Mikhail Tal

Mikhail Tal married thrice. In 1959, he married 19-year-old Russian actress Salli Landau. This marriage lasted 11 years and ended in divorce in 1970.

His second marriage too did not last long.

He later on married Angelina Petukhov who worked in the Riga Shakhmaty magazine.

Mikhail Tal was born in Riga, Latvia, into a Jewish family, on 9 November 1936. His father was a doctor and medical researcher.

He once saw a game of chess being played in his father’s waiting room, and became fascinated with the game. He started learning to play chess when he was eight and eventually began to study the game with Alexander Koblencs, a leading Latvian player, in 1949.

Though he was not a child prodigy, his technique improved greatly after being mentored by Alexander Koblencs, the Latvian chess master. The two would become friends later on.

Never a robust child, he suffered from ill health from a young age. He was plagued by kidney problems in his later years.

Mikhail Tal first qualified for the Latvian Championship in 1951 and finished ahead of his trainer in the 1952 Latvian Championship. He won his first Latvian title in 1953 and was awarded the title of Candidate Master.

By 1954, he had become a Soviet Master after defeating Vladimir Saigin in a qualifying match. He scored his first win over a Grandmaster the same year.

In 1956, he qualified for the first time for the USSR Chess Championship final and finished joint fifth. The next year he won the championship and at the age of 20 became the youngest player to win it.

In 1957, he graduated in Literature from the University of Riga. Following this he worked as a teacher for a few years in his twenties.

In 1957, he was awarded the Grandmaster title by FIDE. He had not played in enough international tournaments to qualify for this title, but the FIDE decided to waive the normal restrictions and award him the title as he had won the Soviet Championship after beating several top international players.

In 1960, when he won the World Chess Championship, he became the youngest-ever world champion. He was 23 at that time. His record was later broken by Garry Kasparov.

He holds the record of playing 95 consecutive games without a loss—the longest unbeaten streak in modern chess history.