You should publish the K vs K game played in Parsippany a few years ago.This game is of course vintage Karpov at the top of his game.Leonid Stein held the lead in Moscow 1971 but ran out of gas allowing Karpov to catch him at the end.

Johnson !!!

During the late 1960's and early 1970's Karpov was one of the top players whose games showed very clever tactics. I have to look through my records and copies of "Chess Life and Review" for his games. I did enjoy this game.

knightknife is correct in noting the connection between positional play and tactics. The great players, such as world champions, excel at both. They choose approaches to the struggle of a chess game differently. The effort to win a tournament or a match also shows this difference. Positional play requires the support of tactics and tactics can emerge from sound positional play. Each player has to deal with balancing playing the "best" move (as if there is truth in chess), playing based on the opponent's knowledge and preferences, the tournament or match score, and the clock. The balance often observed in a player's practice leads the observers to describe the player's style. Players self-described as playing for beauty may be telling the truth or making excuses for losing.

ConradPlacebo missed the Karpov-Korchnoi matches. That reminded me that I lectured at the time on their 1981 match. Their World Championship matches were televised with commentators. This was due to the Fischer-Spassky match being televised first. I was not on tv, but at a local club. A lecture in person is more interactive for the audience than a televised one. The televison host, Master Shelby Lyman, had to balance getting the moves as they were played and received, telephone questions, and his guests. In person, the audience with the lecturer can ask questions and make suggestions directly, without the separation of a tv screen.

karpov is positionalnot as glamorous as dangerous tactical focusers,he is great just not glamorous, however tactical play needs good positional analusis

I've always liked Karpov, but only knew of him as Kasparov's eternal opponent. I missed out on the Korchnoi matches, but discovered his games later on. I've read several of his opening books and found them really illuminating to read. I reckon he was one of the best positional players ever. As a weaker player, I fell like I can follow the logic of his moves better than Kasparov, or other 'tactical ' players who favour really complex positions, as I tend to get lost in them.

He did a series of books on the openings: The Open Game in Action, The Semi-Open, The Closed and The Semi-Closed Game in Action- all the lines will be out of date now, but he uses complete games (lots with Kasparov) to illustrate middle and endgame themes. I think that they really improved my games. Winning with the Spanish is also great.

Thanks for the article by the way!

nice game by karpov bt black play little gud in the end anyway check this out http://blog.chess.com/love_romance13/me-vs-josh-waitzkin-age-12

Karpov was just an awesome player, thanks for this very good article!

Best I can remember Karpov had a period of time where He was unbeatable,best any one could do was a draw. Seems (best I can remember again) Karpov had a very interesting period where He won or tied 1st in every tournament.

He is a truly brilliant player and a deserving champion. 10yrs at the top before Kasparov beat him says a lot about his skill.

Nice to see an article on Karpov.

Now regretably past his best, but a recent chessbase article states that Karpov had the best rating performance in the period 1840 to 2005 - at Linares 1994.

I also think he has always been given a little less credit because of the lack of a world championship  match with Fischer. However, his results as champion must be taking into account. Time to reassess this great chessplayer.

Thanks!

Dozy, our feelings affect our opinions on everything, including chess and its players. There have been both bad feelings and good feelings between Karpov and Kasparov. After one of their many games, Kasparov was asked why he and Karpov discussed the game as other players without bad feelings between them often do. Kasparov replied that Karpov was the only one in the world he could discuss chess with. That was close to the truth at that time.

I've sometimes been tempted to give Karpov less credit than he deserves -- perhaps because of the disappointment associated with taking the world title on forfeit.  At that time I thought Fischer was unbeatable (and maybe he was) but I developed a little anti-Karpov prejudice which has, fortunately, dissipated with the years.

It didn't help that one writer, commenting on the Karpov-Kasparov matches, quipped that their playing style reflected their hobbies.  He said, "Karpov collects stamps; Kasparov collects actresses."  (That's no longer politically correct, but "actors" just doesn't work.)  I don't know whether there was any truth in the comment, but it tended to make Karpov look just a little bit stodgy by comparison.

So thanks for the entertaining game.  I enjoyed it.