What is Paul Keres's chess style?

I'm looking at studying GM games and wanted to know a little more about Keres and his style.

Paul Keres: The Road To The Top is a collection of his own games. More here:

http://www.amazon.com/Paul-Keres-Road-Top/dp/1879479354/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1300618403&sr=8-1

Keres is interesting in that he played a lot of correspondance chess in his youth as well as over the board. I don't know what his correspondance style was but OTB he was aggressive and a swashbuckling attacker, however, as he got older his style evolved into a much more rounded and sometimes even outright positional player... but the love of the attack never really left him as he displayed many times in his later career.

He was also a bit of a theoretician (you will see lots of opening lines named after him).

From what I have learned about him,

Not only was he a theoretician but he also sought complication in his game, including opening. Maybe he was a confident player that felt complication would give him the advantage because of his (as he may have felt) superior chess.

Juat saw this, as a child he was one of what I thought of years later as the "RUSSIAN POETS". This of course begins with the Patriarch BOTVINNIK, and PAUL KERES, and for me is completed with the addition of SMYSLOV, BRONSTEIN and almost everybodies favorite: the great MISHA TAL.

BUT it begins with BOTVINNIK and KERES, who both are coming into their respective primes as the great ALEKHINE is leaving his. PAUL KERES is amazing and of the players of his "day" exceeded only by BOTVINNIK. 

His play was characterized by a dashing swashbuckling style, a tad less "overt" so to speak than TAL, and like TAL represented by a more positional style as he aged.

A while later as KERES is descending TAL star is ascending. In between the games and contributions by SMYSLOV and BRONSTEIN [ and of course many others, GELLER, TAIMANOV etc] added so very much to CHESS, especially with regards theory.

The young Turks at this time are "SPASSKI,GELLER, PETROSIAN KORTCHNOI, LEONID STEIN,POLUGAEVSKY, ...There are more, I dont wish to offend by unintentional ommision of someone you are thinking of thatI forgot....so many...

This time in the former Soviet Republic was like no other in recorded history in the level of talent, the consistency of this CHESS" gene pool" and most of all besides the sheer precision, the unique diversality of styles.....Only the very best have such indentifiable styles like TAL and PETROSIAN, for instance....SMYSLOV...ALL OF THEM in their own way, utterly unique

Considering computers are not a factor yet, the richness and precision of their work and the innovative ideas of this group is really quite astonishing. There "age has yet to be equalled, despite the "evolution" of man and all it implies...Not till KASAPAROV and KARPOV duel it out, FISCHERS remarable time in the sun not withstanding, do we see such blinding creativity.....

Bless all you CHESS players, bless PAUL KERES!

 

Keres is a geniuses and you can see through his play. Not only is he a great attacker, his style is also amazing.The way he coordinates his pieces are brilliant, for example the way he uses his heavy pieces to support the minor pieces and vis versa. Keres also notices the most tiniest of weaknesses in any position, for example there is a famous game were Szabo plays a6 in Sicilian which looks like a normal move in any Sicilian but it turns out to be a wasted tempo which Keres proceeds to crush Szabo for. His games are so instructive, the annotations he gives explains his ideas so well which makes him so good to study.

As a young player, Keres loved gambits and played in a swashbuckling style. He racked up a lot of brilliancies. As he matured, he became much better at the positional side of the game, and was also a fine endgame player. He was one of the greatest experts on the Ruy Lopez and played it with great success from both sides. He was also a very fine annotator. His notes are clear and instructive, without burying you in long variations