No need for "understanding", it comes to You naturally. Relatively speaking.

Of course, in the above case Botvinnik meant something different, and was wrong. One of the very rare times he was wrong about anything.

I think, Karpov has had both: an "in-born" capacity of a "mother tongue" and a "deep understanding" based on study and practice.

There's no ultimate answer. I think what you're saying is that the Fischer of 1972 would have beaten Karpov in 1978. What the Fischer of 1978 would have done, nobody has a clue.

It's true that Karpov looked very vulnerable in that match. Korchnoi beat him 5 games, and let him off the hook in several more. If he played that way against the Fischer of 1972, he'd quite probably have gone down in flames.

Yes, although Botvinnik did have a reputation of being very critical of all his successors. By critical, I don't mean that he dissed them necessarily, but he did have strong opinions about what all of them were doing wrong.

<seeminor>: <Here in an exerpt from an interview Botvinnik did in 1980. It is quite revealing as to what he thought of Karpov. "Doubtless, Karpov is a talented and strong practical chess player. He is very rational and he knows to economically use his playing potential throughout a long tournament. In general, he tries to make as few efforts as possible. When he became World Champion, he made practically all strongest Soviet chess players work for him. If some, even mediocre chess master, was known to be an expert on some chess opening, he was called up to help Karpov. Certainly, all this was kept secret and nobody knew about Karpov’s “methods” of chess preparation. In short, Karpov is an exploiter of other chess players’ creative ideas. It goes without saying that his talent permits him to use these ideas, but he, as a chess thinker, is as sterile as a sterile rabbit.">

<Frankly speaking, after Steinitz nothing new has been proposed in chess. Alekhine was the first to work seriously on chess and owing to that he made short work of his opponents who were probably equal to him in chess talent>

<Do you remember how I defeated Tal, the great genius, when I was already 50? All this happened because Tal never studied chess seriously>

<Speaking about today's great researchers, I would mention Korchnoi and the little boy from Baku Garri Kasparov.>

<Balashov has no talent. Where the opening theory ends, he is as helpless as a kitten>

Thanks, great article.

But saying Karpov <might have stepped out of a Socialist Realist poster>?

I don't know of many 120-pound heroes in the canon of socialist realism. :-)

"Steinitz"/"Petrosian-Smyslov"

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"Classical"

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The White h-pawn didn't move - the white h5-pawn in the "Classical" system becomes decisive in the endgame - he is either a liability due to the lack of support or hems in Black's king's side.