Yes Carlsen of course.

Don't worry about <Viktorerro>. If he were living in my area and I knew him, I would probably challenge him to a short match and beat his ass off. But this Filipino lives abroad, and I live in one of the poorest Philippine provinces serving the medical needs of indigent Filipinos all the time.

I got that you were referring to Carlsen.

To paraphase Kasparov: it won't be Viktor, and he won't be victor.

This awkward and nonsensical phrase appears to be a co-mingling of two completely unrelated ideas in chess: (1) gaining space [to avoid a cramped position which is related to freeing one's game] & (2) making preventative moves or taking protective measures. Typically, prophylactic moves are made to secure one's position prior to undertaking an attack. However, these type of moves do not necessarily require or involve a gain of space.

The two concepts are unrelated

In any case, attacking chess players do not like to see their brilliant attacks undermined because they overlooked an opponent's resource. Karpov is brilliant at preparing his attacks

I got that you were referring to Carlsen.>

You're right, "positional" is more well-known, but I think <VBD> was going for something more precise.

In essence, tho, I don't agree completely with <VBD> on Karpov's style.

One could argue that Karpov, Petrosian, and, say, Adams, are all positional in nature. Yet Adams is likely the most appreciative of the initiative (King's pawn play, Marshall-Ruy) out of the three, and Petrosian by far the most prophylactic (closed centers, slower play on the wings, etc.)

All these words leave a bit to be desired, of course.

After studying Karpov for some time, it seemed to me that he was actually quite risky in a particular way.

Karpov's eventual consistent switch to the d-pawn openings as White and adoption of the Zaitsev-Ruy as Black, seemed to be a perfect match for his sensibilities. Karpov at base seemed to be a Q-side positional (square grabbing, gaining and solidifying space) attacker, and was often willing to cede the initiative (temporary, in his eyes) in order to achieve his positional gains. Extremely efficient defensive skill is a must for his style. One has to have a particular mind-set to say "I will sacrifice the initiative for long-term positional gains, and I will survive all the heat you can bring."

Karpov's Ruy and Nimzo/QID all involved early k-side castling and ambitious q-side expansion.

Kasparov was the only one who consistently set a pre-1997 Karpov problems on the K-side, and punished Karpov for not respecting the initiative on that side of the board.

Petrosian did this too, somewhat, yet with different emphasis. Petrosian seemed to liked closed, stable centers and play on the wings as Black. This explains his love of the French and his mastery of some unique lines in the Ruy that Marin studied a bit.

Carlsen is something somewhat different in my eyes. Carlsen's opening play is straight out of Bronstein's world, yet his middlegame is the best of Spassky: comfortable in any position, whole-board play, tactically bright, and amazingly flexible.

<VBD> on this thread or elsewhere talks about Carlsen as a crocodile (Carlsen himself has mentioned having an affinity, as well) dragging this opponents into a swamp. In this way, he is like Petrosian.

Just an aside, is it just me who has noticed just how many pawns remain so late in Petrosian's games? If there was an award for the highest value of "pawn persistence" in any great players game, Petrosian must be up there.

I think Yusupov was quoted some years ago the difficulty of engaging Karpov's prophylactic style, or something like that, so this all makes sense now

One more thing about each of the three players I mentioned:

Adams seems much more forward and clear in his play, at his best. It's remarkable to me how quickly he gets his rooks to open files. I don't know how he did it consistently for so long.

Petrosian like to slow the game down, and play what I like to call "sticky" chess. The pieces seem to be a bit in the mud in his games at times. And his ability to create positions that inhibit rooks and showcase the minor pieces is pretty amazing.