As a sub-2000 scrub, I found this review of Richie's Immortal helped me to better understand what is "brilliant" about it. I'm curious, do you think that the kinds of sacrifices made by an intuitive player (e.g. Tal) are qualitatively different from those made by a logician (e.g. Kasparov)?
That's a really interesting question. My first instinct was to say there's no real difference, the intuitive/logical split is just two ways of solving problems and strong players of either type should get to the same place.
However, I've been looking at a lot of Spassky's games (another intuitive type), and I'm continually impressed by how often he sacrifices material, often quite speculatively. The frequency of his sacrificial attacks feels different from Kasparov or Fischer, the kinds of players who want to have a higher sense of control through calculation.
An interesting side note - the best rivalries in chess history have all been between players of different types: Capablanca and Alekhine, Spassky and Fischer, Karpov and Kasparov. And in each case the logician proved superior. Fortunately the intuitionists have Carlsen on their side, or we might have to say that one method is better than the other.
As a sub-2000 scrub, I found this review of Richie's Immortal helped me to better understand what is "brilliant" about it. I'm curious, do you think that the kinds of sacrifices made by an intuitive player (e.g. Tal) are qualitatively different from those made by a logician (e.g. Kasparov)?
That's a really interesting question. My first instinct was to say there's no real difference, the intuitive/logical split is just two ways of solving problems and strong players of either type should get to the same place.
However, I've been looking at a lot of Spassky's games (another intuitive type), and I'm continually impressed by how often he sacrifices material, often quite speculatively. The frequency of his sacrificial attacks feels different from Kasparov or Fischer, the kinds of players who want to have a higher sense of control through calculation.
An interesting side note - the best rivalries in chess history have all been between players of different types: Capablanca and Alekhine, Spassky and Fischer, Karpov and Kasparov. And in each case the logician proved superior. Fortunately the intuitionists have Carlsen on their side, or we might have to say that one method is better than the other.
The engine also claims white can draw the endgame after bc2 by just playing ne4 but that seems more torturous
Ne4 is definitely the engine's choice after Bc2 - but I couldn't believe that there wasn't time for Rb1.