In The Middle Game in Chess, Znosko-Borovsky broke the game down into three elements: space, time and force. In his book New Ideas In Chess, Larry Evans repeated the same thing except he added Pawn structure.
Emanuel Lasker's Law, which was based on Steinitz' tenets, said that no combinations are possible without a considerable advantage.
All of that is true...sometimes. In his writings Purdy aptly pointed out that it is possible to have an advantage in all those elements and still lose the game. Why? Because sometimes even if a player has an advantage he can still fall victim to a tactic because of some anomaly in the position. Therefore you should always look for tactics first.
In the following game by move 24 Tal had a promising position, but rather than sit back and wait and see, Petrosian uncovered a tactical solution; he sacrificed the exchange to gain counterplay and Tal's position slowly deteriorated.
The game, a very complicated one, has been annotated by the players, Kasparov and Jeremy Silman used a fragment of the game in his book How To Reassess Your Chess for illustrative purposes.
All of these great players produced their analysis before today's powerful engines which, while they may make concrete evaluations, they do not take human frailties into consideration. Anyway, it's precisely those human frailties that make the comments of those esteemed players valuable to those of us who are not esteemed.
In annotating this game I relied heavily on notes by the above mentioned players, but since the days when they annotated the game, Stockfish and Komodo have changed some evaluations. As Kasparov noted concerning Petrosian's 60th move "higher computer geometry" has changed things.
In several positions the results were quite clear to the engines, but not to me (no surprise there). In those cases I ran Shootouts to clarify things. For those unfamiliar with Shootouts, they are simply games the engine plays against itself from a give position. You can specify either a time limit or a ply depth.
Mikhail Tal–Tigran Petrosian½–½C97USSR Championship, Riga1958Stockfish 15
Ruy Lopez 1.e4 e5 2.f3 c6 3.b5 a6 4.a4 f6 5.0-0 e7 6.e1 b5 7.b3 0-0 8.c3 d6 9.h3 a5 10.c2 c5 11.d4 c7 12.bd2 d7 13.f1 c4 14.e3 The often played 14.b3 is a harmless alternative. xe3 15.xe3 e6
A better alternative is probably 15...h6 16.d2 16.g5 was an alternative,
but essentially it drives the B to a more aggressive position. c8 Intending
to transfer the B to th long diagonal. 17.f4 exd4 18.cxd4 h6 19.f3 b7 20.d5 etc. 16...fe8 17.f4 ad8 18.fxe5 dxe5 18...cxd4 is more accurate. 19.cxd4 19.exf6 dxe3 20.fxe7 exd2 21.xd2 xe7 is no more than equal. 19...dxe5 20.d5 c8 21.c1 d7 22.b3 white is slightly better. 19.d5 d7 20.c4 b8 21.a4 b4 22.a5 f8 23.a4 xa4 24.xa4 Tal has built up a
considerable positional advantage. 1) he has a protected passed P on d5 which
could play a decisive role in the ending, 2) he has an advantage in space, 3)
he has pressure against black's c-Pawn and 4) good prospects of a K-side
attack. bd8 25.f3 d6 Placing the R on the 6th rank is the beginning of a
brilliant plan. A passive wait and see move would have been 25...Nd8 giving
white a free hand. 26.b3 Putting pressure on the c-Pawn. Kasparov makes an
instructive observation here in pointing out that up to here individual moves
did not play a decisive role and mainly they were merely aimed at implementing
the plan in general form. But now concrete calculation is required. And, as
Kasparov pointed out, there is coming a sudden change in events that unsettled
Tal and put him on the defensive, a situation he did not like to be in. d7 27.aa1 Obviously the R has no future on a4 so has to return. g6 28.f1 d6 Black has managed to place his R in a good position and Tal now attempts
to drive it away by advancing his h-Pawn. As a result he weakens his K's
position, but with correct play that should not be a factor. 29.h4 29.e2 e7 30.d2 d6 31.f5 maintains an aggressive position without any danger. 29...d8 30.h5 Driving the R where it wants to go, but this is still the
best move. f6 31.g4 White would now like to exchange the R after which
Tal correctly wrote that he considered his position to be won. Stockfish would
agree, assigning white a two P advantage while Fritz 17 is less generous,
giving white a one P advantage. Tal has prepared an attack on the K-side while,
at the same time, black is lacking any play and s defending a weak c-Pawn. f4 A brilliant move! Petrosian sacrifices the exchange and for a small material
investment he gets active piece play. The cold-blooded Stockfish still puts
white's advantage at two Ps, but it does not take into account human emotions.
31...h6 is, according to Stockfish, a better defense, but only by about a
quarter of a P which is meaningless to humans. 32.xf4 According to
Kasparov this move leads to the activation of both the bad B at d6 (it now
eyes the h2-square) and the N at d7 which lands on an excellent outpost on e5.
Additionally, the white's Ps on c4 and e4 are weak. And, if that isn't enough,
it transpires that the h-Pawn has advanced too far and that the white K is a
potential target. In short, a complete change of scene. Again, that's from the
human perspective, but Stockfish is still giving white a two P advantage. No
matter...humans are playing the game and Kasparov believed that if Tal had
realized what the winning of the exchange woud lead to he would have been
satisfied with the win of a P instead. 32.xf4 exf4 33.xf4 The
material-grubbing engine does not like this quite as well as winning the
exchange, evaluating the position at about a quarter of a P less. 32...exf4 33.d2 e5 White must now play accurately and this change in the situation
has a psychological effect. Kasparov observed that up to here individual moves
did not play a decisive role and mainly they were merely aimed at implementing
the plan in a general form. But, now concrete calculation is required and thus
sharp turn of events unsettled Tal. Also, now Tal finds himself defending
which was a situation he did not like being in. By the way, the nit-picking
engine likes 33...Be5 a little better. 34.xf4 Kasparov called this a
mistake, but engines disagree and prefer Tal's move. xc4 35.e5 Excellent!
As always, the aggressive Tal plays a P sacrifice to open a file for his R and
give his N an outpost on e4. xe5 Retaining a strongly posted N in the
center. 36.e4 h6 37.ae1 This is where Tall really goes wrong and as a
result black now gets an equal position. 37.xd6 eliminates the dangerous
B, but after xd6 38.b3 xd5 39.ad1 e6 black is in no way worse off. 37.b3 was essential. After h8 38.ad1 c7 39.fe1 c4 40.f3 xa5 41.xd6 xd6 42.e4 b7 43.e3 And white is better. It's a tough row to hoe,
but in Shootouts white managed to score +4 -0 =1 with the passed d-Pawn, as
mentioned in the note to move 24, playing an important role. 37...b8
Keeping his important B. Note the threat of a fork at d3 38.d1 38.xc5 xd5 39.xa6 d3!-+ 40.g4 xe1 41.xe1 a7+ and black wins. 38...c4 This activates his Q-side P-majority and threatens ...Ba7+ and ...
Bd3 with a mating attack. Technically, the position is equal, but practically
black is better and white's K is in danger. 39.d6 d3 Both
players were in time pressure. 40.g4 This last move before the time
control turns out to be a bad one. 40.e3 d7 41.xd3 Returning the
exchange is the safest course. cxd3 42.xd3 a7+ 43.h2 g4 44.g3 xh5+ 45.g2 xa5 46.d7 b6 47.d6 c5 48.c8 White's d-Pawn keeps black tied up
and so compensates for his two Ps minus. d8 49.e1 g6 50.d6 50.e8
is a blunder c6+ 51.e4 f6 52.h2 d8 53.d4 b3 53...xd4 54.e7+ 54.d5 c2+ 55.xc2 bxc2 56.c5 xd7 57.xc2 b7 black wins. 50...c2+ 51.f1 c4+ 52.f2 c7 53.d5 g4 54.e8 xg3+ 55.e2 g4+ draws thanks to
white's exposed K. 40...a7+ The B comes to life on the diagonal. 40...xb2 This hasty move loses after 41.d5 c3 41...b3 42.g3 c3 43.f5 g5 44.e7+ h8 45.g6+ 42.f6+ h8 43.xb4 41.h1 41.h2 is met by f5 42.h3 xa5 42...fxe4 43.e6+ h8 44.xf8+ xf8 45.d7 f4+ 46.g3 f2+ 47.h3 f4+ 48.gxf4 f3+ draws 43.d7 e5+ 44.g3 f4 and black is
winning. 41...f5 Petrosian keeps the attack going. As before ...Nxb2 would
end up losing the game. 42.f6+ h8 43.xc4 xb2 44.xa6 Take the N or
the R? xd1 This is the correct decision. 44...xf6 45.xa7 xd1 46.xd1 g5 and the position is equal. White can't make progress because of his
exposed K. 44...xf6 would lose: 45.c1 h7 46.xa7 xd6 47.f2 d2 48.xf5+ h8 49.c8 wins 45.xa7 xd6 In My Great Predecessors Kasparov
assigned this move a ? and gave 45...Nc3 a ! He also gave a lot of analysis
that appears to have be engine generated (the book was published in 2004).
Stockfish 15 takes the exact opposite view and gives 45... Qd6 the !
(evaluation 5.75) and 45...Nc3 a ? (evaluation -0.32). 45...c3 46.e7 gxf6 47.xf5 xe7 48.dxe7 e8 49.xf6 xe7 This position is extremely
complicated! In Shooutout analysis black scored 3 wns at 10, 11 and 13 plies,
but draws at 15 and 17 plies. 46.d7 Kasparov called this a
very strong reply that enabled Tal to draw, but he added that (at the time of
publication) nobody had seriously analyzed this part of the game. These days
using Stockfish, his analysis appears flawed because after the text black's
advantage is over 6.5 Ps. xf6 46...d8 47.xd6 xd6 48.a6 gxf6 49.a7 d8 50.xf5 a8 51.xf6 xa7 52.b6 f2+ 53.g1 g4 54.f1 54.xb4 a1+ 55.b1 xb1# 54...f7+ 55.e2 f4 In Shootouts using modern endgame
tablebases black scored 5 wins. 47.xd1 b8 47...a6 Much better
(Stockfish); bad (Kasparov). 48.a1 f4 49.f3 f5 black is winning. 48.f3 48.d3 Kasparov was correct in claiming this move is much better. b3 49.a6 This position is a draw as demonstrated in Shootouts. 48...a8
With this move black loses his advantage. 48...b5 49.e1 f7 50.a6 h7 51.f1 a5 52.h3 f6 53.b3 xa6 54.xb4 a1 55.b1 It was a herculean
task, but in Shootouts black scored 5 wins. 49.e1 xa5 50.xb4 e5 51.f4 h7 52.h2 d5 53.f1 g5 54.f3 e5 55.g1 c5 56.f2 e5 57.f3 a5 58.h2 h8 59.g1 a2 60.d5 Then position was dead even, but this is a very
serious lapse because it leaves e3 undefended. Both 60.Kh2 an 60.Rf2 hold the
draw. c2 Missing his chance. Kasparov commented that when this game was
played the winning move was discovered by the Junior and Fritz engines, adding
that this knowledge required "higher computer geometry which was then unknown."
60...e3+ 61.h2 a4 62.f3 h4+ 63.h3 xh3+ 64.gxh3 e2+ 65.g1 xh5 with a won ending. 61.a8+ h7 62.f3 c1 63.xc1 xc1+ 64.h2 c7+ 65.h3 e5 66.g4 fxg4+ 67.xg4 g5+ 68.h3 f6 69.e4+ g8 70.e8+ f8 71.xf8+ xf8 72.g4 f7 73.f5 Draw agreed. ½–½
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