Tal/Morphy or Karpov?

Say of two equal players, both rated 1300-2000, which will have more success or get the upper hand, the one that plays attacking chess (Tal/Morphy) or the one who plays good defensive chess (like Karpov) ?  We're talking in the first 15 to 30 moves. 

At the time, Morphy was often criticized for his dull, dry style of play. Strange but true.

At the 1300 level, I don't think your style of play has much influence on your results. In fact, it's difficult to talk about a "style of play" at that level.

What it WILL affect is your rate of learning. An active, double-edged style gives you more opportunities to learn new tricks. Of course, some of that new knowledge will come in the form of painful losses... but that's OK: you REMEMBER a lesson that cost you a nasty defeat.

I don't know, Emu...I continue to develop both, positional and Morphy style.  The positional makes tactics pop up and the Morphy is just fun.  Hey, I AM developing a rep for Morphy style, so they really stop and meditate when I pop a sac.  

  Morphy criticized for his dull/dry style of play???!!   Where/When did you hear that?  Did you read a book on that?  I'd like to read it.  Ok, I challenge you to a 1 day long game.  

tal was an adherant of classical opening theory his first 10 -15 moves was all about developing his pieces to create magic and mayhem ,

karpov is famed for nurturing small advantages , (a doubled pawn or backward pawn etc inflicted on his foe

morphy i dont know much off although thats summat i plan to change

I just bought a dvd, 'Play like Tal' ANOK1 , so i agree, after as little as 10 moves, he attacked!   At our level, the Romantics!  the way to play!  

Umm no Morphy was not boring or dull have you studied his games? he was far from dry awesome tactician who lit fire on that board like Capablanca and Fischer he beat everyone at chess and he creamed everyone he faced at odds too.

Sorry but blueemu is correct.  You are looking at Morphy's games purely from a modern perspective.  Compare Morphy games to Anderssen games (among other romantic attackers of the 1800s) and you will see that Morphy was relatively tame in his style.  

i read that book ,play like Tal , Master po whenever i get disillusioned with chess

Many decades ago, I was vigorously involved in tracking down Morphy-commentary that had been written around the time he was active. I am not able to say with certainty that he was not "often criticized for his dull, dry style of play", but I can say that I do not remember ever seeing such a statement. One striking thing about this claim is that it would be an enormous amount of work to investigate properly. Morphy was the chess story of 1858, and, in order to know what was "often" written, one would have to look at 1858-1859 publications in English, French, German, Italian, Russian, and I-don't-know-what-other languages. After many decades, who would be likely to undertake such a project? Annotation was primitive in those days, and there is not much interest today in game commentary that is that old. The only interest that I can think of for such an investigation would be to explore how opinion of Morphy varied from writer to writer. (At least, that was my interest.) However, this "dull, dry" claim, as presented here, does not mention any specific writer.

Another striking aspect of this claim is that it says nothing about how Morphy criticism evolved over time. Given the history, one would think that there would have been some evolution. If I remember correctly, Morphy arrived in Europe in June of 1858, and, according to Edge, he was at first judged to be of approximately the same strength as Barnes because of some informal games with that individual. However, over the next two months, Morphy accumulated many victories, and, by the end of August, he had won a major match against Loewenthal. In October, he finished a victorious match against Harrwitz, and, before the end of the year, Anderssen had also been defeated. One would think that, at each stage, respect for Morphy markedly increased.

At http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/pics/cn3889_morphy5.jpg , one can see a reference, in a September 1858 Staunton chess column, to two games, won by Morphy, "in his most dashing style", against Harrwitz.

From time to time, there has been a reprint of this or that book with a substantial discussion of Morphy. Works by Loewenthal, Lange, and Staunton come to mind, but, for various reasons, it does not seem like a good idea to take any of them as necessarily representative of what was written generally. In any event, they were all written after the Anderssen match and would not necessarily be good sources for the general evolution in thinking about Morphy during that incredible year.