Quotation Time: Six Kinds of Chess Players - A Follow-Up
Friday, April 22, 2011 at 10:55PM About a week ago I presented the following quotation and asked who said it:
I divide chess players into six categories. The first ones are the killers. Players who, figuratively speaking, are trying to kill their opponent. The second type is that of the fighters. They try to win with all means, but it's not necessary to kill. The third type are the sportsmen. For them chess is a sport like any other kind of sport. Number four are the 'players' or gamblers. Karpov, for instance, is a typical player. He wants to play any game. These four all have very strong motivation. Then we have two more, number five the artists, for whom not only the result is important, and number six the explorers.
The answer, as noted in the comments section to that post, is that it's from Yuri Averbakh, from a May 1997 interview with Dirk Jan ten Geuzendam in New In Chess (reprinted in The Day Kasparov Quit, on page 131). I had not only promised to reveal the author, though, but also who he put into what category. So now, here's the rest of the story:
I am category six...
[In category one there's] Botvinnik, Fischer, Kortchnoi. Of course, not everyone fits just in one category. For instance, Tal had something of both the fighter and the artist. Karpov and Kasparov also have some killer characteristics, but not as strongly as Botvinnik. As a rule, the main definition of a killer is a man who was raised without a father. Sportsmen we have a lot. Spassky, Keres, Capablanca. They are normal people, but when they play it is for them just like any other sport.
Bronstein is a fighter He tries to pose as an artist. Maybe he has something of the artist but his main strength is that of the fighter.
I believe that Simagin was a real artist. Nicolas Rossolimo was an artist. Maybe Yanofsky was half artist and half gambler. And Zukertort fitted in this category.
...not only I [, but] Nimzovich was an investigator, Rubinstein, Fine.
So there you have it.
Reader Comments (6)
Of course the obvious question is which category would you place yourself, Dennis?
[DM: Primarily a fighter, but with some of the artist as well. But perhaps it's better if someone who knows me well makes the evaluation instead?]
Yanofsky? I think not. More likely Janowski, a well known gambler.
[DM: I thought about that and you might be right. But why not Yanofsky? Averbakh would have known him personally, and he mentioned other relatively unknown figures from that period, like Simagin. Also, the stories about Janowski being some sort of degenerate gambler may be myths.]
I think Alekhine fits squarely in the 'Killer' category, but he was also definitely an artist. I only mention it because Alekhine has to be one of the best examples of 'Killer' ever, although I personally never cared for his style. In a way, Alekhine inhabits most of these categories, to a certain extent, not so surprising for someone so consumed with the game.
[DM: As I understand Averbakh, he's not referring to style, so Alekhine's love of complications and attack doesn't mean he's a "killer" in Averbakh's classification scheme.]
Yanofsky? I think not. More likely Janowski, a well known gambler.
[DM: I thought about that and you might be right. But why not Yanofsky? Averbakh would have known him personally, and he mentioned other relatively unknown figures from that period, like Simagin. Also, the stories about Janowski being some sort of degenerate gambler may be myths.]
PA: Canada's Abe Yanofsky a gambler? Hmm, I can find no mention of this in my sources, in contrast to several references to David Janowski's gambling. BTW Simagin, a GM and champion of Moscow in 1959, was well known in his heyday (say 1945-65), in Soviet circles at least, and renowned for his creativity. He published a best games collection in 1963 in the USSR (translated into Spanish 1965). Another book of his life and games by Voronkov appeared in the Russian "black series" in 1981.
[DM: Remember, he's speaking about them as players, not talking about their habits. (Fortunately, or else the police would have had to arrest Botvinnik as Averbakh's paradigm "killer".) I'm not saying you're wrong - it's certainly possible that they mistransliterated "Janowski" - but I'm not positive. At least I'm not positive that someone's being a gambler in the colloquial sense means he's a gambler in the more specific sense Averbakh intends.]
Re Janowski, I can understand your caution, but how about this from the Oxford Companion:
" Outside chess Janowski loved to gamble, and his games showed a similar tendency; he played intuitively, always to win, and usually created interesting positions, not always to hs advantage; and although he played in many brilliancy prize games he achieved the unusual distinction of losing as many as he won." (pp.155-6)
In contrast, Abe Yanofsky was a steady positional player who "excelled in the endgame". (p.382)
Interesting interview with Averbakh BTW - thanks for drawing attention to it!
[DM: What about Karpov? He doesn't "play the tables" and doesn't play swashbuckling chess, but Averbakh puts him in the player/gambler category. The Janowski hypothesis is reasonable, but the category seems murky enough that I'm not positive. Other unclear evidence: the two never played, but they were very close in age and might have met at Olympiads or in their roles as International Arbiters.]
The ones who break new ground in theory. Are they the explorers? Like Steinitz when he turned chess theory on it's head with positional strategy. They probably had Lasker down for a gambler when he played 'horrible moves'. But we now know he didn't subscribe to conventional wisdom such as it was at the time. And he liked to play the man rather than the pieces at times with his complications. Were Nimzowich and Reti gamblers or explorers? Maybe they were all artists from time to time. Nice blog.