What is your chess style?

[Clive Wismayer]

I’ll start

I am the world’s most boring player by far. The perfect game for me is +/= throughout winning with some tiny nuance in the ending. I hate tactics. Thus my least loved players are the likes of Speelman & Kasparov, whereas I love Karpov & Carlsen the magician. My opening repertoire is a masterpiece of simplicity. Anything complicated is out (which means I really must ditch the Chigorin somehow). I play only anti-Sicilians (Larsen thought amateurs playing the Open were mad). The Fort Knox dodges a ton of theory & is ideal for the lazy player. Despite all that, I’m not fond of draws & never sit down thinking to equalise & proffer my hand after 20 moves.

I was unlucky in having Fischer as my inspiration as he led me down a bad path. Sozin, King’s Indian etc. It took years to discover my style & drift away from him. Still the greatest nevertheless (thought I’d chuck that in ).

Over to you.

[Nick Ivell]

Fischer was my hero too, but it's not right to think of him as a tactician pure and simple. In fact, if he had a weakness, it was in 'irrational' positions; one thinks of some of his losses to Geller, especially the one in 60 MG.

[Clive Wismayer]

Fischer was my hero too, but it's not right to think of him as a tactician pure and simple. In fact, if he had a weakness, it was in 'irrational' positions; one thinks of some of his losses to Geller, especially the one in 60 MG.

I quite agree. He played many beautiful positional games & wonderful endings. I was thinking more of his opening repertoire which I slavishly adopted. Things like the Najdorf which, for me, is insanely unsuitable.

[Nick Ivell]

Digressing slightly, but talking of the opening, there is something I have never understood.

Why, oh why, was Karpov an e4 player until the end of his reign?

Surely, a more natural d4 player never existed?

[Clive Wismayer]

Joining in you the digression, good question. I don’t know the answer. I do recall he said he looked for an advantage in the 1st 4 or 5 moves as white.
I regard Karpov as no less a player than Kasparov but vastly prefer his games.

Come on folks, am I the only one with style (sorry, I mean a style)?

[Nick Ivell]

I started off like Fischer, then became more like Karpov. Only, not quite so good!

Partly this was getting older, partly the natural tendency to take the world champion as a model.

[Joey Stewart]

I used to try and only play positional games, aiming for endgame wins, but i found it gave me a serious lack of improvement past a certain level where l either conceded draws when my opponent had a similarly unambitious style or would have games ruined by idiot hackers who would rather be two pawns and an exchange down and the position be an utter chaotic mess then play anything remotely sensible in case their lack of technique was ever tested.

Even if you do want to play like Magnus it is important to realise that positional grandmasters see and understand tactics really well in order to keep the games so well under control (plus they will be no stranger to brilliancies of their own) so even if you are a more naturally peaceful player it's essential to train tactics in order to secure the wins when they present themselves and more importantly to defend yourself from incoming attacks.

[Clive Wismayer]

Joey

I know this to my cost. The complications in Karpov’s games are there alright - but in the notes where one finds the refutations of all the plausible breakout moves his opponents might have tried. I know Carlsen & all the strong players are tactical geniuses. What interests me about we lesser lights is how much we tend to veer to one part of the spectrum more pronouncedly. Our lack of universality is itself productive of wondrous things. This is why I asked about style here (assuming most contributors will be at or around club level).

[Clive Wismayer]

There was a game Korchnoi - Kasparov from an Olympiad. A modern Benoni I think. Kasparov analysed it in Informator. The analysis ran for pages & pages. The entire game & the notes were completely incomprehensible (to me). A screed of analysis each line ending ‘unclear’. Chess like that I hate.

[Matt Mackenzie]

Hubner's annotations in 1980s Informators were the "best" - ran to 5 or 6 columns on occasion.

[Nick Ivell]

Did anyone actually read those Hubner annotations? I know I just skipped over them - to my shame possibly.

[Paul Cooksey]

Why, oh why, was Karpov an e4 player until the end of his reign? Surely, a more natural d4 player never existed?

Laziness?

I have a chessbase dvd on Karpov, part of a series they did on famous players. GM Huschenbeth (born 1992) had some interesting thoughts on Karpov's openings. But I think he missed that all the evolution was from match preparation, which I guess was more obvious at the time.

[Nick Ivell]

Perhaps it was to do with his coaches? I'm guessing Furman was an e4 player.

[Joey Stewart]

I have been trying to learn 1.d4 lately and although it's solid and positional in the main openings the irritating gambits black can play against it feel far more annoying then the ones you face against 1.e4 - maybe that was karpovs line of thinking too, easier to batter down unsound gambits like the elephant or latvian then getting stuck in a long grinding defence against a benko

[Roger de Coverly]

I have been trying to learn 1.d4 lately and although it's solid and positional in the main openings the irritating gambits black can play against it feel far more annoying then the ones you face against 1.e4 -

Talking of irritating gambits against 1. d4 there's the line that runs 1. d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 Bg7 4. e4 d6 5. f3 0-0 6. Be3 c5 which seems to put the c5 pawn en prise. Indeed up to the 1970s or later, it was thought that Black had to prepare .. c5 with .. b6. In 1975 in the Vidmar memorial, Karpov faced this and took the pawn. The opponent Barle didn't find the more modern ideas on how to try and make it work for Black.

So Karpov didn't always play 1. e4.