Quotation Time: Six Kinds of Chess Players - A Follow-Up
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.