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Who is/was the greatest  chess player of alll time

Who is/was the greatest chess player of alll time

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X
Cancerous Bus Crash

p^2.sin(phi)

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Originally posted by ark13
I could be wrong, but I thought a game wasn't considered a Reti until Nf3 d5 c4 occurs. 1. Nf3 doesn't make it a Reti according to the sources I have. I'm honestly curious because I often play the Reti, and was under a different impression about its definition.
My opening database lists 1. Nf3 as the Reti. Most moves other than 1. ... d5 2. c4 are transpositions but they still passed through the Reti.

MetalPig

Buenos Aires

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I like Alekhine

T

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Originally posted by tonytiger41
lasker ... because he was not a full time professional chess player and remained a top class competitor for over 40 years
Lasker's performance at the 1914 St. Petersburg Tournament may have been the best ever... after the first round, he scored 7 of 8, defeating Capblanca, Tarrasch, Alekhine twice and Marshall twice (also drawing with Capa and Tarrasch... no loses).

He overcame a 1 and 1/2 point deficit against Capablanca going into the final round. (All 11 competitors played each other once in the preliminary rounds, with the five high scores moving on to the finals, in which they played each other twice).

It's true that Alekhine was not yet at his peak at this point in his career, but it was still an incredible run.

Lasker also won the 1895 St. Petersburg tournament by a full 2 points (11 1/2 to 9 1/2 over runner-up Steinetz). Pillsbury, Chigorin (the four competitors played each other six times during this tournament).

If one is talking about the player who was further ahead of his contemporaries than anyone in (fairly recent) history, you could always throw Paul Morphy into the mix... (of course, the same could be said of Philidor, so how far back does one want to go?). Very doubtful that the old, old time masters could have competed today with only the knowledge they possessed back in the day.

The only way chess players can truly be judged is how they do against the best of their contemporaries. No one really knows how Fischer would have done sitting across the board from Lasker or Alekhine (both of whom were incredibly strong mentally), any debate is pure speculation (but it sure is fun to speculate).

Petrosian is probably one of the most under-rated players of all time, and was well known as a player who was almost impossible to beat.

ah, one of the great fun things about chess...debating (or discussing) who was the greatest...





Lasker also had great showings in tournaments in the 1920s and into the late 1930s.

And you're right, Lasker was not a full time player

C
Creative Genius

Literary Lion Land

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Irving Chernev, in his 1976 book "The Twelve Greatest Chessplayers of All Time" lists them thus:

1. Capablanca
2. Alekhine
3. Lasker
4. Fischer
5. Botvinnik
6. Petrosian
7. Tal
8. Smyslov
9. Spassky
10. Bronstein
11. Rubinstein
12. Nimzowitsch

Don't know that I agree or disagree, but it's another perspective. It is a very good book. Each coice is followed by a short biographical sketch, a comment on the player's style, and a selection of annotated games.

s
Fast and Curious

slatington, pa, usa

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Well would someone hurry up and invent a time machine so we
can clear this thing up for once and for all?🙂
Get them all in their prime, give them all laptops, teach the early ones
how to use them, they are all brilliant so they will of course jump on
that like a dog on a bone, give them a year or two to absorb all the
20th century and what we know of the 21st and THEN have a humungus
tourney, Philador, Morphy, Andersonn, Capy, Lasker, Alekhine,
Karpov, Kas, Petrosian, Tal (get him well first), Fischer, Mir Sultan Khan, you name them.
Then we would know for sure. One thing, it would be
one hell of a tourny!

d

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Originally posted by gambit3
Chessmetrics gives the highest performance rateing ever to Karpov at 2899. Fischer, Kasparov, Botvinnik, Lasker, Capablanca, and Kramnik are performance rated within twentyfive points of that rateing. Thus these players are even? Close to that Karpov performance rateing are Tal, and Alekhine. Honorable mention is Tarrasch.
I have seen another version of this that rates the order:

1. Kasparov

2. Karpov

3. Fischer.

I think there is no doubt that Kasparov is the greatest player that ever pushed wood.

d

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...as for the love affair with Fischer.

He was an extremely gifted player but I think his departure from the chess scene was less to do with FIDE not meeting his demands and more to do with the fact that he was afraid that Karpov might actually win.

Kasparov makes this conjecture in his recent book series "My Great Predecessors"

Kasparov is fairly sure that Karpov would emerged as the victor.

N

The sky

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Originally posted by demonseed
I think there is no doubt that Kasparov is the greatest player that ever pushed wood.
If there were no doubt about that, this thread would have been over after one post. 😉 Personally, I don't know enough about great chess players to have an opinion on who was/is the greatest. But different people will always define "greatness" differently anyway. Some only look at performance, others at style, others at personality etc.

d

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Originally posted by Nordlys
If there were no doubt about that, this thread would have been over after one post. 😉 Personally, I don't know enough about great chess players to have an opinion on who was/is the greatest. But different people will always define "greatness" differently anyway. Some only look at performance, others at style, others at personality etc.
I appreciate what you have written.

Tis true people will have different ways of determining greatness.

My own opinion is that Kasparov ticks all the boxes:

He has an unusual and intimidatin personality.

His style is most aggressive, like a bolt from the blue sometimes.

And in terms of performance no-one can match him. He won the world championship at the age of 22( which made him the youngest world champion ever) and held it for almost 20 years.

There can be little doubt.

M

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Originally posted by demonseed
I appreciate what you have written.

Tis true people will have different ways of determining greatness.

My own opinion is that Kasparov ticks all the boxes:

He has an unusual and intimidatin personality.

His style is most aggressive, like a bolt from the blue sometimes.

And in terms of performance no-one can match him. He won the world champi ...[text shortened]... the youngest world champion ever) and held it for almost 20 years.

There can be little doubt.
The number of years a player was world champion cannot be the sole factor to decide on greatness (Morphy = 0 years). And even then, Kasparov was less than 20 years WC before Kramnik beat him. And Lasker held the title more than 20 years. Other criteria could be who contributed more to the chess evolution, or who was most popular, or who was most unique in his style. So, in the end it boils down to who each of us likes the most. In that case, I vote for Tal and Spasski.

g
Wayward Soul

Your Blackened Sky

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Originally posted by Mephisto2
The number of years a player was world champion cannot be the sole factor to decide on greatness (Morphy = 0 years). And even then, Kasparov was less than 20 years WC before Kramnik beat him. And Lasker held the title more than 20 years. Other criteria could be who contributed more to the chess evolution, or who was most popular, or who was most unique in ...[text shortened]... he end it boils down to who each of us likes the most. In that case, I vote for Tal and Spasski.
also, kasparov lost the title in a match where he won no games...

T

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People talk a lot about 'intimidation' factor when discussing the greatest players of all time... and it's certainly true that it had to be totally intimidating for the opponents of their day (whenever that day was) to be sitting at the same table with them.

But if we were able to put a tournament together featuring Morphy, Philidor, Steinitz, Andersson, Lakser, Capablanca, Alekhine, Tal, Botvinik, Spassky, Fischer, Petrosian, Karpov, Anand, Kasparov, etc., I doubt that too many of them would be intimidated by anyone else (well, maybe Spassky might be intimidated by Fischer). These guys made a living by NOT being intimidated at the board.

I'm sure even most of these guys were probably a little bit intimidated the first time they (as a young player) sat down to play someone who had accomplished a lot in chess. Bobby Fischer has a losing record against a couple of players as a result of his early career games... I wonder who was the last person to intimidate Bobby Fischer at a chessboard? He became the intimidatOR pretty early in his career. (Maybe the answer to that question is Karpov, we'll never know)

no1marauder
Naturally Right

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Originally posted by demonseed
...as for the love affair with Fischer.

He was an extremely gifted player but I think his departure from the chess scene was less to do with FIDE not meeting his demands and more to do with the fact that he was afraid that Karpov might actually win.

Kasparov makes this conjecture in his recent book series "My Great Predecessors"

Kasparov is fairly sure that Karpov would emerged as the victor.
The idea that Fischer feared Karpov is so absurd I don't even know how to respond to it. Does anybody have a shred of evidence to indicate that this is true? Fischer would have been a prohibitive favorite over Karpov in 1975; again, he never lost a match. This claim sems to have more to do with people's dislikes over the Fish's odd personality than any true evaluation of his play vis-a-vis Karpov.

N
The eyes of truth

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Originally posted by no1marauder
The idea that Fischer feared Karpov is so absurd I don't even know how to respond to it. Does anybody have a shred of evidence to indicate that this is true? Fischer would have been a prohibitive favorite over Karpov in 1975; again, he never lost a match. This claim sems to have more to do with people's dislikes over the Fish's odd personality than any true evaluation of his play vis-a-vis Karpov.
On September 1, 1972 Bobby became world champion after winning 7 games, drawing eleven games, and losing three games (1 on forfeit). Fischer received $160,000 for his efforts and another $40,000 in royalties. Bobby Fischer's last published USCF rating was 2810. His FIDE rating was 2785. -->On April 3, 1975 Bobby Fischer forfeited his title as world Chess Champion to Anatoly Karpov without playing a single Chess game since winning the world championship.


That might have more to do with my oppinion on fischer.

no1marauder
Naturally Right

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Originally posted by Nyxie
On September 1, 1972 Bobby became world champion after winning 7 games, drawing eleven games, and losing three games (1 on forfeit). Fischer received $160,000 for his efforts and another $40,000 in royalties. Bobby Fischer's last published ...[text shortened]... ship.


That might have more to do with my oppinion on fischer.
What's your point? No one was more disappointed than I was that Fischer didn't defend his title, but what some people are asserting is that Fischer was afraid to play Karpov or that Karpov was a better player. Fischer's undefeated match play record + the convincing way he won his matches against the toughest competition (he dusted Petrosian, another highly regarded ex-champion 5W, 1L, 3D winning the last 4 games!) would have made him a heavy favorite. That he was (and is) a nutjob is undisputed, but I'm discussing his chess, not his personal peccadilloes.

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