Mikhail Tal (1936-1992), a Soviet/Latvian chess player, was an interesting man. He was a grandmaster at 21, a world champion at 23 (that record has since been broken by Garry Kasparov who won the title at 22), an attacking player par excellence and much more. Until his passing, Tal remained one of the world’s best players.
He appeared as if from nowhere, and, starting in 1957, reeled off a spectacular series of successes winning five of his six tournaments. Experts say Tal brought back romanticism to chess, with his penchant for sacrificing left, right and centre and without having regard for who or how famous was his opponent.
He overpowered the great Bobby Fischer and others comparable to Fischer on a number of occasions. Tal won the USSR national championship, unquestionably the most rigorous worldwide, and was a gold medal winner as part of the Soviet Chess Olympiad team eight times. The Chess Olympiad is held biennially.