practice though, the dynamic possibilities simply leave the door opened to all three results.

Tal has played many brilliant games on the Black side of the Modern Benoni Defense. In my opinion, the type of positions that arise with this Opening was perfect for his style.

The most famous game in this Opening is probably the following one, that he won with a brilliant attack, and multiple sacrifices!

When I look at this game, it’s insane that after just 14 moves Black is already delivering a lethal attack to the White king!

Tal sacrificed first a Knight in f2, which is kind of a common theme, and then the Queen in h3 (which is not common at all!). Notice that the black’s Queen in h3 cannot be captured, due to Bxh3 checkmate!

Another game that I like a lot, played by Misha Tal with this Opening, is the following one.

I love the way the Black’s Rook jumps from square to square in the center of the board and finally sacrifice itself for a very strong positional compensation!

The game also contains a very instructive idea, that is to play a6, and when White replies with a5 (to prevent Black from comfortably pushing b5) then Black brings a piece in the b5 square with Bd7 and Nc7-Nb5. This is an important idea, definitely worth remembering.

The Modern Benoni Defense is also the Opening where Tal lost his most dramatic game, for his own admission. This happened in the World Championship against Botvinnik, in 1960.

After a very complex struggle Tal had a totally winning position. The winning manouver consisted in bringing a Rook on the open c-file. Tal did bring a Rook in c8, but it was the wrong Rook!!

A classical case of “the wrong Rook”, indeed. Tal played Rbc8 and even lost the game. Had he played Rec8 (less intuitive but tactically correct), he would have won easily. A rare case of tactical blindness by Tal.

Here’s the game.

Tal and the Ruy Lopez Opening

The Ruy Lopez is probably the most common Opening among the open systems (1. e4 e5). It’s a complex struggle, with lots of fascinating strategical and tactical facets.

Let’s take a look at the first moves (and few possible variations).

Playing the Ruy Lopez with either side is quite a challenging task, in my opinion. The reason is that you must be comfortable with so many variations, that may be very different from each other!

In some lines of the Ruy Lopez, White locks up the center and attacks on the Kingside, by bringing the Knight on g3 and g4, and by building the battery Qd2-Be3.

In other lines, White opens up the center by exchanging in e5 and then occupies the d5-square with a piece (a knight, usually), and keeps playing in the center.

In other lines still, White attacks on the Queenside with a4, b4 and sometimes c4.

On the other hand, Black has a lot of different plans too! Kicking away the White’s Bishop with Na5 (Chigorin variation), re-routing the Knight with Nc6-Nb8-Nd7 (the Breyer variation), an early Bb7 (the Zaitsev Variation), plus a mix of all these.

Tal enjoyed playing the Ruy Lopez with both colors. When playing with White, I noticed that he would often go for a positional approach, on the surface, but only to turn the table out of nowhere with some brilliant sacrifice or tactical shot.

The following game against Averbakh (a very strong Russian GM) is a good example of this.

It’s amazing that Tal sacrificed a piece with the sequence started with 22. Rad1, in order to follow up with the silent move 26. Bb3!!

A quiet move after a piece sacrifice is always a pleasure for the eyes. In this case, Tal brings the light-squared Bishop back to life, and despite being a piece up Black finds himself deadly lost.

This game shows well a typical behavior in the Ruy Lopez. A quiet game, apparently all centered around strategy and positional moves, suddenly becomes sharp. In fact, Misha was “famous” for his ability to generate attacking maneuvers to the opponent’s King out of nowhere.

My favorite Tal’s game in the Ruy Lopez as White is the following game against Spassky. A big clash between two former World Champions that Tal wins with a scintillating attack to Black’s King.

To tell you the truth before you look at the game, this is another case of an insane attacking maneuvers architected by Tal. The Knight’s sacrifice in h5 is simply astonishing. I bet Spassky was suprised too!

Tal played the Ruy Lopez with the Black pieces too. After all, this Opening is so complex that both sides have their chances to generate interesting play, and tactical complications!

Mikhail used to play both the Closed and the Open Ruy Lopez, with Black. The Open line has become trendy again, in the last 2-3 years, and has therefore been analyzed till death.

Tal enjoyed the Black’s side of the Ruy Lopez, and he would often choose a provocative approach, inviting White to over-expand his position.

The following game was played at the URS Spatakiad, a strong tournament that was held in the last decades of the Soviet Union. Tal’s opponent challenge him in a very complex battle, and Tal replies with an insane piece sacrifice in the heart of White’s position!

Tal and the King’s Indian Defense

The King’s Indian Defense is one of my favorite Openings. And it was one of Tal’s favorite too!

Games originated by the KID (King’s Indian Defense) are very complex battles from tactical as well as strategical point of view. The uncompromising type of positions it leads to has made it a lethal weapon in the brain of great chess players. I wrote an in-depth King’s Indian tutorial that I recommended checking out.

There a couple of Tal’s games with the KID that I simply love. I have shown to you one of them at the beginning of this article, where Tal played an insane Queen’s sacrifice.

However, my favorite Tal’s game (maybe in absolute) is the FAMOUS 10th game of the World Chess Championship he played in 1960 against Botvinnik.

In that game, Tal sacrificed a piece without any “obvious” reason. The game was so complex, astonishing and breathtaking that it was heavily discussed in the days that followed it. All famous GMs gave their own personal analysis of the position, with lots of variations.

Tal, on his part, just said “the sacrifice is good simply because all other moves are bad at this point. And I didn’t calculate much, it’s just positional compensation”.

When I read his analysis in his self-biographic book, I was amazed. By the way, that book is really great, I warmly recommend it!

Back to the game. Tal played the KID against which Botvinnik chose the Fianchetto system, a solid and sound approach.

Both players opted for a full-board battle, meaning that the action was not concentrated on one specific part of the board, it was simply everywhere.

Then, out of the blue, Tal sacrificed a piece for a pawn! You can find lots of analysis about this game, but Tal simply followed his superior intuition, as he said in his own words.

Here is this faboulous game!

To wrap up Tal’s beautiful games with the King’s Indian Defense, I want to show to you another masterpiece, slightly less known.

In the following game Tal played a very complex piece sacrifice, to follow up with a variation where he recovered the piece but lost one pawn.

However, his deep positional understanding told him that he would have had a strong positional compensation for the pawn. And indeed he won thanks to White’s King weakness in 39 moves! Enjoy the game!

Tal and the Sicilian Defense

The Sicilian Defense is one of the sharpest defense in the entire game of chess. In particular, the Open Sicilian means fire on the board!

There’s no doubt the Sicilian is a sound opening, however in ancient times it was considered dubious and too risky.

Basically, Black exchanges his c-pawn with White’s d-pawn very early on in the game. This means that for the rest of the game Black is going to have a pawn majority in the center.

This is a strategical asset, no doubt. However, White gets a very easy development, and fine attacking chances. There’s also the question of how to place Black’s pawns in the center.

The structure d6-e5 leaves a weak pawn in d6 and even a weaker square in d5. Often White builds up his entire strategy on these two factors.

On the other hand, placing those central pawns in d6-e6 means giving up a lot of squares in the center, and a lot of space in general.

Nonetheless, Black has got these pawns! And he can often rely on the dynamic possibilities that the central majority gives. Also, the c-file is semi-opened in his favor and a Rook (or both) will quickly establish control over it.

I want to give a few, semi-random, lines that show several among this possibilities.

As you can imagine, Tal was a great Sicilian player. He loved playing positions derived from the Sicilian Defense with both colors! He would often go for the sharpest line, which in the Sicilian means fight to kill or to survive.

On the White’s side of the Sicilian Defense, my favorite Tal’s game is without doubt the following game he played against Bent Larsen during the Candidates Match in 1965.

In this game, Tal played a intuitive piece-sacrifice that is a joy for the eyes. Black gets a piece but also a very cramped position with little-to-none ways to free himself. Still, playing like this in a Candidates Match is insane! Here’s the full game.

As pointed out in his self-biography, this astonishing piece sacrifice creates a permanent wall along the e-file, mainly over the squares e5 and e6 that are controlled by White’s pawns and keep Black’s piece far away.

In just a few moves Black found himself forced to return the piece, but so being two pawns down. And after a few more moves… game over!

When flipping the board, there are a lot of nice games that Mikhail won with Black too (of course!).

Perhaps surprisingly, Tal really enjoyed playing the Taimanov line of the Sicilian. He played others too, such as the Najdorf and the Dragon, but the Khan-Taimanov was his favorite, at the least statistically.

Among many games, one that I really want to show you is his win against Boris Spassky in the final of the Candidates Match. As you probably know, that was a hell of a match between two chess giants. Spassky won, eventually, and went on playing for the World Champion Title in 1966 (against Petrosian, who did beat him).

The match between Spassky and Tal in 1965 was extremely hard fought. The following game is one of the highlight of it. Enjoy!

Conclusions

In this article I showed you a tour of Mikhail Tal’s favorite Chess Openings.

Tal is one of the all-time favorite chess players, thanks to the brave and scintillating style of play. Brilliant attacks, insane sacrifices and surprising combinations — that’s Misha Tal!

I hope you enjoyed the games the same I do and I am sure that after reading this post you will play a bit like him! 🙂

Have fun!!