Table of Contents

CONTENTS
Chapter 1 ..................................................................................9
Mikhail Tal: An Unsolved Mystery .......................................9
Blessed is he, who in youth was young ................................11
The Tale of the Young Fellow and Four Horses ...................14
Chapter 2 ................................................................................37
When Spassky and Tal Play ................................................50
Romanticism in Crisis ........................................................52
That’s a Wrap! ....................................................................60
Bronstein-Tal 0:1 ...............................................................61
Shirts, Flasks, and the Will to Win ......................................63
Chapter 3 ................................................................................86
For the Love of the Game ..................................................94
The Restless Maestro .........................................................95
Not by Chess Alone ...........................................................97
A Sublime Illness ............................................................ 103
Candid talk with a pro ..................................................... 110
Alvis’ Goals (Telegraf, 1998) ............................................ 117
“Greetings, young and unknown tribe!” ........................... 121
Chapter 4 .............................................................................. 124
An Ode to the Pawn ......................................................... 125
Not even Sherlock Holmes Could Help ............................ 128
The Black and White Chronicles ...................................... 132
Dashed Hopes ................................................................. 133
Chapter 5 .............................................................................. 139
Vermanes Garden’s Chess Traditions ................................ 146
He Was Back .................................................................... 148
“The point of life isn’t what life contains;
it’s your faith about what life should contain” ................... 151

About the Author

Valentin Kirillov (1938-2017) was a Latvian chess master, coach, and journalist. He took part in numerous Latvian and Baltic states championships, as well as the 1967 USSR championship in Kharkov, the USSR team championships, international tournaments in Hungary, Poland, Finland, France, and the Czech Republic, and the German team championships, playing for Godesburg (Bonn) and Brakel (Dortmund). Mikhail Tal's second (1968-1976), coach and captain of Latvia's national teams at Soviet championships, Deputy Director of the Latvian Chess Club, head coach of the Latvian Republic and of the Latvian members of the USSR National Team. Executive Secretary and Executive Director of the Latvian Chess Federation. He worked as a chess coach in several countries abroad. Kirillov wrote and edited chess columns for various Soviet and Latvian publications. He authored a seven-volume treatise considered to be the definitive Russian-language work analyzing Tal's games, among other books.

Reviews

"This small volume is a worthy addition to any Tal fan's library" - Dennis Monokroussos, The Chess Mind blog

"For hardcore Tal fans...this book is an interesting read...I'm happy to see this book published in English." - Carsten Hansen, American Chess Magazine, March 2018