I Really Liked this Analysis of All World Champions That I Wrote

Chess is a physical manifestation of thought and the human psyche, and the kinds of people who become World Champion are as numerous and varied as life itself.

The World Champion can be from anywhere, can be anyone, and they all play very differently from each other, because for whatever reason they understand themselves very well.

Steinitz wanted to make the playing of chess more meaningful, and did this by trying to formulate his own personal "chess philosophy". He was the first chess player to "stand out". 

Lasker was a philosopher who thought he could use chess to find out who he was. He never managed to find the thing he wanted most (which was to find himself) in the game of chess.

Capablanca was a seemingly simple man who found an outlet for his romance with deep thought in chess. He cared about more than anyone in his prime, to the point where there are few world champions more void of personality. His deprivation and subsequent want of personality led him to slowly move away from thinking about chess, which then led to his defeat at Alekhine's hands.

Early Alekhine was a brutally aggressive man who wanted to overcome his inferiority complex through chess. He was loathe to find that, what with the lack of decent competition succeeding Capablanca, that he could not, and so he began drinking to fill his wounded soul.

Max Euwe wanted to use chess to improve himself as a person. He was an adventurer seeking understanding: He played chess to see just how far he would get. His love of learning led him to the top of the chess world, which from then on he never wanted to leave.

Late Alekhine was a heavily burdened old man whose only wish was to retain his title until his death. He got his wish by selling his long-shattered soul to the Nazis till they departed Europe. When the Russians comitted a new challenger Alekhine became afraid, and he subsequently comitted suicide by way of a chicken bone.

Young Botvinnik was a passionate and highly imaginative engineer who found a reflection of his love for the flexibility and "art" of math, science, engineering in chess. It is commonly understood and Botvinnik and Tal had completely different styles, but this is not true, they had very similar styles but very different approaches. Botvinnik's imagination was fueled by initiative but focused on openings, which he tried to "engineer"(As one would engineer a car) to be as efficient and dangerous as possible. Botvinnik differed from Tal and Smyslove as an engineer differs from a musician and painter, taking command of his environment where the others trust in God. In his early days, Botvinnik tried to get his engine to run as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Smyslov used chess to supplant his love of music, or at least sate it. Smyslov's focus on harmony and its infinite reverberations allowed him to be the first practitioner of "fractal chess". Smyslov's endings are very hard for our modern day computers to comprehend because they contain a spacial freedom and harmonic fractality that is not found anywhere else. Smyslov loved positions where the music was soft like an opera and avoided Tal's brand of "heavy metal thunder". Smyslov's maneuvering genius allowed him to briefly take control of Botvinnik's crown.

Middle Botvinnik had to find a way to reclaim his crown and he knew he couldn't do it without the help of Smyslov himself. Botvinnik incorporated Smyslov's fractal style into his own, and allowed to his engine to run at the speed of sound. He became at once more aggressive and more serene. He robbed Smyslov of his uniqueness by making music heavier and more passionate. Like Baroque Theatre in light of Vaugner, Smyslov was blown away.

Tal grew up in the shadow of Botvinnik, and seems to have learned from him. Perhaps unconsciously. Tal was a prolific writer and the first player since Retí to claim that chess could be an "art". He also absorbed information like a sponge, relying on his intuitive playstyle to bring him luck. Indeed, Tal's connection to his soul was such that no one could outplay him "in his element". When Tal challenged Botvinnik, he beat him because Botvinnik was playing perhaps a little too closely to the style of Tal. Tal tore the initiative away from Botvinnik at every opportunity and in the surging rays of Tal's lightning barrage, it was no wonder that Botvinnik could not compete.

Late Botvinnik did not have a choice. He had to focus all his energies on defeating Tal. He had undergone many transformations before, but Tal's engine was too close for comfort to his own. In an act of vengeance, Botvinnik focused all his energies on defeating Tal. His entire style was now an "anti-Tal", but Botvinnik was getting old. When the ashes cleared, the ailing Tal was defeated, but Botvinnik's style was like stone. It's an important lesson about the duality of innovation. The psyche hardens with change, not with age, but age affects the psyche's ability to change, even in the hands of a master engineer.

Nothing is more telling of this than Botvinnik's crushing defeat at the hands of Petrosian. Petrosian was like liquid mercury and Botvinnik was as solid as a rock. Petrosian's ability to contract and expand meant the Botvinnik could not think of how to adapt to Petrosian's style. He tried to become liquid like Petrosian but he was getting old and Petrosian was a new kind of compound. He was so malleable that he defeated Botvinnik the second time by tricking Botvinnik into becoming himself.

Spassky entered chess as a supersoldier enters a field of war. Spassky was everything Botvinnik could have been at once. He was a hand-to-hand combatant who knew every fighting style known to man. He was the Russian equivalent of a real life Batman. He was almost a civilian-turned agent from a comic book, such was his style. He treated Chess as a war between two minds, of which he was always the more adaptable. His only weakness? He was honourable, gullible, resilient and resourceful, but these were his only defining traits: he was the perfect nameless soldier.

Fischer was a paradox. A freak creation of the Cold War. He alone understood the true nature of God in his madness, and he derived his ability to play chess from it. He was erratic and disturbed, a cold war psychological chess fantasy come real. He was the shadow assassin of infinity, and he slit Spassky's throat in the dark. By 1972, Fischer was not well. Freak events thrust him towards the Russians and humiliated them as the fool humiliates us. He was all and he was none. He was nothing and he was everything. He may have derived his powers from darkness, madness, whatever you want to call it. Fischer's style was literally the phrase 'beyond comprehension'. It had many facets, but it was ideas from everywhere and nowhere, and none of it made sense. Fischer's aura of invincibility hasn't faded and for good reason: he built his chess style around a legacy of the invincible.

Karpov came into chess groomed to be "Botvinnik 2.0", but the Russians had changed. They were losing satellites and they buckled down, retreating into their shell. Karpov himself hated attack. He could only defend. An aggressor could hardly break him, but he himself could not follow through with an attack.

Kasparov was an explorer at heart and wished to be the epitome of attacking chess. They said that after Kasparov there would be no such thing as attack, at least not the way we understand it now or understood it then. Kasparov himself found that aggressive chess had hit a wall: it could never stand up to good defense. Nothing proved this more then the advent of computers after the dethroning of Karpov. The computers demoralised chess and made it seem rote and rigid, taking away some of its beauty. It made chess into a sort of "pure logical" image. Elegance was gone. Beauty was gone. Infinity was gone. Only ones and zeros remained.

...To be continued.

You are the oddest troll. Most trolls tend to post a couple of sentences that they know will get people riled up (GreedyPawnEater, Band-Sagger) whereas it almost seems like you're putting in a lot of effort. Nevertheless, I find myself replying anyway, so the joke is on me. Your analysis of Karpov is a joke.

Alekhine's analysis is a joke. I finished reading after the first 6 sentences.

I like GPE the best. He was on chess24 as "SwingingLondonTown" trolling the Sinquefield Cup chat hard.

KARPOV COULD ONLY DEFEND HAHAHAHA

Aquarius,

I enjoyed reading your analysis.  It must be disappointing to be accused of trolling, you obviously poured yourself into what you wrote.  Even if others disagree with your view of things it matters not.  The only thing odd would be if everyone did agree with you.

I found this a fun read. Though superficial and meaningless, it was entertaining nonetheless.

I have no idea if anything is true or not, but it was a good read. Nice metaphors!

Ya wow dude. I just got slammed.

EDIT: At the very least, this might prompt batgirl to do one of her own.

I'm sorry. My comment wasn't meant to slam you.  It's just that summarizing someone's life and career from isolated true or not-so-true instances (superficial) or from perceptions of their life in just  a few sentences simply  can't have any real meaning.  But I did find it fun, entertaining and even interesting, to read.  And after all, that's why most of us write anyway, isn't it?

Oh ya no its totally superficial in that regard. It was SUPPOSED to be a fun to read archetyping of their "styles".

EDIT: Also it seems I wanted to break the "perception stereotypes" of some of the champions also.

There was a point I had meant to make about the statement at the end about chess becoming more centered around computer 1s and 0s. It's kind of an inside joke between me and me, about the boundlessness of 1 and the infinity of 0, since in vedic tradition, 1 is God and 0 is infinity and they are fused together through the soul, and I was trying to make that comparison to chess.(Think of the board as 1. How can 1 board with 64 squares house infinite numbers of variational differences.)

I think people are drinking tonight.

Talk about Bill Winter and other outliers.

In the entire history of the  English language there has been only one sentence composed using "Also" as the first and last word of the sentence that was acceptable to the ear and not regarded as mongrelized writing.  Brace yourself because regrettably your sentence was not the one.                   

Can you clarify? I am highly unsure of what you mean to say.