Style: Is there room for style in chess?

Some people think saying you have a style is just another way to excuse your weaknesses. According to this view, you should always try to play the best moves, doesn't matter if they're attacking moves, moves that get a positional edge, risky moves that win material, etc; you should try to play like an engine would; you should try to stay objective. This can be a very smart approach for people learning chess, because if you keep saying you don't like to defend or you don't like to play closed positions or you don't like to sacrifice because it's not in your style, you could very well be making excuses for not learning the aspects of chess you don't know yet: excuses for sticking to your weaknesses.

However, even the greatest chess players sometimes admit they choose a certain variation in an opening (or even in a position that's out of theory) because it leads to the kind of position they want. Kramnik and Adams have given this kind of explanation for their moves in several interviews. Even when you think of Magnus Carlsen, the highest rated player in the world, it's clear he doesn't usually go for sharp variations or complicated sacrifices in the opening as players like Nakamura or Morozevich would. He has a way of playing, where he looks for a comfortable position in which he has a small positional advantage.

Of course, those who still believe there's no room for style in chess, would answer that the great players know how to attack, how to defend, how to play positionally, up material, down material with compensation, etc. But there still is an undeniable difference between Tal and Karpov, between Shirov and Adams, between Carlsen and Nakamura. If this difference doesn't correspond to style, what does it correspond to? In case it is style, are only top players, who have learned enough about chess, allowed to admit they have a style?

What do you think?

Yes there is style!

Style = weakness

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The only good style, is no style.

Sure there can be style in chess. Just play your matches wearing a $20k wedding dress! 

It's just that those monsters when there are different good moves chose the one that suits better their tastes, but super GM are very good at everything and can play well in almost any position.

I suppose having a certain style takes away your ability to be an overall well-rounded player... That being said there are some super-GMs who have a reputation for being a very unrelenting opponent, and that's a style...

Sure wish I could remember who said this but I'm going to have to paraphrase it anyway: "Below 2000, you don't have a style; you just have weaknesses you're trying to avoid".   It might have been IM Danny Rensch now that I think of it.  Of course masters have distinct styles.  There are many different approaches to "playing the best move on the board" when you're a master.  They aren't computers and for that matter even the best engines sometimes disagree over the best move.

I disagree with the play like a computer because they never go for what would be considered slightly innacurate even if it gave the chance for a great attack that is difficult or near impossible to refute OTB I admit I am weak on positional concepts... And endgames I mean equal engames not K and Q or K and R or two bishops.

The IM being quoted is just an elitist.  He presumes that the goal of every chess player is to one day become a titled player with a blog or something.  To that end, sure, you'd want to concentrate 100% on fundamentals and not even bother looking up opening theory until you're 2400+.

But in the real world, such commentary is insane.

Your "style" is just the type of game you choose to play.  If you favor a slow buildup over rapid-fire gambit play, you're making a stylistic choice, whether IM Rensch or whoever likes it or not.  If in a complex position, you prefer the too-difficult-to analyze sacrifice and the risk that comes with it...or you prefer the move that squeezes your opponent's position a little bit more...or you prefer the quiet back rank piece reorganization that reduces some of your opponent's dreams of counterplay...any which way, you're making a stylistic choice.

That isn't to say your "style" is necessarily sound, or 100% founded in correct choice making.  But if you prefer to play in a particular way, and OTB, you actually walk that walk, then you have style, for good or for bad.

The IM would be more correct in saying that until such-and-such a level, a player who was dedicated to rapid improvement would be best served by setting questions of style aside and just focusing on making good, fundamental moves.  But saying a player whose skills don't meet your obsucre and self-defined criteria is somehow inadequate to possess a style is pure nonsense.

You hear similar arguments in the writing field all the time.  That nobody should even dare try to have a voice or a style until they're so polished as a writer that basic usage and grammar mistakes are a distant memory.  But lots of good writers came up knowing who they were as artists before they had mastered all the tools.

It's like that in any creative endeavor.  Chess would be no different.

Well written. I definitely have an affinity for attacking the opponets king

Of course there is style in chess. Some people prefer to play simpler positions, while others prefer complicated positions. Some prefers open positions, while others prefer closed positions. And the list goes on.
But, you cannot say that for example you are an attacking player if you just don't know how to defend. You cannot say you prefer open positions if you just don't know how to play closed ones. Of course it is not possible that you are equally good in every aspect of chess. That is why there are different tastes and different ways of playing.

This reminds me of the chess personality test.

I think the average titled player has lost perspective on what it means to approach chess purely as a game -- as a means of enjoyment.

He is often so busy scrambling to make a living from his chosen field that questions doomed to lead to sub-optimal development probably seem like a kind of madness to him.

But if a 1200 is determined to play like Kasparov, and will lose nothing but a few friendly contests in the bargain, who's to say he's wrong to try?  Even if the results -- even if the player himself is happy with them -- wouldn't hold up to IM level scrutiny?

It's a fundamental right of the human endeavor to write ****ty poetry, strum guitar awkwardy, and play terrible chess, and to have fun doing it all.  We don't all need or desire your advice, Dvoretsky.