Ametanoitos wrote on 10/17/12 at 08:01:42:
First of all (something that i have never stated before and i feel that i should do): Brabo, congratulations for your truly excellent blog. I know lots of people who would really like to see it in English (Google Translation sucks!).
I published in less than 9 months around 70 often lengthly articles (I realise that I won't be able to keep up this speed.) Translating all this to English will be a painstaking job while I am not sure if there is really interest in it as often the topics are starting from local scenes to discuss more general aspects.
Quote:I am not sure if we disagree.
It is very difficult to express in a few lines a good balanced view of a certain topic. This is also the reason why often my blogarticles are lenghty and even then I often receive wrong interpretations of readers.
Quote:What i said and probably passed unnoticed, is that Carlsen (according to his coach's book "Wonderkid") was raised by studying EVERYTHING! Really, there was not a single book (and opening book ones) that Carlsen didn't read and practicaly memorised (in this book there are many anecdotical stories about Carlsen's memory). So, Carlsen HAS a huge opening knowledge.
I fully agree with this. It is well known that it is very difficult/ impossible to become a master without a solid base. I remember an exception on this rule : the Peruvian GM Julio Grand Zuniga. The story says that he just came out of his apple tree orchard and became GM. Only after becoming GM, he started to study openings but nobody can of course fully confirm this story.
Quote:Maybe not in the sense of knowing the most recent novelties like Aronian and Kramnik for example, but a wide general opening knowledge. This fact doesn't contradict your opinion about his approach to chess, but it puts it in a different level. Carlsen doesn't play like this because he doesn't know theory or because he is bored to work on openings (althought this may be true!), but because he can has a broad knowledge of opening and stored patterns and has chosen to avoid sharp theoretical lines.
For me this clever selection of lines, using his broad knowledge of opening and stored patterns is the new element in chess. It is still not (fully) understood today how Carlsen does it and how his system works against all this super prepared heavy theory. I tried to give a very superficial view of this system in my above mentioned articles but I certainly don't claim that I understood it fully.
Quote:But Karpov did the same, didn't he? He didn't really seecked opening advantage but rather a "Karpovian"-like position he would outplay his opponents from it. So, Carlsen's approach isn't new. Yes, it is true that today's Carlsen is probably somewhat stronger than the prime years of Karpov (although someone would like to see more evidence to be convinced and make such comparisons), so your argument "nobody managed to achieve his level before with the way he approaches chess" is correct in my opinion, but what i said is that this is not a new approach to chess.
There are certainly some resemblances between Karpov and Carlsen but there are also big differences.
1) Karpov played during quite long periods of time with a fixed frame of openings. I see Carlsen change very frequently of openings in very short periods of time.
2) Karpov had to face weaker opponents and weaker advanced theory which required less sophisticated approaches.
3) Karpov also studied often very deeply openings, also coming up with its own strong novelties as was clearly shown in part 2 and 3 of Modern Chess by Kasparov. Afterall Karpov was still a child of Botvinniks school and indoctrinated that one has to work hard on openings.
Quote:Before Karpov, Capa had the same attitude. You can state a lot of differences between those 3 players (Capa, Tolya and Magnus), but the aproach was the same.
Capa is even going further back in time. An approach can only work if you successfully adapt yourself to the circumstances, the opponents. Today we are playing a completely different game of which only the basic rules have stayed the same. Calrsen can't be the number one if he would use the same approach as his ancestors. You see the same in real life. An approach can work for some time but then things (in the beginning not noticeable) start to change and suddenly you are not leading anymore.
Quote:I am not saying this because "i am an author of opening books and i want my books to sell", but as a conclusion, i don't want a new chessplayer to understand this wrongly such as this: "Magnus doesn't put emphasis on openings in his play, so i'll too not study openings" because this is not what happened with Magnus! Magnus, on the contrary, had just the healthy aproach. Study openings (and quite deeply) but only as a fraction of the study you should do as a chessplayer.
Today books like yours at least bring the impression that knowing the latest status of the theory gives you a guaranteed advantage on the board. I am also a follower of this system (I call this the powerplay system). However nowadays I see a very quiet shift to something new. There is no real name for it although I once heard from Anand something like the 'hit and run' system. I've not seen any books explaining this new system yet although i see more and more strong players using something similar. I believe this is still virgin territory for the general public.