Best chessplayer ever?
For many years, chessplayers have always wondered who are some of the top 10 players in the history of the game. Such a question in reality cannot be answered accurately, since we have to compare different chessplayers from different eras. However, we CAN give an attempt to find the candidates of chessplayers. I shall try to do this.
I shall try to give the top 10 chessplayers in history of the game. Like i have said, these are easily debatable, and i will not be correct with my assumptions, but i will be happy to listen to any changes you think should be made to the table. Here are personally my top 10 chessplayers ever.
10. Paul Morphy- if you are a chess historian, then you would have probobly heard this name pop up before. 200 years ago, Morphy was the leading chessplayer in his time, becoming the first unofficial world champion. Increadebly famous for playing 'The Opera Game', which involves wonderful technique leaving his opponents paralyzed and won with a queen sacrifice.Unfortunately, too little is known of his real competitors, hence i don't think he deserves to be higher on this list. Sorry Morphy!
9. Wilhelm Stienitz- this is the first official world chess champion in chess. It is said that if you take all the pieces from the board, put them in a box, shake them around a bit and then pour them back onto the board you would have the style of Steinitz. In other words, Steinitz managed to get himself into bizzare positions in games, and was a very unpredictable chess player.
8. Larsen- this chessplayer was never world chess champion, but is most likely the best player not to be so. He would never play for a draw, which made many of his chess games very exciting to watch. He once said that he deliberately plays poor openings just to suprise his opponent! Larsen was a fine chessplayer.
7. Karpov- unlike Larsen and Wilhem, Karpov was not such a tatical player, but more of a positional player. Although he was not as exciting to watch, he is an very effective chessplayer, becoming World Champion for 10 years, and even when he lost it to Garry, he almost snached the title back from him. A very strategic player deserving of no. 7
6. Alekhine- Alexander Alekhine is the only chessplayer that has lost his World Champion title due to his own death. Alekhine was a very determined chessplayer that will ALWAYS study to make himself the ultimate player. He held the world chess title twice (losing it to Euwe, but regaining it a year later). Alekhine was one of the few chessplayers that was able to beat Capablanca.
5. Tal- also known as "The Magician From Riga", Mikail Tal is often reffered as the greatest attacking chessplayer of all time. Unfortunately, he was only world champion for one year due to kidney problems (which eventually caused his death (he was a chain smoker)). Tal's games were always very exciting to watch, and he would always say that chess is a art.
4. Botvinik- Mikhail Botvinik is the only chessplayer to hold the world chess title on 3 seperate occaisions; a achievement that will not likely be repeated. He was a very natural chessplayer, and was very good on playing on the flanks (one of the English opening variations is named after him). He would also analyze thousands and thousands of games, and contributed to chess computing.
Now we are on the top 3 chessplayers. These are all great legends that really do deserve to be this high. Here it goes!
---3. Robert James (Bobby) Fischer---
Bobby Fischer is the only American chessplayer to win the World Chess Championship. His match against Boris Spassky resulted in millions of people to learn the Game of Kings. Unfortunately, Bobby missed the potential to become even better! Instead of improving the game, he 'vanished', only to resurface making anti Jew accusations. If he dedicated his himself to the game even more, maybe he could have made no. 1...we might never know. He will always be remembered for his fantastic games, and he more than deserves to be on this list.
---2. Garry Kasparov---
I was considering of putting Kasparov top of the list, but i decided that he gets no.2. Garry is possibly the best tactictian in the history of chess, and played a very famous match against IBM's chess computer Deep Blue; a engine that could see 200,000,000 positions in one second (yes, i know he lost the match, but the fact that he even won one game is VERY impressive). Was the leading chessplayer for 15 years, when he suprisingly lost to Vladmir Kramnik. Kasparov's games did not seem very interesting at first, but everyone saw the genious in him after the games were analyzed.
---1. Jose Raul Capablanca---
It is said that to really know how good a chessplayer is, you need to look at his endgames. If this is the case, Jose Raul Capablanca is easily the best chessplayer in history. His endgames were legendary and it was later on discovered that he made the most computer-like moves. This chessplayer at one point (1914-1924) lost only one game in 10 years! Personally, i find both Kasparov and Capablanca as good as each other, but no.1 spot goes to Jose because improving in chess was harder (and required more effort) in his time than it did in Garry's (since Garry had chess computers accessible to him, Capablanca had only chess books).
And there they are! I would like to hear your comments on this blog! Feel free to comment and post. Thanks for reading!
