Who invented the most openings in chess

Manfred Mann : thanks for your reply , this is exactly the intention of the post as well, to get reactions in order to see things better .

I have read your posts and your suggestions here above and posts number 45 and 57 are also okay, the main questions remain : "who" and "the most" and I added the question  "in which type of openings did they the trial-and-error of moves..."

Now to answer your remarks : I counted in the same way your names, such now in addition to my first list :

Petrosyan 4 ; Averbach 3 ; Romanishin 3 ; Zaitsev 3 ; Fischer 8 ( ! ) ; Tal 2 ; Spassky 3 ; Benko 3 ; Karel Opocensky 5.

I stopped my first list at 7, but now can mention the following as well : Simagin 7 ; Caro 5 ; Taimanov 8 ; Flohr 8 ; Richter 7 ; Janofsky 6 ; Larsen 6.

With Fischer you are more than right ! 

Perhaps the try to find out which particular opening systems are involved remains now, I am curious !  It is a lot of work, but nice !   Regards, Ger.

Fischer Defence in the King´s Gambit? (3 ...d6)

Manfred : my copy of the book is from 1996 and the younger ones, the modern players as Averbach and Romanishin are mentioned till that year, but over 30 players out of my two lists are ( or have ? ) passed away, so that info is kind of complete.

Have a look on www.schaakboek.nl under "algemeen" and you will find the numbers 14896 and 16017, David Hooper and Ken Whyld, The Oxford Companion to Chess, resp. from 1988 and 1984, both 407 pages ( my copy has 483 pages ).

I will think about the "lot of work" to find out which particular openings are involved, how important is this for the man asking the question first, ( chessmaster 102 ) and for the almost 30 writers of posts hereabove.

I think the questions "who" and  "the most" are answered ! 

What about Kasparov & Karpov & Kramnik?

Miha (MSC) : as I said, my reference book is dated 1996, and although Karpov was 45 years old then, only one opening is mentioned ( and in Wiki now the same one only )

In 1996 Kramnik was 21 and Kasparov 33, and no references to openings are in that book ; but in the meantime there is some progress : in Wiki both now have one opening related to their name.

We all now discover ( thanks to this forum ) that openings were tried out and made popular in the older days, Steinitz, Rubinstein, Nimzowitsch, Alekhine !

And even when we list who passed away over hundred years ago, we see Kieseritsky (+1853) 10 x , Anderssen (+1879) 14 x, Zukertort (+18888) 7x , Paulsen (+1891) 23 x, Steintz (+1900) 32 x, Pillsbury (+1906) 10 x and Chigorin (+1908) 13 x related to an opening.