Blogs
Chess Royalty - Part Two
Photo: Paweł Grochowalski. These are two of the best players ever. I hope you know their names!

Chess Royalty - Part Two

Avatar of lukegk
lukegk
| 11

Hello friends! Welcome to part two of my blog on chess royalty. By royalty, I meant the world champion. There have been 16 World Chess Champions, and in the last blog I covered the first 6. In this one, I'll cover the last 10. Since we've got so much to look at, we might as well get started! In this post, we'll look at the games of an opera singer, a GOAT, a mysterious anti-Semitic Jew, and of course, Mr. Magnus Carlsen, who will be world champion until Ding and Nepo clash. 

Vasily Smyslov

Smyslov is another unpopular world champion. In fact, I've never heard somebody say that Smyslov is their favorite player. But he was so great! He won 17 Olympiad Medals, was the two-time Soviet Champion, and won the world championship title twice. He was a very positional player, but was by no means one sided, as can be seen by this game.

Wow, a game like that against Botvinnik. That's really something to be proud of. Smyslov was also an opera singer. Since I know nothing about opera, I'm focusing on his chess career.
And now: HYPE HYPE HYPE HYPE HYPE!! Tal Time.
Mikhail Tal

The Wizard from Riga (as Tal was known) was obviously one of the greatest of all time. He won six Soviet Championships (more than you've won, I can guarantee that much), was Champion of the World, and won many of the greatest games ever played. I can't say enough about this guy. He won the Candidates with 4/4 against Bobby Fischer, the World Blitz Championship just four years before his death, and was an amazing human being who loved chess. I've blogged about his games several times, but here's another one of them.
WOW.
Tigran Petrosian

Iron Tigran was the World Champion for six years, won four Soviet Championships, and played in the Olympiad ten times. He was effectively impossible to beat for all but the strongest players; he did not lose a single game in 1962. His positional style and prophylactic victories are a strategic masterclass. Here's one of his exchange-sacking wins.

Boris Spassky


Boris Spassky is often remembered for losing to Fischer. But he deserves a lot more fame than that. He was the World Champion (which is no mean achievement, by the way), won the World Juniors, and was a top player for many years. Here's one of his games which you may recognize from the silver screen.

Note that I have never watched this movie, so all I know is that this position occurs in it.

Wow, that's a way to win a game 👀. If I could play that sort of game once...

Bobby Fischer


You know who he is. Bobby Fischer, world chess champion, anti-Semitic Jew, traitor, runaway from the law, and chess genius. No matter what you think of Fischer, he's a great chessplayer. And opinions are mixed - as can be seen by this poll and this poll. But, without diving into the debate over his later life, let's just see one of his immortal games.

RIP, Fischer.

Anatoly Karpov


Karpov was king of the chess world for 10 years. He won the title by default but was still the strongest player in the world at the time. He was the highest-rated in the world for 100 months. He played like a python. He squeezed his opponent to zugzwang. He was still capable of producing great attacking masterpieces, but preferred positional play.

That was a pained pawn.

Garry Kasparov


This man is my favorite candidate for the greatest ever. He was champion for 15 years - no mean achievement, defeated basically every top player of his time, and has influenced the game more than anybody else, with the possible exception of Magnus. Here's one of my favorites

Whew. That was quite a win.

Onward and upward!

Vladimir Kramnik


Kramnik was world champion for seven years, with an exceptionally solid and beautiful style. He was comfortable in every sort of position, and had a winning record against Kasparov. Here's one of his wins against the Beast of Baku, Gary Kasparov.

Viswanathan Anand


Anand, letting alone his meteoric performances, is notable for one massive reason; he brought a nation to chess. In the same way that Bobby Fischer taught the United States to love chess, Anand taught India. Now India is producing a crop of young prodigies: Gukesh D, Nihal Sarin, Pragganandha, S L Narayan, and several others. Vishy was world champion for six years and has had a productive career at an age when many other players have retired. He won Wijk aan Zee five times, won Linares several times, and is now in FIDE leadership. Despite being vice president of FIDE, he has not been abducted by aliens (unlike Ilyumzhinov).

Magnus Carlsen


You know about Magnus. Whether or not you follow chess news, (or even play chess), you've probably heard of Magnus Carlsen (or as my non-chess-playing friend calls him, Karl Magnusson). He's world champion, and has had so many amazing accomplishments I can't list them all. Let's just sit back and look at this game.

That's it (for that section of the blog). I'm going to do a Guess the Elo right now, just for bonus content. I'll post the Elo ratings of the two players next time. Put your guess in the comments below.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed this blog as much as I enjoyed writing it. Have a good one.

Who do you think will win the 2023 World Chess Championship? Put your guess in the comments below.