Welcome to My 5 Great Enemies, a series of posts about the worst enemies of me, the Caro-Kann defensive system in chess against 1. e4 (and including transpositions from other lines). I will be counting down my greatest enemies from #5 to #1 in this and the following posts.
You can think of this series as an homage to former World Champion Garry Kasparov’s acclaimed five volume series My Great Predecessors, profiling the world champions prior to Kasparov in the modern era of chess. There will be some differences. Where Kasparov’s tone was one of cordial respect and admiration for the old masters, my work will be heavily focused on petty grievances and will overflow with pure invective aimed at my mortal enemies. However, in keeping with the spirit of the Beast from Baku and his masterwork, my posts will feature the unspoken but glibly implied premise that I am superior to all of these people and have no true rivals.
First a note on the structure of these posts. I will begin with a brief summary of the enemy in question (Who is X?). I will then proceed to elaborate on their Greatest Crimes. This will be a charge sheet of my complaints. Next up will be any Mitigating Factors to be considered in their defense. Finally, after briefly summarizing the case, you can join me in the comments section where we will proceed to roast these monsters together in a call-and-response fit of cathartic rage.
Today we begin with Enemy #5: Mikhail Tal
Who is Mikhail Tal?
Familiar to all chess lovers, the Magician from Riga was the eighth classical World Champion. He played in a style invariably described in conjunction with the adjective “swashbuckling.” His creative attacking style has made him a frequent favorite of chess fans. If you know chess, you know who this guy is.
What are his Greatest Crimes?
1) The Variant.
What is the worst thing someone can do to a chess opening? Introduce a good new variant against it. Not content to win just one game, the variant-inventor ruins opponents’ positions for years. Tal popularized a strong variant against the Caro-Kann Advance, the eponymous Tal Variation. This has vexed my practitioners for some time. Defined by the move sequence: 1. e4 c6 2. d4 d5 3. e5 Bf5 4. h4
POSITION SEARCH:
the Tal Variation presents black with an uncomfortable choice. The two main moves here are h5 and h6. With h5 black tends to invite significant central expansion by white, limits his own potential for pawn breaks on the kingside, and allows a potentially strong outpost for the white pieces on g5.
Even worse, however is h6. This move allows white to play the immediate g4, initiating a kingside pawnstorm and winning a tempo against black’s light-squared bishop. In the main line black retreats the bishop to d7 and usually follows up soon with e6. While this may be in technical terms the best try, it is a grave psychological blow for the black player. As all lovers of the Caro-Kann know, avoiding a bad light-squared bishop is one of the chief attributes. By willingly acceding to the miserable glorified pawn on d7, black admits to himself and his opponent that his opening approach and stylistic preferences have been stymied.
This variant is highly annoying to meet! It interferes with black’s usual plans and often forces him into the kind of terrain he is really trying to avoid by playing the Caro-Kann. Tal’s innovation was an unpleasant affront, and not one that will be forgiven. What a jerk!
2) The Crushing Record Against
Tal, generally speaking, destroyed the Caro-Kann in competitive play in his prime. Often with fantastic speculative sacrificial play. I mean, look at this game against Smyslov. And this bloodbath against Portisch in the Two Knights variation. Or this utter destruction of Miles late in his career. That outrageous rook, just sitting there en prise forever and then making the final capture. It makes me angry!
Tal had just an enormous plus score against me. Sure, Botvinnik and Bronstein got him a few times but those were rare exceptions. Needless to say, I really do not care for it when someone beats me repeatedly and with apparent ease. Frankly the less said about this the better.
3) The Feint and Smirk
This is the real dagger. Here, just go ahead and watch it, the greatest and shortest diss track in chess:
That’s Mikhail Tal, pretending he’s going to play c6 against Bobby Fischer but then playing the Sicilian instead. Forget the actual background explanation, of Fischer accusing the Soviets of being afraid of his Sicilian. Ignore that Tal was just riffing on that mini-controversy.
Just look at that smirk. This is a man who treats the Caro-Kann Defense as a joke. A laugh to be had. A hilarious fake-out so obviously ludicrous that we should all chortle together at how absurd it would be for him to play it.
With this extremely rude and devastating gesture, Tal provided my detractors with an iconic moment they can always cheekily reference to diminish my prestige and standing. This is the #1 most insulting moment I have ever experienced.
Mitigating Factors
Ok, if Tal delivered the greatest ever insult to the Caro-Kann Defense, why is he only #5 on this list? Several reasons.
1) The Tal Variation is not actually that spectacular. It is annoying, to be sure, but objectively not that strong. Tal himself in fact only deployed it rarely. Engine evaluations in the opening are nearly useless, but I will note any way that 4. h4 is Stockfish’s 3rd of 4th choice move and already black is nearly equal. The line has been generally disfavored by GMs and honestly it just seems kind of impulsive and gauche, right?
2) While he routinely massacred the Caro-Kann, a number of those wins are… uh… <sigh> kind of fun and cool. If you’re going to beat me, do it like that I guess. More importantly, he did this stuff to every opening. Tal was simply a wizard, and it demonstrates no weakness of mine that he beat me handily. Any way, its hard to really hate someone whose games have enraptured millions of chess fans. Tal is fun, his games are fun, ugh.
Summary
But he’s still a rogue! The smirk, the games, the annoying line in the Advance - I hate this guy! He is Enemy #5!
Mikhail Tal - I mean, what the hell right?!