I'd imagine those are both fairly big motivations for top players. In terms of their legacies both play an important role as competitors. It's like asking Djokovic does he care more about being #1 on the rankings or playing good tennis?
Do you think higher rated players care more about their play or their rating?
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I remember when Kramnik was world champ at one interview he said something like (paraphrase) "not to be arrogant, but when you're world champion you don't really care about your rating."
If you take care of your play, the rating will take care of itself.
BettorOffSingle wrote:
0110001101101000 wrote:
I remember when Kramnik was world champ at one interview he said something like (paraphrase) "not to be arrogant, but when you're world champion you don't really care about your rating."
I thought he said "...you don't really care that Kasparov is rated higher than you."
Yeah, now that you say so I think the question was something about Kramnik being rated #2. The answer though was something like "After I became WC I don't look at my rating."
Actually, I'm not much of a fan of Ivanchuk. I'm not the only one who has commented on Ivanchuk's... eccentricities. He's well known for living on "Planet Ivanchuk". His opponents have often marvelled at his ability to get completely lost in the most mundane positions and spend an hour analysing.
Take a close look at the games from the Candidates tournament in 2013. Ivanchuk's play was absolutely frustrating. He threw away games because he couldn't decide what move to make in normal positions. He lost on time in FIVE games in that tournament!