Fischer was one of the founding members of the Pawnsnatchers Anonymous club. He was far more comfortable accepting a gambit and defending the extra pawn than he was attacking with a slight material deficit.
My own list of the top ten attacking players of all time is:
1. Kasparov
2. Tal
3. Alekhine
4. Shirov
5. Anand
6. Keres
7. Bronstein
8. Morozevich
9. Ivanchuk
10. Morphy
This isn't a final list, and there are many great attackers who are not on the list.
A list of the greatest American attacking players would include Christiansen, Shirazi, Nakamura, Pillsbury, Marshall, Reshevsky, Dzindzichasvili, and Kamsky. I'm sure I'm missing some.
No, I am not missing Nezhmetdinov from the list of greatest attacking players. He was perhaps the most overly aggressive player to become a master. His victories were spectacular. But a great attacking player knows when his attack isn't going to work and prepares it better. When Nezhmetdinov's attacks didn't work, he'd attack anyway. That's not a sign of greatness, it's a sign of recklessness.
ThrillerFan: 2) Karpov (An excellent attacker even though it didn't feature the fireworks of Kasparov's games)
Karpov too, is a typical positional player! (Of course Karpov could attack from a very solid position but this are the main characteristics for a positional player!)
Tal on the other hand is an attacker! Timman was an attacker as well.
Uhm, Positional and Attacking are not opposites, nor mutually exclusive.
You have Positional and Tactical, Attacking and Defensive.
So yes, Karpov was a positional player, but he was also a Top 10 Attacker, contrary to say, Petrosian, who was a Positional Defender.
For Petrosian, safety of his own King came first. For Karpov, it was all about getting at his opponent's King. How he went about his "Attack" was in a "Positional" manner.
So as already stated before, POSITIONAL DOES NOT MEAN THE OPPOSITE OF ATTACKING, and YES, there are POSITIONAL PLAYERS that belong in the TOP TEN ATTACKING PLAYERS LIST!
It's the players where Defense came first that don't belong here, like Korchnoi and Petrosian. Korchnoi was the opposite of Karpov, a tactical defender!
I don't agree to this. For one reason Positional players always need a solid game (as Karpov). While Attacker need to attack even if that means the sacrifice is not quiet sound (typical for Tal)!
So if you look for Attacker look for players like Tal or Judit Polgar.
Compared to Kasparov Karpov will always be a positional player. And for Kortschnoj he will always be a chess worker (as Spassky proved).
No I really don't see your point of arguement. And I will never call Karpov an Attacker!