David Bronstein, whose King's Indian Defense games in the 1940s still amaze me. I am in awe of his brilliance.
Evgeny Vasiukov, because his King's Indian Attack games in the 1960's inspire me still.
John Nunn, whose original "Secrets of Grandmaster Play" raised my OTB rating 300 points, and who radically altered my understanding of how GMs play in the process. And for his "Pirc for the Tournament Player", which forced me to learn chess just to understand it.
Leonid Stein, also for his King's Indian Attack games, and his amazingly deep tactical conceptions- so deep, that they practically transcended the tactics/strategy distinction.
Edvins Kengis, who inspired me to learn Alekhine's Defense, and because his game ideas and concepts led to me upsetting better players with it.
Tiger Hillarp Persson, who's book on the Modern convinced me that the swashbuckling chess archetype is alive and well, and still kicking butt and taking names in the 21st century.
Anatoly Karpov, because I met him at the US Amateur East Chess Championship in New Jersey one year, and I learned that World Champions are people, too, and in his case, a very unassuming and nice guy. I was really in awe that he was just a cool guy, smiling and shaking hands with everyone who stopped him, all the time.
Paul
Originally posted by wormwoodYou are of course right, but the two aren't mutually exclusive. Chess players who aren't among the strongest in history are often forgotten about, and are thus not usually considered among favorites.
the question was who's your favourite player, not who was the strongest player ever. big difference.
I personally like Kasparov because of his attacking style and will to win, not just because of the fact that he was world champion for so long.
I have to say, I?m a fan of Carlsen. Something about a teenager breaking 2800 impresses me. Anyone else see the fight between him and Kramnik at the Tal Memorial?
I?ve been a fan of Carlsen´s since his second Corus appearance though. He seems to be the best hope we have of someone dominating the chess world again. He has a positional style, but he almost always looks for active play and he has a tremendous amount of fighting spirit.
David Bronstein - after loosing interest in Chess during my teenage years (girls!) it was digging out and going over his best games book - which is now sadly out of print - that inspired me to take it up again in my early 20’s. I very much regret the gap I took, as I might have been a lot better now.
Morphy, Alekhine and Tony Miles are close seconds.