Editing Mikhail Tal (section)

==Later achievements==
[[File:Hoogovenschaaktoernooi, de Rus M. Tal, Bestanddeelnr 920-9788.jpg|alt=|thumb|Tal in 1968]]
Soon after losing the rematch with Botvinnik, Tal won the 1961 [[Bled]] supertournament in [[Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia|SFR Yugoslavia]], by one point over Fischer, despite losing their individual game, scoring 14½ from nineteen games (+11−1=7) with the world-class players Petrosian, Keres, Gligorić, [[Efim Geller]], and [[Miguel Najdorf]] among the other participants.

Tal played in a total of six Candidates' Tournaments and match cycles, though he never again earned the right to play for the world title. In 1962 at [[Curaçao]], [[Netherlands Antilles]], he had serious health problems, having undergone a major operation shortly before the tournament, and had to withdraw three-quarters of the way through, scoring just seven points (+3−10=8) from 21 games. He tied for first place at the 1964 [[Amsterdam]] Interzonal to advance to matches. Then in 1965, he lost the final match against [[Boris Spassky]], after defeating [[Lajos Portisch]] and [[Bent Larsen]] in matches. Exempt from the 1967 Interzonal in [[Sousse]], Tunisia, he defeated Gligorić 5½-3½ in Belgrade in 1968, but then lost the semi-final match against [[Viktor Korchnoi]] in Moscow.

Poor health caused a slump in his play from late 1968 to late 1969, but he recovered his form after having a [[nephrectomy|kidney removed]]. He won the 1979 Riga Interzonal with an undefeated score of 14/17, but the next year lost a quarter-final match to Lev Polugaevsky, one of the players to hold a positive score against him. He also played in the 1985 [[Montpellier]] ([[France]]) Candidates' Tournament, a [[Round-robin tournament|round-robin]] of 16 qualifiers, finishing in a tie for fourth and fifth places, and narrowly missing further advancement after drawing a playoff match with [[Jan Timman]], who held the tiebreak advantage from the tournament proper.

From July 1972 to April 1973, Tal played a record 86 consecutive games without a loss (47 wins and 39 draws). Between 23 October 1973 and 16 October 1974, he played 95 consecutive games without a loss (46 wins and 49 draws), shattering his previous record. These were the two longest unbeaten streaks in competitive chess for more than four decades,<ref name="Chess Lists Second Edition 2002, pp. 43–44"/> until [[Ding Liren]] broke the record in 2018 with 100 games, although with far fewer wins than either of Tal's streaks (29 wins, 71 draws).

Tal remained a formidable opponent as he got older. He played [[Anatoly Karpov]] 22 times, 12 of them during the latter's reign as World Champion, with a record of +0−1=19 in classical games and +1−2=19 overall.

One of Tal's greatest achievements during his later career was an equal first place with Karpov (whom he seconded in a number of tournaments and world championships) in the 1979 [[Montreal]] ([[Canada]]) "Tournament of Stars", with an unbeaten score of (+6−0=12), the only undefeated player in the field, which also included Spassky, Portisch, [[Vlastimil Hort]], [[Robert Hübner]], [[Ljubomir Ljubojević]], [[Lubomir Kavalek]], Jan Timman and Larsen.

Tal played in 21 [[USSR Chess Championship|Soviet Championships]],{{efn|Including the 1983 final when Tal had to withdraw after five games}} winning it six times (1957, 1958, [[1967 USSR Chess Championship|1967]], [[1972 USSR Chess Championship|1972]], [[1974 USSR Chess Championship|1974]], [[1978 USSR Chess Championship|1978]]). He was also a five-time winner of the International Chess Tournament in [[Tallinn]], [[Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic|Estonian SSR]], with victories in 1971, 1973, 1977, 1981, and 1983.

Tal also had successes in [[blitz chess]]; in 1970, he took second place to Fischer, who scored 19/22, in a blitz tournament at [[Herceg Novi]], SFR Yugoslavia, ahead of Korchnoi, Petrosian and Smyslov. In 1988, at the age of 51, he won the second official [[World Blitz Chess Championship|World Blitz Championship]] (the first was won by Kasparov the previous year in [[Brussels]], [[Belgium]]) at [[Saint John, New Brunswick|Saint John]], Canada, ahead of such players as Kasparov, the reigning world champion, and ex-champion Anatoly Karpov. In the final, he defeated [[Rafael Vaganian]] by 3½–½.

On 28 May 1992, at the Moscow blitz tournament (which he left the hospital to play), he defeated Kasparov. He died one month later.