Tal Memorial, 11/6 - 11/19

"Tal octayotsa Tal." - "Tal is Tal."

The Tal Memorial begins tomorrow as a single Round Robin tournament in Moscow, Russia. The lineup includes:

# 4 - GM Peter Svidler (Russia 2750)
# 5 - GM Alexander Morozevich (Russia 2747)
# 7 - GM Levon Aronian(Armenia 2741)
# 8 - GM Peter Leko (Hungary 2741)
#10 - GM Boris Gelfand (Israel 2733)
#12 - GM Shakhriyar Mamedyarov (Azerbaijan 2728)
#14 - GM Alexei Shirov (Spain 2720)
#17 - GM Alexander Grischuk (Russia 2710)
#20 - GM Ruslan Ponomariov (Ukraine 2703)
#21 - GM Magnus Carlsen (Norway 2698)

Quite the alignment of players! We look forward to some exciting chess. The time limit is 40/100 G15+30.

Mikhail (Misha) Nekhemievich Tal was born in Riga, November 9th, 1936. Tal won the Soviet Championship 6 times (1957, 1958, 1967, 1972, 1974, 1978). At the age of 23 in 1960, Tal defeated Botvinnik for the World Chess Championship Title, then a record for youngest champion. In 1988, at the age of 52, he became World Champion in Blitz chess.

Tal died on June 28th, 1992.

"I drink, I smoke, I gamble, I chase girls -- but postal chess is one vice I don't have."

And here is a classic game of Tal's against Boris Spassky in 1973.