What made Mikhail Tal so exceptional?

I've spent some time now looking through the games of Grand Masters, trying to understand their calculations and move choices. However one stands out above the others to me, Mikhail Tal seems to make tremendous sacrifices; but his strength seems to be 'breaking the book'.

Is this the case? Obviously he is an exceptional chess player. But is his strength the ability to identify book positions and throw a sacrifice to bring the game into calculations, before outplaying his opponent?

Or is there something completely different at work here.

He was a very gifted player, unfortunately with poor health. He was one of the first to realise that sacrifices did not have to be correct.

@tpr could you explain what it means to 'sacrifice that is not correct'? I'm not sure I understand this concept. Perhaps I should ask 'What is a correct sacrifice, and what is an incorrect sacrifice.'

The sacs were simply not correct, objectively they were "blunders". But they worked well against the best in the world. Here he should have taken the draw "objectively"...



And you'll find many of them!

What makes Tal unique is his ability to put a ton of pressure on opponents by ruthlessly attacking (not haphazardly, but when the time was right). In the second meeting of Botvinnik vs Tal, World Championship, Tal wasn't in good health but Botvinnik also came to understand his opponent... don't get fancy, don't get crazy, just play solid and try to outlast the Magician from Riga... and it worked.

While I think Kasparov is the best player ever (all due respect to Fischer, but I'll take the K-Man) I would rather watch a Tal game than any other. ;}

Here is the famous 6th game from the first Botvinnik-Tal match for the world championship
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1032537
Nobody except Tal would have sacrificed ...Nf4.

that is an awsome game..really inspiring..the only one i know with tal.

I find his games fascinating. While others give value to the pieces; one pawn down at this level is one pawns advantage. He seems to have some kind of metric of piece value versus position.

Does anyone have any games where a sacrifice went badly for him?

@Sarg0n when you say objectively it was a blunder; is this by the standard metric of offering up a piece value much higher than the return? I just find it astonishing that he managed to confuse so many high level players with such obscure moves.

Here is an example from the same match, where the speculative piece sacrifice backfires.
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1032520

@tpr interesting thank you. It seems like he is a very all or nothing player. Once he decides he's going to open the position he throws everything at it.