Style and Legacy
Stein's creative style was greatly influenced by Chigorin and Alekhine. He was a highly intuitive, natural player. He was considered to be a brilliant attacking genius, but nevertheless played very sound chess, being less willing than Tal to complicate with unforeseeable results. He excelled with Black in sharp variations such as the King's Indian Defence, the Grünfeld Defence, and the Sicilian Defence.
He was one of few players who had an even score against Vasily Smyslov, Tigran Petrosian, and Mikhail Botvinnik. He even had plus records against Mikhail Tal, Boris Spassky, and Paul Keres. Stein defeated virtually all of the top players of his era.
Grandmaster Raymond Keene wrote a book on his career: Leonid Stein – Master of Attack (London, Tui Enterprises 1989, ISBN 1-84382-018-8).
Read more about this topic: Leonid Stein
Famous quotes containing the words style and/or legacy:
“Everything ponderous, viscous, and solemnly clumsy, all long- winded and boring types of style are developed in profuse variety among Germans—forgive me the fact that even Goethe’s prose, in its mixture of stiffness and elegance, is no exception, being a reflection of the “good old time” to which it belongs, and a reflection of German taste at a time when there still was a “German taste”Ma rococo taste in moribus et artibus.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)
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—Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1466–1536)