<...there is something mysterious about his play, no one else could cope with things like he did. It is easier for me to talk about Karpov because his collection of games was my first chess book. I studied his work when I was a child, later I played quite a few games against him. He is a versatile chess player, a good tactician who brilliantly calculates lines and positionally very strong. <He also has a distinctive feature. Funnily enough, he has effectively denied Steinitz's pronouncement: if you have an advantage you must attack, otherwise, you will lose it. When having an edge, Karpov often marked time and still gained the advantage! <I don't know anyone else who could do that, it's incredible.>> I was always impressed and delighted by this skill. When it looked like it was high time to start a decisive attack, Karpov played a3, h3, and his opponent's position collapsed.>

I place Karpov slightly above Kasparov. I think the former was better at controlling the 'chaos of the board.'

<I think he did not pay attention to strategy. As I have already told, he easily forgot about the things that had happened on the board. Probably, he did not have a sufficiently deep strategic thread of the play. Karpov is a chess player of a great number of short, two to three move combinations: he transferred his knight, seized the space, weakened a pawn . In my view, he was not a strategic player by nature. <And like Fisher he could get confused when he saw chaos on the board. However, all this weak spots are largerly symbolic.>>

Sorry for not linking the interview, and thanks <micartouse> for doing so. It is one of my favorites.

BTW, Botvinnik, in his red notebook devoted to analyzing Bronstein's chess leading up to their WC match <thank you Resignation Trap>, continually criticized Bronstein for his 2-3 move maneuvers, his "scheming." It is amazing that the same way of thinking at the board can create such different chess. Is it possible that these players are simply two sides of the same coin? Look at the comment from this game: Najdorf vs Bronstein, 1950

<Resignation Trap: Botvinnik in his red notebook on Bronstein: "King's Indian along the lines of Botvinnik vs M Yudovich Sr., 1939 . 'Br' maneuvered subtly (with his pieces!!!), made Najdorf's head spin, gained a slight positional advantage, 'persuaded' his opponent to go into an endgame and, exploiting his opponent's errors despite an extremely simplified position, won on the 81st move! A typical Reshevsky-like game - perhaps the best that 'Br' produced in Budapest - but play without counter-chances!!!">

Even some clowns are beginning to rubbish his tournament record.

Determined to prove himself a legitimate champion, Karpov participated in nearly every major tournament for the next ten years. He convincingly won the very strong Milan tournament in 1975, and captured his first of three Soviet titles in 1976. He created a phenomenal streak of tournament wins against the strongest players in the world. Karpov held the record for most consecutive tournament victories (nine) until it was shattered by Garry Kasparov (14).

Karpov's tournament career reached a peak at the exceptional Montreal "Tournament of Stars" tournament in 1979, where he finished joint first (+7 −1 =10) with Mikhail Tal, ahead of a field of strong grandmasters completed by Jan Timman, Ljubomir Ljubojeviã, Spassky, Vlastimil Hort, Lajos Portisch, Huebner, Bent Larsen and Lubomir Kavalek. He dominated Las Palmas 1977 with 13½/15. He also won the prestigious Bugojno tournament in 1978 (shared) and 1980, the Linares tournament in 1981 (shared with Larry Christiansen) and 1994, the Tilburg tournament in 1977, 1979, 1980, 1982, and 1983, and the Soviet Championship in 1976, 1983, and 1988.

Karpov represented the Soviet Union at six Chess Olympiads, in all of which the USSR won the team gold medal. He played first reserve at Skopje 1972, winning the board prize with 13/15. At Nice 1974, he advanced to board one and again won the board prize with 12/14. At Valletta 1980, he was again board one and scored 9/12. At Lucerne 1982, he scored 6½/8 on board one. At Dubai 1986, he scored 6/9 on board two. His last was Thessaloniki 1988, where on board two he scored 8/10. In Olympiad play, Karpov lost only two games out of 68 played.

To illustrate Karpov's dominance over his peers as champion, his score was +11 −2 =20 versus Spassky, +5 =12 versus Robert Hübner, +6 −1 =16 versus Ulf Andersson, +3 −1 =10 versus Vasily Smyslov, +1 =16 versus Mikhail Tal, +10 −2 =13 versus Ljubojeviã.

And I think Kramnik is right, but not in an easily understood manner. Karpov's style is probably a result of 1. his prophylactic attitude to chess and 2. his superb calculating ability (a Capablanca-like quick sight of the board).

I think Karpov's main strength was that he was a quick efficient calculator, meaning he normally saw everything within around 5 moves flashing in and out of his chess eye; so that he was invincible when it came to tactics that required only 3 moves.

Let us imagine that Karpov at his prime had a wall of invincibility that ranged for about 5 moves. It was tactically impossible to get the better of him within that range. He goes through a game scanning all possibilities within 5 moves, and if he sees tactics that could result in a disadvantage to him, he prophylactically avoids those lines.

I still believe if Karpov was flexible enough in his personal thinking to play either the Alapin, Delayed-Alapin, or Rossolimo during that time, things would have gone differently. His skill set seemed to be perfect for those systems, yet he never really took to any of them. The Englishman Mickey Adams gives us an idea of what some of those games would look like.

If one plays through his early games, he generally essayed 1.e4, but with a wide repertoire; he was even known to try 6.Bg5 against the Najdorf Sicilian. He also played the Taimanov Sicilian with both colours in the early days.