The Karpov philosophy. If you can make very good moves quickly all the time and never blunder, you rarely need to find great moves. Avoid crises that require total precision and lots of time.
In contrast, Kasparov and players in his maximalist line seek to create those crises, confident in their ability to find the forced and forcing moves better than their opponent. Lots of energy, lots of time trouble.
Ask anyone who played with him and they’ll say that Karpov was incredible in the post-mortem, proving he’d seen nearly everything. But he realized it was inefficient to play that way for him, so why risk? He could good move anyone to death.
The proble for chess came when Karpov’s influence set in in the 80s. Lots of top players saving energy, maneuvering calmly, led to lots of tedious games and short draws because nobody could do it as well as Karpov.
This is why Kasparov's sharp, maximalist onslaught felt like oxygen. He looked for a hammer blow on every single move. But don’t blame Karpov, blame his inferior imitators!
