I recently read Euwe's book - The Developement of Chess Style.
The author says that players like Steinitz,Tarrasch and Reti
were feeble chess tacticians,in the meaning of Top chess players standards.
I'll be very interested to know the names of other Top chess players
relatively feeble tacticians.

..
As Steinitz, for years, consistently defeated ALL of his rivals in match
play, it is absurd to claim that he was a "feeble tactician," even by such
standards. Perhaps his losses to Lasker (who was a superb tactician) as an
old man, inordinately swayed Euwe. It is quite impossible to win so many
matches against top players without a reasonable mastery of tactics, for all
the grand strategy in the world goes down the toilet with but a single serious
blunder.




I'll be very interested to know the names of other Top chess players
relatively feeble tacticians.


You are going to have a rough time coming up with any, unless you lower the
bar to include second-tier players. Or you could go after the very top
players -- *after* they each passed their respective primes, as with Steinitz's
match losses to Lasker.

"Laird" wrote in message
om...
I recently read Euwe's book - The Developement of Chess Style.
The author says that players like Steinitz,Tarrasch and Reti
were feeble chess tacticians,in the meaning of Top chess players
standards.
I'll be very interested to know the names of other Top chess players
relatively feeble tacticians.

I think only the eyes of a world champion could see the feebleness of
Steinitz's tactics. After all, in Steinitz's younger days, he was known as
the Austrian Morphy!

Kasparov can call Karpov a feeble tactician. Tal and Bronstein can
call Botvinnik a feeble tactician. Fischer can call a lot of GM's
feeble tacticians. They can say it because of who they are.

EZoto

In article m,
says...

Kasparov can call Karpov a feeble tactician. Tal and Bronstein can
call Botvinnik a feeble tactician. Fischer can call a lot of GM's
feeble tacticians. They can say it because of who they are.

EZoto

Karpov was a World Champion before Kasparov came on the scene. And to be
fair to Botvinnik...he gained the title back from Tal in 1961 and Tal is
the tactical better of the two. I personally don't believe tactics
precede strategy. Tactics only become an option when one sees tactical
possibilities that present themselves when the opponent makes a mistake.
But between grandmasters like Judit Polgar and Vishy Anand, mistakes are
so subtle you can't tell if they're mistakes guaranteed to bring down
criticism because at first viewing they don't appear to be mistakes. As
far as Kramnik is concerned...he grew up stuying Karpov and Capablanca
games. Neither Karpov nor Capablanca can be considered tactical geniuses
on the level of Alekhine or Netmedinov. And yet the tactical genius
Kasparov lost the title to Kramnik, the tactical inferior. Gradual
incrmentally better chess positions is how people are playing these
days, not to mention the influence of chess software programs like
Hiarcs.

yeah troll, all the 'top players' were feeble compared to YOU.
If only they had had more time for masturbation and the Internet, their
feeble hands would be FASTER at BLITZ.

"Laird" wrote in message
om...
I recently read Euwe's book - The Developement of Chess Style.
The author says that players like Steinitz,Tarrasch and Reti
were feeble chess tacticians,in the meaning of Top chess players
standards.
I'll be very interested to know the names of other Top chess players
relatively feeble tacticians.

illspam (NoMoreChess) writes:

.
As Steinitz, for years, consistently defeated ALL of his rivals in match
play, it is absurd to claim that he was a "feeble tactician," even by such
standards.

"Feeble" is certainly the wrong word, considering
Steinitz' many brilliancy prizes (e.g. Steinitz-
Von Bardeleben).

The point Euwe is making is that Steinitz was tactically
not as strong as the players of later times (and I think
Lasker says that he was not as good tactically as some
contemporaries such as Zukertort, Blackburne, and Tchigorin
He beat these players positionally, creating positions in
which the tactics worked for him, not them).

Euwe gives a couple of famous games by Steinitz and
Tarrasch in which they miss relatively easy tactical
wins, but achieve longer positional wins anyway. They
may simply not have been looking for these relatively
long combinations when they had a "certain" positional
win. Though in the example given, Tarrasch gave his
opponent too much play and it took a further blunder
for him to win. Steinitz also allowed his opponent
a tactical way out which should have equalized.


Perhaps his losses to Lasker (who was a superb tactician) as an
old man, inordinately swayed Euwe.

We have to remember that Euwe played something like
70-80 games vs Alekhine, and achieved a pretty
respectable score against that tactical wizard.
He judged earlier players by that standard.



William Hyde
EOS Department
Duke University

For what it's worth, Larsen refers to Reti as "weak tactically" in
an interview in A BOOK OF CHESS. Botvinnik has criticized himself for
"a defect in combinational vision," and Korchnoi said of Botvinnik,
in the preface to a book by Leonard Barden, that he had no special gift
for the game, succeeding by tremendous self-discipline.

nor Capablanca can be considered tactical geniuses
on the level of Alekhine or Netmedinov.

Huh? Capablanca tactically was superior to those 2 when he was in his
prime. Botvinnik and Bronstein admitted Capablanca was a tactical
phenom. The only problem was he was lazy.

EZoto

..
The point Euwe is making is that Steinitz was tactically
not as strong as the players of later times


Hardly a fair comparison, as all the top players back then were tactically
feeble compared to players of today, such as Fritz, DeepBlue, Tal, and Junior.
C'mon -- compare a player to his contemporaries, not to those who learned
plenty from his own games.


(and I think Lasker says that he was not as good tactically as
some contemporaries such as Zukertort, Blackburne, and Tchigorin


Okay, but he beat all of those players in matches. How so, exactly? I have
many times been outplayed by weaker opponents who almost invariably ended up
losing anyway, due to the hard fact that tactics trump everything else in the
game, with the possible exception of time-management.
Steinitz played far more top-level games than many of his successors, so you
can't just give a few examples of his oversights, and conclude that he was
tactically feeble.


He beat these players positionally, creating positions in
which the tactics worked for him, not them


Look you (Euwe?), the only way to CONSISTENTLY do that, is by SEEING the
tactics! You can't manuever around, what you don't see!




Euwe gives a couple of famous games by Steinitz and
Tarrasch in which they miss relatively easy tactical
wins, but achieve longer positional wins anyway.


Fine. But I can easily give examples of tactical-monster, Bobby Fischer,
going after irrelevent pawns when there was a simple mating net, or when he was
extroadinarily far behind in development in the opening.
This problem with occasional myopia is not limited to feeble tacticians.



We have to remember that Euwe played something like
70-80 games vs Alekhine, and achieved a pretty
respectable score against that tactical wizard.
He judged earlier players by that standard.


By the "Alekhine" standard, most of them were tactically feeble. Not
everyone can be a genius of his caliber, treating other top players "like
patzers."


Euwe's score against Alekhine is known to include games where Alex had been
drinking heavily, as well as games where Euwe played the Slav (which don't
count because those aren't real chess games).


There is a famous game where Alekhine and Euwe are playing each other, and
they BOTH miss an elementary tactical shot. What does this tell us about Euwe?
Nothing, for it is only a single (double-)blunder, and everyone makes them.