Talk:Mikhail Tal

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	Pending tasks for Mikhail Tal:	edit - history - watch - purge
	Ill-health:refusing to postpone rematch against Botvinnik Notable game, with diagram

Contents 1 Playing style 2 Picture 3 1959 Candidates Tournament 4 Date of death 5 Early years 6 Misha? 7 Organs quote 8 Hastings 1973

[edit] Playing style

"However, it has been reported that partly this style is related to an unusual rule for moving knights in that region, where they are unable to move backwards, only forwards; this forces unusual strategies on players." As far as I understand the article in reference was a joke and there is no evidence that Tal used to play by such rules. I think the sentence is misleading. (193.68.74.52 14:14, 13 June 2006 (UTC))

It is a joke, and I already removed it before checking this discussion page. It is unfortunate that you didn't simply remove it yourself... In the future, pls be bold. Themindset 18:16, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Picture

Someone replaces the fair-use high quality photo of Tal with a free and ugly photo of Tal's wax statue and states that "if you have a free pic you can't use a fair use pic". But I think that this is an article about Tal and not about wax work. I think that the "free pic" rationale therefore cannot be used. But I am not an expert in copyright law. What do you think about it?--Ioannes Pragensis 17:22, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

I for one would like to see a link to a Wiki policy supporting the replacer's contention. If any such notion exists, it would only exist there--as there would not be a "preferable to use" edict in copyright law. Epeefleche 21:08, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

I reverted, on the basis that a photo of a wax dummy is not a photo of Tal at all. Plus, it is in my opinion a truly horrible photo (or rather, a photo of a horrible wax dummy). I'd rather no photo at all than the wax dummy photo. Peter Ballard 11:18, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

I think the policy being refered to was Wikipedia:Non-free content#Policy, point 1. The relevant sentence is, "Non-free content is always replaced with a freer alternative if one of acceptable quality is available.". I argue - and it seems Ioannes Pragensis agrees with me - that the wax dummy photo is not "acceptable quality" so it does not qualify. If we are not allowed to use the Tal photo due to copyright, then OK, but as I said above, I'd rather no photo at all than the wax dummy photo. Peter Ballard 13:06, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree, better no photo at all, the waxwork is not acceptable.--Ioannes Pragensis 17:34, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't think the replaceability criterion applies here, because the waxwork image is not really free. A wax figure is a copyrightable work of art, so a photo of it is a derivative work. I'll nominate the photo for deletion on Commons. —Celithemis 22:39, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

If someone's interested in adding it here, here's a photograph I took of his grave a few days ago: http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Image:Mikhailtalgrave.jpg —Preceding unsigned comment added by Unlikelylads (talk • contribs) 18:42, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] 1959 Candidates Tournament

This section says "Tal's victory was attributed to his dominance over the lower half of the field." I find this a little dubious: Tal had a minus against Keres, but scored better than Keres against everyone else, including Petrosian and Smyslov. Philcha (talk) 22:15, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

I didn't write that section, but I think it's correct. Look at the crosstable at http://www.mark-weeks.com/chess/5860$cix.htm. Tal was:

• 1–3 v. Keres
• 2–2 v. Petrosian
• 2.5–1.5 v. Smyslov
• 4–0 v. Fischer
• 3½–½ v. each of Gligoric, Olafsson, and Benko

So against the top half of the field Tal was 5½–6½ for a narrow minus score (−1), but against the bottom half he was 14½–1½ (+13!). Keres scored 6½–4½ (+2) (oops, 6½–5½ (+1) as Peter says below) in the top half and Petrosian scored 5½–5½ (+0) (I can't add, 6–6 (+0)) in the top half. There's no shame in this. Beating up on the bottom half of the tournament is a time-honored strategy. It's the only reason Fischer got out of Portoroz and into this 1959 Candidates tournament. At Portoroz although Fischer was undefeated against the Soviets (all draws), against the top 13 finishers he was only +0−2=10, but he went +6−0=2 against places 14 to 21. We need a World Chess Championship 1960 article to discuss this in detail. There's a lot of good stuff to talk about in this championship cycle. Quale (talk) 23:48, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

I've certainly read it (in Israel Horowitz's book, and maybe others). So I'll add the Horowitz ref soon. Nevertheless the crosstable makes interesting reading. The top 4 were fairly evenly matched: it you look at the mini-tournament between the top 4, it was Keres +1, Petrosian =, Smyslov =, Tal -1. So Keres also benefited from beating up the bottom 4, scoring an impressive +8. It's just that Tal did it better, with an incredible +13. Peter Ballard (talk) 02:03, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Date of death

Hello. There is 27/06/92 as date of death on his grave... All of the Wikies tell that he died on 28/06/92. Who is right? Regards pjahr (talk) 14:23, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Kasparov gives the 28th also. Not that he is necessarily right, but that is a reference. Bubba73 (talk), 14:40, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

I've ordered Life & Games of Mikhail Tal - second edition published 5 years after his death, so I hope that will serve as an authorative source. Bubba73 (talk), 05:56, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I have that book (superb, incidentally) and it gives 28th June, as does every other source I've seen. It's possible for gravestones to be wrong of course - Elvis Presley's famously misspells his middle name! Pawnkingthree (talk) 18:38, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

This article used to say 28th, but someone changed it to 27th based on the gravestone. I looked up all other sources I could find and they all said 28th. I added a footnote about the 28th. I think we need to change it to the 28th, and have the footnote explain all of the sources for the 28th but note that the gravestone says 27th. Bubba73 (talk), 18:43, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

I agree.Pawnkingthree (talk) 18:45, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

Well, I got Life and Games today, and I changed it to the 28th, but mentioned the gravestone in the footnote. Bubba73 (talk), 20:28, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

I think that's the right thing to do. It looks good now. Quale (talk) 20:58, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't think deadoraliveinfo.com is a reliable source, and doesn't add any authority compared to solid sources like Kasparov or a posthumous edition of his own book (which are very good sources). I propose deleting it. Peter Ballard (talk) 05:09, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

It seems OK to me, but I won't object to removing it if that is the consensus. What do others think? Bubba73 (talk), 05:22, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

I don't think it's a bad source, I just think it carries no authority. It doesn't seem to be a particularly noteworthy site (it doesn't have a Wikipedia entry, for instance), and for all I know it's just run out of someone's garage using information the site author has gleaned from the internet. Given that, I don't think it helps settle question one way or the other. Peter Ballard (talk) 05:30, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Google "deadoraliveinfo" gives 19,800 hits. I've looked up several people there before and they seem reliable to me. But I'd like to hear other opinions. Bubba73 (talk), 05:35, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

First look at this article today. Surprised that this article doesn't say 27th. The grave picture seems to be substantially stronger information then the referenced material, which lets be honest wouldn't be researched in regards to this fact. Does any of the referenced material say that the gravestone is incorrect? Or gave any more information perhaps on the date? It would be quite easy on the engraving of the gravestone to amend the '7' into a '8' if it was incorrect - that leads me to believe that 27 is indeed correct and all other sources are just misquoting all it takes is a report something to the effect of "Tal died today"... only to have the statement lifted into a national paper that's published the following day and you have an error from nowhere. ChessCreator (talk) 21:06, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Actually I agree with other editors who say that mistakes on gravestones are not uncommon, and I don't think that as a source it has as great a weight as the many other references that say 28. In fact all other references say 28. It's easier for me to believe that there is a mistake on the gravestone than it is to believe that every single other reference got it wrong. It might be a good question for Edward G. Winter to research, however, since he likes stuff like this. Quale (talk) 21:47, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Early years

I agree with the more representational transliteration of "Koblents" (vs. "Koblencs"). His own Wikipedia entry is under Koblencs, however. Which I also agree with because it's more faithful to the original and can't we all just learn a little Hungarian for gosh sakes?? I fixed the link by directing it to Koblencs, and it's up to someone else to tackle the spelling in his entry. Eleven even (talk) 21:53, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Misha?

I've often seen Tal referred to as "Misha". Is that a common form of Mikhail or is it specific to Tal? If the latter, it should be mentioned in the article. Bubba73 (talk), 05:32, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Misha is short for Mikhaiel Misha#Origins of the name. Bubba73 (talk), 05:51, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Organs quote

But his friend and fellow Soviet grandmaster Genna Sosonko reported that "in reality, all his organs had stopped functioning."[11]

The above quote is not given in the linked reference. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_20061128/ai_n16873075 ChessCreator (talk) 02:48, 7 March 2008 (UTC)

• Good catch—you're right. This needs another source or it should be removed. The chesscafe review of the chessbase CD (the final external link) has a similar statement, but it doesn't support reporting it as a direct quote (the use of the quotation marks in the wikipedia article). We have the unfortunate problem of "wikireality". Since this text has been in this article for a while, there are many copies of it on other web pages and it's hard to know if any of them predate the statement in this article. Quale (talk) 06:50, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

Even more so the "drink the hotel dry" rumour, which I just deleted. Peter Ballard (talk) 03:30, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

No, much less so that. See the section below: it comes directly from the source ChessCreator links right above, although it wasn't cited inline. Quale (talk) 17:48, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

On a similar note, I'd like a source for the morphine addiction. I'm almost through with his book, and I haven't seen it in the text (and I doubt it is buried in the game annotations). I don't really doubt it, but I think it needs a reliable source. Bubba73 (talk), 03:32, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, the link at the top of this section does mention the morphine adiction, do you think it is a good source? Also, the article does say "three weeks before his much-abused organs packed up for good..." - it sounds to me that this could have been misinterpreted as "all of his organs shut down stopped functioning". Bubba73 (talk), 03:39, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Right, it says that, but I didn't read it as a direct quote from Sosonko. If that's the cause of death we can say it, but it's a horrible mistake to attribute a direct quote to someone if we don't have a source—we really can't do that. Quale (talk) 06:56, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm a little suspicious of the article cited above i.e. this one.[1] The author Dominic Lawson is a well known journalist so he qualifies as a WP:RS, but has no qualifications when it comes to chess and there are countless examples of the media making errors in chess articles. There is at least one blatant error in the article: it says chess has up to 10**128 possible positions, but the actual number is far lower (since each square has 13 possibilities, it can't be much more than 13**64 = 10**71 (roughly)) and he appears to have confused this with the number of possible chess games which can be played (see Shannon number). Given that he hasn't double-checked that detail, I think I'm entitled to be just a little skeptical of the Tal part of the article. He clearly spoke to Gennadi Sosonko, but I wonder whether some embellishment occured somewhere along the way. In other words, if the only source for claims is the Lawson article, perhaps we should tread with caution. Peter Ballard (talk) 01:46, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Hastings 1973

The Hastings 1973 drinking the bar dry of brandy bit is taken directly from reference 11 (Dominic Lawson, Why artificial intelligence is never enough) although it wasn't cited inline at that point. I didn't add the sentence or the reference to the article. I have to say it sounds apocryphal to me so I don't object to its removal, but I thought it should be pointed out that it wasn't a complete fabrication by whoever put it in the article. I think the organ failure quote attributed to Sosonko is a worse problem unless it can be referenced. Quale (talk) 07:15, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Still sounds unlikely to me. It would have to be an incredibly poorly stocked bar if one person could drink it dry. In any case, we've established he was a drinker, do we really need to add this? Peter Ballard (talk) 00:35, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

I think it would be sufficient without it. Bubba73 (talk), 01:12, 10 March 2008 (UTC)