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Who is the greatest attacker in chess history?

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SmyslovFan

And here is Schlechter again demolishing a top-class player. This time, he's black against the famous attacking master, Rudolf Spielmann in under 20 moves!



atarw

Houdini: Look at this amazing game between it and Rybka:

No human could ever do what Houdini did in this game. And here it is Houdini 1.5, imagine Houdini 3...



GreedyPawnGrabber

David Bronstein

waffllemaster
SmyslovFan wrote:

Carl Schlechter was the greatest attacking player of all time!

Hah, nice games.  I'm afraid the irony will be lost on some though.

SmyslovFan

Well, how about Petr Leko!

Take a look at how he demolished a computer:



TetsuoShima
waffllemaster wrote:
TetsuoShima wrote:

but they arent facts just because you say so. He was famous for his opening novelties and his imagination. Ofc he was a good endgame player and played really good endgames... 

And ofc if he were not an attacking player he wouldnt have played the sharp lines against the sicilian and the most attacking sicilian the najdorf as black. And what  logic is it to not take a pawn because you are an attacking player??? i mean you see a move that you think is good and you dont play it because you are an attacking player?

Exactly!  And in truth, I haven't played over enough Fischer games (and I'm not good enough at chess anyway!) to form a solid opinion about Fischer strengths, style, weaknesses, etc.  I'm just repeating the commentary I've heard on Fischer back to you.  So please, don't take my word for it, go ask stronger players or look up articles/read a book about Fischer for yourself.

Again... exactly!   It's definitely a well respected option in that opening to not take the pawn.  It's also an option to take the pawn.  These are the situations that define a player's style... when there is a fork in the road which do they choose?  To take the pawn means handing white an attack and yes it's a crazy complicated position that's way over my head, but I do know black must be able to defend and it's white who gets to attack.  Attacking players like to have the initiative, they aren't going to grab pawns and defend, they'll sacrifice and attack.

You know and now whne i think about it you see again how versatile he is he played with and without initiative. Because he was such an imaginative player. What a mean Joke when Karpov said i have no style i play bad jokes. Yeah the world can be really cruel but Fischer will always be the bad guy.

Ofc you also made a good point, i definetly didnt go over enough Fischer games, even so believe me i watched many. But im pretty sure im correct, you know its not only myself, many people had the same opinion. Most GMs at the time, i think only Geller and Korchnoi disagreed what a awesome player Fischer was. Even Spasski himself said he isnt sure who will win and he even  had a positiv record against him.

TetsuoShima

Most Gms only play without initiative when they blunder( i mean not big blunder, more like i think its ok to take the pawn and then realise no it probably wasnt that ok). Fischer played without it on purpose. It was like he mastered the game on a much higher level. Ofc i dont know about the Najdorf how much it applies there, but he obviously did it in his alekhine defense against Spassky.

GreedyPawnGrabber

Wait, the greatest attacker of all time is Petrosian. He attacked on a couple of occasions Kasparov with his king.

SmyslovFan

Here's another great Leko win. This time, he beats Judit Polgar in under 30 moves. 



SmyslovFan

Tetsuo, I never claimed Fischer was a weak player. Fischer was one of the greatest chess players ever, when you consider only his chess moves. But he was not a particularly great attacking player. 

There are many ways to win a game. Fischer's preferred method was to win a pawn or some other tangible advantage, then cruise to victory. His style was the opposite of the great attacking masters such as Alekhin, Tal, Shirov, Ivanchuk, Morozevich, Kasparov and others.

EvanTheTerrible
DaBigOne wrote:

Houdini: Look at this amazing game between it and Rybka:

 

No human could ever do what Houdini did in this game. And here it is Houdini 1.5, imagine Houdini 3...



I've seen much better attacks from Houdini before. This is good, but not one of it's best. But, the inquirer was referring to human attackers. It's not so beautiful is a computer plays it.

TetsuoShima

hey evan did you upload the image of a loading picture or does the game just dont load? if it was the first good joke

rigamagician

Smyslovfan - perhaps you would enjoy Crazychessplaya's list of the top 10 attacking players from another thread: "Andersson, Trifunovic, Leko, Petrosian, Flohr, Steinitz, Staunton, Euwe, Smyslov and of course Velimirovic. I will go to sleep now, if you'll excuse me."

Not sure how Velimirovic managed to slip in with such august company, but perhaps we could take him out, and put in Schlechter instead. Tongue Out  Other candidates for this type of list would be Borislav Ivkov and Ratmir Kholmov.  Vladimir Kramnik is like that too a lot of the time.

Crazychessplaya

Thanks for the mention, Rigamagician, but we should stick to the chess.com standard and spell it "Schleckter."

Ubik42
Crazychessplaya wrote:

Thanks for the mention, Rigamagician, but we should stick to the chess.com standard and spell it "Schleckter."

I play very schlecht, but he is Schlecter.

rigamagician

How I was taught it was: "A knight on the rim may be grim, but a knight in the corner is schlechter."

nameno1had

rigamagician wrote:

One difference between Fischer and Petrosian was that Petrosian often seemed quite happy to draw against strong rivals, while Fischer was more likely to fight tooth and nail in every game regardless of who he was facing over the board.  Leko also seems quite happy with a draw as a result.

In general, I think the players who fight for every half point tend to be attackers, eg. Judit Polgar, Alexander Morozevich, Nigel Short, etc.  I'm not sure where Korchnoi fits in though.  He was a bit materialistic too, but quite the fighter.  Maybe we could class him as a counter-attacker.

In my mind this showed not only Fischer's aggression but his will to win when it counted...this is often what sets someone apart historically...

TetsuoShima
rigamagician wrote:

How I was taught it was: "A knight on the rim may be grim, but a knight in the corner is schlechter."

good one

rigamagician

I found another attacking game by Fischer.  He sacs a knight to go after Larsen's king.  Tal had played 6.Bc4 against Larsen in their Candidates match the year before.



TetsuoShima

very nice, thank you very much riga.