What is your chess style?

[LawrenceCooper]

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?

That comment took me by surprise but I had to look it up to see for sure. I found 576 d4 games, 406 with e4, 126 with c4 and 104 with Nf3.

[Paul Cooksey]

That comment took me by surprise but I had to look it up to see for sure. I found 576 d4 games, 406 with e4, 126 with c4 and 104 with Nf3.

But before the 1984 KK match
435 e4
75 c4
64 d4
26 Nf3

He scored 76.2% with 1.e4. I suppose his thinking might have been "if it isn't broke don't try to fix it" until he got into trouble against Kasparov's Sicilian

[Joey Stewart]

I wonder if he had retained his title against kasparov without knocking years off his lifespan the the first time would he have bothered to significantly change his repatoire - seemed to me like it was working reasonably well until Kasparov turned the match into a war of attrition to the death.

[Nick Ivell]

Of course, I was thinking of the young Karpov.

I still think he would have been better playing d4 from the off. Not that he was bad with e4 - far from it - but the sharp Sicilians were not always to his taste.

[Matt Mackenzie]

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.

Someone (though I have forgotten exactly who) once said that Kasparov's games were "more like brawls than a battle of ideas".

Something very similar to that, anyway.

[NickFaulks]

but the sharp Sicilians were not always to his taste.

In those days it wasn't considered proper to deviate from 2.Nf3 and 3.d4.

[Nick Ivell]

I seem to recall some closed Sicilians from the young Anatoly, but they were boring as hell.

And of course he did have some brilliant success with his opens, as in his slaying of Korchnoi's Dragon.

Nevertheless, my point remains.

[Paul Cooksey]

Of course, I was thinking of the young Karpov.

I still think he would have been better playing d4 from the off. Not that he was bad with e4 - far from it - but the sharp Sicilians were not always to his taste.

I offer Karpov's three SIcilian wins in his match against Polugaevsky - *Polugaevsky* - as my counter argument.
[Event "Candidates qf Karpov-Polugaesky +3-0=5"] [White "Karpov, Anatoly"] [Black "Polugaevsky, Lev"] [Result "1-0"] [SourceTitle "Candidates"] 1. e4 c5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 cxd4 4. Nxd4 Nf6 5. Nc3 a6 6. Be2 e5 7. Nb3 Be7 8. O-O Be6 9. f4 Qc7 10. a4 Nbd7 11. Kh1 O-O 12. Be3 exf4 13. Rxf4 Ne5 14. a5 Nfd7 15. Rf1 Bf6 16. Nd5 Bxd5 17. Qxd5 Qxc2 18. Nd4 Qxb2 19. Rab1 Qc3 20. Nf5 Qc2 21. Rbe1 Nc5 22. Nxd6 Ncd3 23. Bxd3 Nxd3 24. Rd1 Nb4 25. Qxb7 Rab8 26. Qa7 Qc6 27. Bf4 Ra8 28. Qf2 Rad8 29. Qg3 Qc3 30. Rf3 Qc2 31. Rdf1 Bd4 32. Bh6 Nc6 33. Nf5 Qb2 34. Bc1 Qb5 35. Nh6+ Kh8 36. Nxf7+ Rxf7 37. Rxf7 Bf6 38. Qf2 Kg8 39. Rxf6 gxf6 40. Qxf6 1-0 My belief is that Karpov gave up e4 because of Kasparov rather than for stylistic reasons. Playing the alternate history game, if Kramnik and Kasparov's birth dates were swapped, I think we would have seen a different Karpov 85-95.

[Matt Mackenzie]

In at least one of those Polu games AK was close to lost (as he admitted himself afterwards)

[Paul Cooksey]

Do you remember where you saw that Matt?

I did look at the games with SF and at Karpov's notes in his "auto-biography" (which he might have read...) But I didn't see any interesting differences in evaluations

[Roger de Coverly]

We seemed to have wandered off into a discussion of Karpov's style.

I uncovered an amusing sideline whilst looking at Vienna move orders.

Why not 1. e4 e5 2. Nc3 Bc5 I thought. I had it in mind that 3. Qg4 could be played. A Karpov game from 1968 suggested otherwise. Black plays 3. .. Nf6 and then 4. Qxg7 Rg8 5. Qh6 seems to have won a pawn. However Black has 5. .. Bxf2+. It's not a sacrifice as after 6. Kxf2 Ng4+ wins the Queen.

1. e4 e5 2. Nc3 Bc5 3. Qg4 Nf6 4. Qxg7 Rg8 5. Qh6 Bxf2

[Joey Stewart]

I like that tactic, it's so simple when you see it and yet could so easily fool somebody into nicking the pawn - it kind of makes a refreshing change for karpov to get a bit of the limelight, he is one of those world champions that gets somewhat unfairly maligned because he never won the title off fischer (kind of like our current world champion actually) and is almost seen as a placeholder for the crown until kasparov could get his hands on it.

[Matt Mackenzie]

Do you remember where you saw that Matt?

I did look at the games with SF and at Karpov's notes in his "auto-biography" (which he might have read...) But I didn't see any interesting differences in evaluations

Its apparently the 4th match game, haven't checked it on a computer but Polugayevsky's notes in Informator 17 claim he was clearly better by move 26 and could have won had he found 32...Rc5! After missing that Karpov was better just a few moves later, and duly went on to win.

[Paul Cooksey]

Its apparently the 4th match game, haven't checked it on a computer but Polugayevsky's notes in Informator 17 claim he was clearly better by move 26 and could have won had he found 32...Rc5! After missing that Karpov was better just a few moves later, and duly went on to win.

32...Rc5! is certainly an improvement at the point at which things started to go wrong, although SF thinks Polugaevsky is being optimistic.

I mentioned it though because I think even into the 90s theoreticians believed white had a serious chance of getting an edge in the Najdorf with Karpov type plans targeting weak squares. It was a serious theoretical serve at the time without requiring white to go for crazy complications.

I take Roger's point this is a long digression into Karpov. But I thought Nick was making a really interesting point that we had not discussed before. Kortchnoi was my first hero, but I find Karpov fascinating. He is generally a bit neglected in the modern era in my opinion, perhaps because the computer doesn't love his style.

[Clive Wismayer]

I’m a big Karpov fan as I said above. I think his overall score across his matches with Kasparov was only -1. His tournament record was outstanding, with Linares (forget the year) being at the summit. Ranking the WCs I put him level with Kasparov below:

1 Fischer
2 Carlsen