Chess "Personality" Test - Can you help?

Hi all,

I am working on a project I hope will ultimately offer an entertaining way to get an index of your "chess personality" - in part, by comparing your traits & preferences to those of famous players.

Step 1 is to build up a sense of these great players' personalities (or at least reputations!), relative to significant traits.

So… if you really know your chess history, and you've got 10 mins or so to share your insights about celebrated players, I'd be very grateful! :b)

http://www.kwiksurveys.com/online-survey.php?surveyID=IMIINN_5f3fc91b

Thanks very much! (I'll let you know when the fun part is ready!)

Originally posted by DeepGreene
Hi all,

I am working on a project I hope will ultimately offer an entertaining way to get an index of your "chess personality" - in part, by comparing your traits & preferences to those of famous players.

Step 1 is to build up a sense of these great players' personalities (or at least reputations!), relative to significant traits.

So… if you rea ...[text shortened]... eyID=IMIINN_5f3fc91b

Thanks very much! (I'll let you know when the fun part is ready!)

1. Which characteristic most describes the following players:

Attacking (values dynamic factors like initiative, piece activity, etc)

or

Positional (values static positional factors like material, structure, etc)

If you aren't sure, please don't guess. Thank you!

You can guarantee your survey will be full of GUESSES and therefore meaningless

Originally posted by adramforall
1. Which characteristic most describes the following players:

Attacking (values dynamic factors like initiative, piece activity, etc)

or

Positional (values static positional factors like material, structure, etc)

[b]If you aren't sure, please don't guess. Thank you!

You can guarantee your survey will be full of GUESSES and therefore meaningless[/b]

wait,... did he just move a knight backwords?!?! ... must be Petrosian!!! 😉

Spassky, Fischer, and Anand could just as easily be placed into either category. Carlsen himself was a natural-born attacking player, but he changed his style as he entered the elite. We consider tactical playing attacking, but Petrosian had to be one of the best tacticians around to kill counterplay the way he did.

Hell, you can even find Tal games in books about endgame technique.

I think it is inaccurate to describe the legacies of the greats by classifying them in strictly binary terms.

Originally posted by Thabtos
Spassky, Fischer, and Anand could just as easily be placed into either category. Carlsen himself was a natural-born attacking player, but he changed his style as he entered the elite. We consider tactical playing attacking, but Petrosian had to be one of the best tacticians around to kill counterplay the way he did.

Hell, you can even find Tal games in bo ...[text shortened]... inaccurate to describe the legacies of the greats by classifying them in strictly binary terms.

I think this survey says more about the public perception of the players' styles than it does about their styles.

Ideally, I'd like to see a gradient system where you could rate everyone 1-5 on each attribute, 3 being neutral.

A world class player's style is dictated frequently by tournament conditions and the concrete reality of positions. Take Kramnik's last game vs Leko in their title match as an example.

I also think that Journalism heavily skews public perception, very rare is it that you get a Kramnik finding a personality chink in Kaspy's armor, or Botvinnik sucking Tal into uncomfortable closed games.

Originally posted by nimzo5
A world class player's style is dictated frequently by tournament conditions and the concrete reality of positions. Take Kramnik's last game vs Leko in their title match as an example.

I also think that Journalism heavily skews public perception, very rare is it that you get a Kramnik finding a personality chink in Kaspy's armor, or Botvinnik sucking Tal into uncomfortable closed games.

the original poster should seek out his city's most noted player, duncan suttles.

Originally posted by Thabtos
Spassky, Fischer, and Anand could just as easily be placed into either category. Carlsen himself was a natural-born attacking player, but he changed his style as he entered the elite. We consider tactical playing attacking, but Petrosian had to be one of the best tacticians around to kill counterplay the way he did.

Hell, you can even find Tal games in bo ...[text shortened]... inaccurate to describe the legacies of the greats by classifying them in strictly binary terms.

To follow on your thought, I read one time that Petrosian sacrificed material more times that Tal, primarily because he was very willing to sacrifice a rook for a minor piece if the position called for it.

I think most people would think of Tal first when the word "sacrifice" is mentioned, simply because the style of Sacrifice Tal played was flashy and tactical, while Petrosian's were often very strategic/positional.

If I may ramble a bit, I think the word "sacrifice" is overused, and I very much prefer Spielman's approach to the idea. Every now and then I hear a player remark about sacrificing material to force a mate, and I have to gently ask them to consider that, if the sequence of moves leads to a forced mate, what exactly was sacrificed?