Are Magnus games boring?

This was one of the exciting games that put Magnus on the map: http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1272702

This topic just goes down to positional vs. tactical. There is no right answer, and, really, no player is purely positional or purely tactical. In fact, Magnus himself describes his style as "all-around," per wiki.

As many people have pointed out already, a very aggressive style can easily backfire at the top levels of play. Magnus hit this roadblock and was having trouble getting out of the opening until he moved away from the attacking style.

Well, I would stand by my paragraph about subtleties, because that would answer the question in your first paragraph. If you disagree with that bit then I'm happy to discuss it if you want.

I say probably because there is a chance my reasoning is unsound, even though I don't think it is.

Bobby, you can't know how creative or not Magnus is. For example, you don't know what crazy sacrifices he may be thinking of; perhaps he thinks up of a lot of them, but concludes they're not sound or practical. Moreover, endgames require plenty of creativity too, as well as other things about chess. What you fail to understand is that these subtle, "boring" features of chess also have creativity laid in them.

Indeed, I think it is ignorant to claim that you think you know how much creativity it takes to be a Magnus Carlsen.

Perhaps creativity is the wrong word here. If you said Kasparov is more flashy, for example, I would agree with you (although flashiness isn't that important to me).

Yeah pretty much this.

Also if I took 5 world class players and put together a random list of 50 games without names, you woudln't be able to seperate Carlsen from Kasparov from Lasker.  Amateurs rely on what people say GMs styles are.

I agree with Estragon. He used to play more sharply when he was younger (I remember him going into an ultra-aggressive variation of the Gruenfeld exchange as White years back, and remember when it seemed like he always played the Dragon against 1.e4 ?), but now I think he is confident that he just understands all types of positions better than his peers. He doesn't need to go into ultrasharp lines. 

Besides, the choice of variation isn't always his. He plays 1.e4 about 50% of the time, if not more. He is clearly willing to face a sicilian or a Marshall. But with most GMs these days steering 1.e4 into the Berlin, there is almost so much he can control. OTOH, his recent game against Jones was extremely unbalanced, but he worked his way through the complications. Also, look closely at his game against Polgar. He used a lot of little tactical points to maintain a positional edge. It was pretty remarkable the way he maintained his advantage all the way until the end of game. 

As for comparisons to former world champs, times have changed. Morphy was just head and shoulders above everyone else in his day. Fischer was never one to go willingly into wild complications even when he was younger, and his play became more practical as he got older. Kasparov had a remarkable memory and a lot of his fantastic wins were a result of superior preparation. In these days of chess engines and databases, it's a lot harder to catch a GM by surprise in a sharp opening. 

Well, he is beating the second place on the live rating list, Kramnik, by about 55 rating points, which is rather impressive. He also hasn't lost yet in the london classic, a tournament with some of the strongest masters around (Aronian, Kramink, Anand, etc), and he is leading the competition by a good margin. He also has beaten Kasparov's record by more than 10 points (on the live list) and is still gaining points. While he might not have been the greatest by far in past events I believe that he has proved how strong he is in this event.

Chapablanca, you can't read your opponent's mind when they choose not to resign. You fail to consider the possibility that when your opponent plays on, he thinks you are going to beat him. The point is, even if that is the case, there is no net loss for the person who plays on. In fact, it's quite possible to think there is over a 99% chance your opponent will win the position, and yet still play on because, again, there is no net loss if the 99 in 100 chance occurs as expected. And anyone that sure they are going to lose certainly doesn't think that miracles are common, although they will take the free lottery ticket and won't be any worse off using it.

And of course, some people really do play on because they think you can't win it. The point is, you can't read your opponent's mind to distinguish between these two possible motives (among others).

I must say, chess players tend to be smart, but they also tend to be presumptuous, assuming intentions based on certain actions, despite how enormously ambiguous these actions often are.

[Sorry for being off topic, but chapablanca doesn't allow posts from most people on his notes or messages so I am replying to the philosophy on his profile page here.]

I think they are hardly boring.  I happen to have a great appreciation and respect for games where your opponent is slowly squeezed to death, and has no counterplay or good moves left to make, blundering as a result of frustration.  We all love a game that shows a brilliant sacrifice, or a winning 8 move tactic that wins the queen or checkmate.  But frankly I love carlsen's style, and I am trying to study more of his games.  Every chess game is pretty much won and lost on a mistake, and while magnus doesn't always go for tactical shots, he simply just hardly ever makes a mistake.   

The article about him today that talks about him achieving the highest live ELO rating ever features a game where he never really attacked, instead he just waited and defended against everything perfectly. That wasn't boring to me at all.

Let's make it happen!

Sorry general the chesss is boring the time control is so big...

See this game please.

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chesscollection?cid=1007147 

and this is best of the best attack i have ever seen!

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1348060 only 14-15 years old! (2005)

I find it funny how most of you are unconditionally devoted to Carlsen. You are so stupid that you appear cute.

You idolize him because he wins always and makes no mistake. And by doing that, you all forget that chess is a game invented by humans, not by machines, and most of all: It's a game, therefore entertainment. Carlsen's style is not entertaining. It is boring as hell in most of the cases and completely unaccessible to understand by people rated under 2000. Therefore the most of you praising him like a deity on earth and studying his most obscure and subtle moves are just a bunch of fools making themselves ridiculous. You like watching somebody moving his rook one square right and one left for 8 moves in a row, uh? :) ahaha, idiots.

Chess is about beauty, like every sport or human invention and that's what it should pursuit. Tal, Morphy, Kasparov..those were legends, and when you watch their games is like watching some great art piece from the renaissance, or a painting from the romantic era. It's just beautiful. Carlsen's game are like a building of concrete: solid, untouchable, unbeatable but grey and ugly as hell.

Finally, also Fisher had a mind like a computer and produced masterpieces of calculations and combinations, but his style was never as boring as Carlsen.

You are ridiculous.

Your trolling has room for improvement. You insulted the audience already in your second sentence, so they would stop reading immediately.

Why dont you comment on my specific statements instead of stopping at the surface ? Because you have no arguments. And of course I insult. Most of you are a bunch of conformists

Yes, everybody knows that people rated under 2000 have many difficulties in understanding Carlsen's style but face no problems when fully understanding Kasparov or Fischer or bla bla... for example you

if you love watching torture, carlsen games are the best 

i think if kasparov were young today and playing against magnus, he could not handle the stress. moves could have been boring but watching kasparov's facial expressions would have been deffinetly fun

You somehow fail at quoting.

Yes, I took it from your comment at the top of the page and didn't see it.

Most professional games are boring compared to the wild scrambles of amateur games.  Like some people find NFL games boring compared to college football.  A small number of GM's captivate us with their active play.  Fischer, Tal, Kasparov.  I find Karpov's games beautiful, but they would be boring to watch in progress.  Action excites.