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tonlesu 21-Mar-09, 18:18 |
 Chess Trivia---of the hardball varietyMessage: Here are descriptions of some of the well-known chess players of history. For each description, your mission, should you accept it, is to guess which player it refers to. The person who wrote those descriptions is a well-known chess-player and chess-writer himself. So we can at least assume he knows what he's talking about. 1. His aim is always to sieze the initiative. A remarkably deep combination player who can think out and compare long sequences of moves. But also an excellent position player, a good defender and a master of the endgame .... It is no exaggeration to call him the most versatile champion in the history of chess. Only in excessively tedious and dull positions was he vulnerable. 2. He never concerned himself with any particularly deep planning. In the opening all he asked for was a decent position; a shade the better, a shade the worse, this mattered little to him. Only with the arrival of middlegame complications and dangers did his genius truly awaken. 3. His play was sound and his style was primarily positional. In addition he had tactical talent which came into its own especially when the opponent had been outplayed strategically. His weak point lay in his optimism and lack of objectivity. 4. His play exhibits on one hand the combinative richness of Alekhine, with a bias towards adventurousness, and on the other hand the solid positional basis of Smyslov and Petrosyan. Since he is the master of so many attacking weapons he is also well qualified to appraise the attacks of his opponents with great accuracy. 5. He's one of the most accomplished strategists in the history of chess,but in contrast to his collegues, he scores most of his positional victories not by intuition but by precise calculation. He is at home in all sorts of positions. He can conduct an attack well, and has registered many successes by mating attacks after the queens had gone. Equally he's a past master of defense, which he manages in active style. Good luck! Awaiting your guesses ... PS: If you know the book this is taken from, please do not ruin the quiz for everyone else by posting the title. Thanks for participating and good luck! |
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tonlesu 21-Mar-09, 18:22 |
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I think I recognise #2: #1: could be Bobby Fischer or Harry Kasparov, perhaps? #3: Could be Janowski or Bogoljubov. Boris Spassky did come to mind for a moment, but, on reflection, Spassky wasn't "primarily positional" as one tends to understand the expression. #4: Sounds like Kasparov or maybe Fischer. You'll probably tell me it was Spassky, in fact... #5: Petrosian, by the sound of it. Karpov just possibly. Interesting wee quiz. |
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Now that I think about it... If this turns out to be wrong, it does serve to illustrate, I think, just how versatile and subtle a player Lasker was. |
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tonlesu 22-Mar-09, 12:41 |
We are talking about five Grandmasters. Some were world champions and some were not. |
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Guesses 2. Emanuel Lasker 3. No idea, I was going to pick Euwe but then I would have selected 5 world champions. So another wild guess: Chigorin. 4. Spassky 5. I was first thinking Kramnik, but as the extra hint eliminates this, I go for Petrosian |
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tonlesu 22-Mar-09, 15:24 |
#3 has been mentioned (as a possibility) #4 has not been mentioned |
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Updated guesses after the extra hints 2. Emanuel Lasker 3. Mentioned as possibilities were Janowski, Bogoljubov and Spassky. - Spassky does not fit the description. - About Bogoljubov I only know one thing which may be correlated with the last sentence in the description, and that is his statement: "With white I win because I have white, and with black I win because I am Bogoljubov". - Janowski was primary an combination/attacking player I thought, but the bit about some lack of objectivity matches with what I have read... So let's pick Janowski... 4. Keres then - especially for his early games with the first part of the description. The positional bit came later, but still matches the description. 5. Petrosian |
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tonlesu 22-Mar-09, 23:22 |
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Ok, everybody gets a chance to make one set of choices---only one set so choose wisely! This is a most difficult chess trivia quiz and my hat is off to you guys---you're good!!! |
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tonlesu 23-Mar-09, 20:30 |
1. Botvinnik 2. Lasker 3. Bogolubov 4 Keres 5. Petrosian This quiz was first posted in February of 2003 by Zdrak. If you care to go back and see how the guys handled it here is the link---gameknot.com |
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Thanks for the quiz and for the link I've read a lot of Euwe but not that one. But some things sounded familiar, may be from Das Mittelspiel, Euwe/Kramer, Schach Archiv 1956 where the individual style of some 40 great players is discussed. Thanks for posting! |
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tonlesu 23-Mar-09, 23:53 |
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chess-writer 26-Nov-09, 20:08 |
2.Tal 3.Fischer 4. 5.Botvinnik |
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