Which players significantly influenced your play and/or attitude towards chess?

For me, Mikhael Tal and Tigran Petrosian really stand out to me. Yes, they seem like polar opposites, but I find them both incredibly intriguing. My amateur (initial) play in chess was based on tactical prowess due to my playing Chinese chess (which focuses on tactical aspects slightly more than positional) before International Chess. I was and still am a realistic person, and so simply loved Tal for his stance on flawed, yet pragmatic plans. I would often sacriface pieces for attack, and try to justify my sacrifaces with more sacrifaces, and sometimes even win!

Later on, I changed my mentality sometime two or three years ago to defence-first, focused on positional play. Petrosian is my "idol" in that sense, as my play heavily focused on preparing attacks and slowly choking the opponent, cutting off all counter-play. I also found that my endgame skills greatly improved, much stronger than my rating, and getting to endgames evenly became a cornerstone of my strategy in blitz/bullet due to me calculating simple endgames extremely fast and accurately, as well as my quick judgement to cut off counterplay. I also live for the positional games which explode tactically, and I enjoy them very much... In any case, my game evolved to a stage which really pleases me.

What about you?

It's certainly Mikhail Tal for me, for his sacrifices (and his smoking) :p Though I'm just starting out, and perhaps my game will change over time. Even now I kind of enjoy middlegame with more maneuvering before exchanges take place.

On the side note, I read that according to Kramnik, Petrosian is more of tactical player than positional one despite the defensive nature of his game.

Yes...one could say that as well. However, tactics and strategy virtually go hand in hand...

Obviously I'm not as much of an expert as Kramnik, but I think he's talking about Petrosian's ability to see tactics and avoid them, or at least to see how a quiet position may blow up and end up with a slight advantage.

Yeah he was talking about Petrosian being able to sense danger in a position thus making him an excellent defender.