Morphine addict, womanizer and genius: the life of Mikhail Tal

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When the Nikita Khrushchev government promoted an anti-alcoholism campaign in the Soviet Union, Mikhail Tal said: 'The state against vodka? Well, I side with vodka.

An Arab and Soviet by accident, Tal may have been born in Polynesia or a suburb of Lagos. It was a gift from Caissa scented with nicotine that landed one day in Riga, a maverick who sacrificed pieces to toast for beauty.

Tal often fell in love (and divorced), drank heavily, and smoked three packs of cigarettes a day . A regular at hospitals, his kidneys never worked well. He aged prematurely because he got drunk on life and there is no prescription that will tolerate it . Her body was a tattoo of scars and holes. His demonic eyebrows and grin were actually generosity to mortals. When he started to go bald, he grew a mane grouping all his hair at the temples like a Valencian fallera. It lasted longer than he and his doctors expected.

On one occasion, Tal had to be admitted to the emergency room for kidney failure. Given the dangerous nature of the intervention, a Soviet newspaper commissioned one of its editors to write a text about the chess player in case he did not survive . The obituary is a genre in which the most important are buried in advance so that their untimely death does not screw up a closing of the paper edition. The truth is that Tal survived the operation and what is more extraordinary: his obituary. Someone with a mocking spirit showed him in life what had been written about him predicting his death and he did not like it. But Tal, who was very smart, soon turned that death mask into a macabre joke. When he spoke about his obituary in a tournament, he said that "some data was incorrect" but that he had "had the good fortune to correct it".

The great masters during a game reach 145 beats per minute and an increase in blood pressure of up to 30%. Rhythms that he could only keep on his nightly adventures with people of entertainment and free spirits. Tal haggled the physical demand with the confidence of someone who believes he will not see tomorrow.

- Are you a morphine addict? they asked at a conference.

-Do not. I am a chigorinomano - he answered referring to Chigorin, the patriarch of Russian chess.

Of course he was addicted to morphine. And women. And to the music.

He played the piano, Chaikovski and Rajmáninov were his favorite composers, regardless of the birth defect that had left him a right hand with only three fingers. I didn't need more. He would wave them like a conjurer when he lit a cigarette or stroked the keys.

He was addicted to morphine. And women. And to the music.

The peculiar Alexander Koblenz, reporter and opera singer as well as a chess player, was his coach for many years. He directed it (wisely) more like a father than an instructor. He haggled the antics and tempered the urges of his beloved Misha . He knew that on a Tuesday the pupil won in the decisive game with a majestic combination and on Wednesday he was sanctioned without the Olympics for receiving a bottle from a jealous boyfriend in a Cuban cabaret. Such was very much about dancing the wrong girl.

Once the organizers of a tournament wanted to introduce some young people, alleged promises of the country's powerful chess. "At his age I was already a former world champion , " he replied maliciously.

Tal never cared too much about the world title. He wanted to live as he played: without looking back. His reign was fleeting but unforgettable. It is a pity that such a person without ailments did not face the best Fischer. We will never know which natural talent was most extraordinary. The Latvian has been the best attacking chess player ever, which has much merit in a time when the strategy of not losing shone. It was the counter-figure of the also champion Tigran Petrosián, weaver spider of the prophylactic tactic. A chess player who achieved many more triumphs than he, but who never came close to the charisma of the Riga warlock.

He nearly died in an operation and was able to read his obituary.

Perhaps he liked to wear sacrifices of sometimes pyrotechnic pieces to dismantle those who believe that chess is a science-game and not an art. He was a populist on the board who liked to bristle with emotions. He confessed to his friend Sosonko that he was jealous if someone else raised a sigh or applause in the audience.

Tal's lack of practicality is proverbial. When he was at the top, the Soviet state gave him a Volga, the best domestically produced car. The Latvian, a Luddite more out of indolence than conviction, did not know how to drive and had no intention of learning. So he gave it to his brother. Having a car was not a dilemma for him, it was a problem.

At just 23 years old, this son of a doctor had managed to disassemble the silicon heart of Mikhail Botvínni k (1911-1995) piece by piece, empty it and rebuild it to be the youngest champion in history until the hurricane appearance of Kaspárov. But Botvínnik's mechanics, chess champion and hero of the USSR, did not get sick or rusty with vodka and a year later he regained the title.

The poet lost this time against the engineer. A few days before the encounter the magician had undergone appendicitis. In the clinic where he rested, he smoked secretly and gave compliments to the nurses.

Such was not, like Bobby Fischer a chess addict, he was an addict to life.

Fragment of 'Black Snow. Chess gods and heroes' (Editorial Libros del KO)

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