I wonder if there’s any correlation between political stance and one’s choice of openings. Do rock-ribbed conservatives tend to play the Orthodox QGD and the Petroff? Do wild-eyed radicals fling out g2-g4 every chance they get? Was Nimzovich to the left of Tarrasch? Or are there no meaningful correlations at all?
I vote for the latter. Sorry.
Alex Relyea
This one is easy. There are no correlations to personality or political persuasion and how that person plays the game of Chess.
Back in the early 90’s I met and took lessons from an IM that was studying in Illinois. His USCF rating was 2580. The only reason he was not and is not a GM is because he did not want to take the time to travel to the necessary norm tournaments. He was a student that ended up obtaining his PhD.
Anyway, this fellow was quite demure and would be considered a true conservative. His game was quite the opposite to that. He was very aggressive on the Chess board and told me that there were GMs that categorized him as a very dangerous opponent. He beat Gata Kamsky in 1990, for instance.
I have also had the pleasure to become acquainted with a number of GMs, IMs and other Masters over the years. None of them showed such a consistency of personality and or ideological beliefs with their Chess play. I knew one GM that was quite, ahem, boisterous in life but played very conservatively, like Petrosian. I must say that most of these masters have been very mellow and conservative in their personal lives, but real tigers on the Chess board.
Anyway, that’s been my experience.