Trying to Play Like Tal

I managed to spend 5,5 hours on chess last week besides the time I spend writing ‘What Is The Company World Chess All About?’. I’m currently working on solving the puzzles from the Red Tactics Ladder book when I commute back and forth from work while playing longer games in the evening.

The dashboard on Clockify

I have created a new Lichess account for 15+10 rapid games, where I plan to annotate each game before I move on to the next one. After 8 games on the account, I’m starting to meet tougher opposition, and after 7 wins I ran into a draw. It feels nice to start fresh. The annotation has also been a fun activity.

My opponent was on the offensive and played 13. g4?!

Here is a position from one of the games. I was Black and had this feeling that Tal would play 13…Bxg4. But sometimes you can get carried away by the idea of playing a great sacrifice.

It turned out that I was too optimistic and misevaluated the move. My pieces were not yet developed enough for such adventures. It would be much better to just retreat with Bd7.

How ai imagine Tal would have looked before playing a brilliant sacrifice /MidJourney

After 14. fxg4 Ne4+ 15. Kg2 I missed that 15...Qh4 16.Be3! and everything is safe for White. In the game, I continued with 15…Nxc3 and a worse position.

If we compare the sacrifice to a position where the Black Knight is developed from b8 to c6 it suddenly makes more sense.

After 14. fxg4 Ne4+ 15. Kg2 Nxc3 16. Qd3 Nxd4! It is now clear how the developed Knight is useful and important.

Two Knights are hanging, but the Bishop on e2 is also under attack!

If you want to take a closer look at the two positions I have made a Lichess study.