What is the real and true Chess Strength of a chess player?

Ive read many threads about ratings, who is the best player and all that and many have argued about the ratings but i just saw an Aronian at 2802 beaten by a lower rated  Anand in a fashion that one would ask why an 2800 did not see. Your opinions please thanks.

Ratings are just an expression of how strongly a player has been playing over a fairly long period of time; they don´t mean that every game, every move is at the same level. A 2800 player on a good day is capable of seeing and calculating a 3000+ combination; likewise, he´ll also make the occasional <2000 blunder. And yesterday was a very good day for Anand ...

I don´t think it was a question of what Aronian did not see when he first moved his Knight away from f3, but rather what Anand DID see. Carlsen wouldn´t have described the game as "mindblowing" if that hadn´t been the case. You don´t get brilliant games without at least one crucial mistake, however small,  which sets off the fireworks; yesterday Aronian made that mistake, maybe on Saturday he´ll brilliantly demolish Karjakin in under 20 moves ... that´s chess, and I don´t think that a single game provides any reason to cast doubt on the value of the rating system.

Looking at one game hardly justifies drawing any conclusion(s) whatsoever regarding any rating system in use. In my opinion you should read up on rating systems in general in order to give yourself "a clue" here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_rating_system

I agree with basilicone. 

There are some days that I play at a low level and I am not as focused as I can be. that means I am not playing at my rating. Which is what chess.com thinks i should be playing at. 

Thanks for the link Nimzo.Sorry if i used the aronian-anand game,  im not really talking about a single game only. But the capability of a certain player to demonstrate such prowess at any given day. Im talking about the ability(or is it talent) to steer a game away from an opponents natural game, the ability to prevent the opponent from playing in his /her favorite schemes, the ability to dig deep in a position where everything is barren and yet wins, the will to complicate and uncomplicate positions and steer into a ruthlessly favourable game. Saying its a God given gift is obvious but there has to be logic to the process by which a player does things not normal to most. Where does that "capability or ability" come from?. Developed, learned or should we just accept it as a God-given thing?hmmm.

All my skill comes from reading Eric Schiller books

" But now I want to go back over his (Capablanca)  entire career, to understand him on the board, to look at his ideas from another perspective"

Anatoly Karpov.

Hmmmm, maybe i should try this one out. But the problem is... how?

It should be noted that the differences between the top players right now are so small (even the difference between Carlsen and Aronian, though it may be slightly noticeable at this point, is still pretty small -- if you play someone in a tournament 50 points higher or lower than you, do you really think of the conclusion as foregone?), that the only easy way to notice who is performing better is by someone keeping track; that's what ratings do . I think a person with the higher rating will on average be expected to perform better than those lower, but if there is only a difference of a few tens of rating points, you probably won't perceive of it too much while watching the games.

The difference between say Kramnik and Carlsen's ratings, for example, might just come down to one or two more draws Kramnik gets every tournament that Carlsen instead wins -- such a difference is so small that it can only be noticed over a large stream of games.

And of course, style of play is another thing. There are certain positions Aronian might play better than Carlsen and vice versa, and so if that position is reached, rating considerations may be slightly less important, as a person bad in a certain type of position won't "live up to his rating" if you will and instead probably play moves of lesser strength. The rating can be thought of as somewhat of an average, taking account of a person's results after playing (usually) a variety of players, and being in a variety of different positions; it is far from the only important consideration of a player. Nonetheless, I think it is a very strong one.

Will/did Karpov annotate a Capablanca game collection? Because I want a copy! :D

+1 to what nimzoboy said

Thats the problem he didnt make a book about that.

Good point Elubas, Certain positions a player may play better than the other was running through my mind as i was trying to understand Kaprovs words.

"One must be able to do everything well and have no real defects and to be able to do some things particularly well" Anatoly Karpov.

Im not sure if this line of Karpov is practically correct coz im wondering at his present state as a former top rated player and ex-world champion, will he still fare well with those 2800s or 2700 out there on his "innate abilities? Does it also mean that sometimes whatever 'talent" one has, its sticks to him all throughout his career?

The difference in ratings is only 30 points.  There's no special bonus for the 3rd digit being a different number.

So, does that mean that the chess era where chess computers are not yet in use where able to produce "deeper" chess players than today? Is that the reason why a Korchnoi and Spassky etc. (then elo rated 2600 plus) could still fare well with younger players? Or are they just underrated "Elo wise" before? What do you guys think?

There's a lot of debate on that. Some say the elo system has inflated; while this is perfectly possible, I'm not assuming it to be true because I think that, because we have so many resources now, it's not so inconceivable that modern players simply play at a higher strength than their predecessors. Obviously, being caught up on the theory and methods would help the old players immensely if they could teleport to our time.

Maybe i could sight Korchnoi, who had the chance to learn from the greats face to face. Its just amazing that up to his later years he still has that "crispiness" in his chess approach. Things that made me wonder if that kind of ability is innate or is it just accumulated through the years, the ones that truly made up a real chess strength?

Ratings are only a measure of past performance. One's actual "strength" is only shown in the last game you played.

Is it irregardless of the time schemes used say: a 25 min game or the 2hr game?

So Vishy... who played a quick, lifeless draw against Carslen today... is no longer the fire-eater that he was yesterday, when he demolished Aronian.

What a difference in playing strength 24 hours can make!

Hard to say. There are different rating systems for different time controls. I guess so