Player Types - The Activist

by Arne Kaehler
1/30/2022 – The Grandmasters Dr. Karsten Mueller and Luis Engel have set a ball rolling in Germany with their latest Fritztrainer. GM Lars Bo Hansen designed the four-player model in 2005, and was perhaps ahead of his time. In the 5-part interview with Dr. Karsten Mueller, all four player types are discussed in detail. Today - The Activist.

The 4 Player Types standard model - Find your strengths and weaknesses and those of your opponent The 4 Player Types standard model - Find your strengths and weaknesses and those of your opponent

Playing styles in chess are an important and thus often discussed topic. GM Dr. Karsten Müller and GM Luis Engel take up a model by GM Lars Bo Hansen based on 4 player types - namely ‘activists’, ‘pragmatics’, ‘theoreticians’ and so-called ‘reflectors’.

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The 4 Player Types standard model

by Dr. Karsten Mueller and Luis Engel

Some chess players love to attack, others prefer a solid defence. Some know all the opening theory and others play purely by intuition/recognition. But can we all agree that there is no perfect way to play chess yet?

Every type of player has their strengths and weaknesses.

Namely:

  • The activist (Aronian, Kasparov, Polgar, Tal)
  • The reflector (Carlsen, Capablanca, Karpov, Keymer)
  • The pragmatic (Caruana, Fischer, Euwe, Korchnoi)
  • The theorist (Giri, Steinitz, Botvinnik, Kramnik)

GM Karsten Müller and GM Luis Engel spent a lot of time defining the model of the four player types, wrote a book and developed the Fritztrainer, which is very popular in Germany. 

In this five-part interview series with one of the authors, Dr Karsten Mueller, we take a more in-depth look at all four player types and summarize some open questions in the last part.

The Activist

 
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1.c4 Nf6 2.Nf3 g6 3.g3 Bg7 4.Bg2 0-0 5.d4 d6 6.Nc3 Nbd7 7.0-0 e5 8.e4 c6 9.h3 Qb6 10.d5 cxd5 11.cxd5 Nc5 12.Ne1 Bd7 13.Nd3 Nxd3 14.Qxd3 Rfc8 15.Rb1 Nh5 16.Be3 Qb4 17.Qe2 Rc4 18.Rfc1 Rac8 19.Kh2 f5 20.exf5 Bxf5 21.Ra1 Nf4 22.gxf4 exf4 23.Bd2 Qxb2 24.Rab1 f3 25.Rxb2 fxe2 26.Rb3 Rd4 27.Be1 Be5+ 28.Kg1 Bf4 29.Nxe2 Rxc1 30.Nxd4 Rxe1+ 31.Bf1 Be4 32.Ne2 Be5 33.f4 Bf6 34.Rxb7 Bxd5 35.Rc7 Bxa2 36.Rxa7 Bc4 37.Ra8+ Kf7 38.Ra7+ Ke6 39.Ra3 d5 40.Kf2 Bh4+ 41.Kg2 Kd6 42.Ng3 Bxg3 43.Bxc4 dxc4 44.Kxg3 Kd5 45.Ra7 c3 46.Rc7 Kd4 0–1
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The 4 Player Types standard model - Find your strengths and weaknesses and those of your opponent

Playing styles in chess are an important and thus often discussed topic. GM Dr. Karsten Müller and GM Luis Engel take up a model by GM Lars Bo Hansen based on 4 player types - namely ‘activists’, ‘pragmatics’, ‘theoreticians’ and so-called ‘reflectors’.

The book is called - THE HUMAN FACTOR IN CHESS

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Arne Kaehler, a creative mind who is passionate about board games in general, was born in Hamburg and learned to play chess at a young age. By teaching chess to youth teams and creating chess-related videos on YouTube, Arne was able to expand this passion and has even created an online course for anyone who wants to learn how to play chess. Arne writes for the English and German news sites, but focuses mainly on content for the ChessBase media channels.

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