Backstory: It's Wednesday morning, August 26th. The time: 02:31. After a long day and a great nap, I'd woken up; I'd done some class stuff, written some math proofs and enjoyed a (late) dinner, but with nothing else to do, I had two options: I could either sit awake, twidling my thumbs, or I could manufacture something interesting to carry me over. Deciding upon the latter, I sat down in front of my computer, double clicked the Chessmaster: Grandmaster Edition icon and went into the Josh Waitzkin virtual academy.

For those who don't know: The Josh Waitzkin academy is a series of lessons narrated by IM Josh Waitzkin, who most of you'll probably know as that kid from Searching for Bobby Fischer. His instruction is phenomenal, not just from a tactical standpoint but from a personal standpoint as well. He explains the mindset behind all his moves, as well as the tactical foundations for the moves themselves. I attribute the majority of my astounding improvement to the lessons he provides.

So in the lesson I studied last night, Josh was talking about allowing chess to be an extension of your personality. His example was that he, an excitement-oriented person, loved chaotic board positions and exciting attack possibilities because he felt at home there, while a reserved or introverted person may be more comfortable playing solid, closed (and yes, perhaps even boring) games. He also mentioned having a teacher once who ignored his (Josh's) style and instead imposed the mantra What would Karpov do? in attempts of ridding him of his love for chaotic systems in hopes he'd play more solid Karpovian chess.

To illustrate his point that different players thrive under different conditions, Waitzkin narrated through a couple games of the great World Champion Mikhail Tal. Now I'll be honest: I'd only read little tidbits about the tactical genius that was Tal's play, so I really didn't know how incredible this guy was. After being completely flummoxed by the Tal chess of the Gurgenidze - Tal matchup (see it here), Waitzkin introduced Tal - Koblentz. And wow - that's all I can say.

I'm pretty sure this has to be one of the classic games of all-time. I was so taken aback that I've stretched my memory and have annotated it based on the ideas mentioned by Waitzkin.

So of course, I was curious: How often does a position like this present itself realistically, I asked myself. And thanks to chess.com's game explorer, I found one position that ended up being nearly identical to this one for the first dozen-or-so moves. I annotated this one quickly and on my own, so don't expect anything mind-boggling or original here.