saying Carlsen plays as well as Karpov at his best is delusional.
How can you be sure that Karpov played better than Carlsen does? Chess has evolved since Karpov was the best player in the world 30 years ago. I don't think Karpov necessarily played better than Anand and Kramnik at their best either. He was a greater player but if he played better chess is hard to evaluate.
"Gelfand is the challenger for the World Chess Championship what does that tell you about the state of chess at the moment?"
Nothing wrong with the state of chess itself, just like when Khalifman and Kasimdzhanov won their knockouts. What's wrong is rather having knockouts decide important matters, but since only Carlsen protested about that cycle change FIDE used that format one more time, and once again a player far from the top won.
"It was published in 2006 and these experts don't even have Carlsen in their list of 101 greatest of all times. IMO if they retooled and reprinted it in 2012, they would include Carlsen but he wouldn't be even top 10 of all time, let alone top 5. IMO at this point in his career he should be ranked after Spassky (#11 on their list)"
No one ranked the 15-year-old Carlsen as one of the greatest players ever, when that list was made he was in the lower 2600s. If Keene and Divinsky wouldn't rank him top ten among the greatest players ever today it wouldn't be hard to understand, I don't rank him there myself. But ranking Spassky as the greater player of the two doesn't equal stating that Spassky played better chess in the 1960s than Carlsen does in the 2010s.
"He (Carlsen) doesn't YET have a plus score against his contemporaries on the backside of their careers!!!"
The question is if Carlsen's scores five years ago define his level today. Carlsen's -1 against Kramnik is caused by a loss when Kramnik was World Champion and Carlsen 16 and far from a top ten player. Also Carlsen's minus against Anand was hardly the result of Anand in the dawn of his career vs Carlsen on the top. Anand was World Champion and consecutive Linares winner when Carlsen lost four games before reaching top ten.
One could just as well pick Aronian's 6-1 against Anand during the latter's World Champion years and draw conclusions from that, but one or two head to head career scores say little about who is playing the best chess today. A bigger comparison could look like this, only including years when Anand was a top player and/or World Champion but many games from long before Carlsen reached top ten level.
Anand vs Aronian 1-6
Carlsen vs Aronian 6-4
Anand vs Radjabov 2-2
Carlsen vs Radjabov 5-1
Anand vs Nakamura 0-1
Carlsen vs Nakamura 5-0
Anand vs Ivanchuk post-2000 1-2
Carlsen vs Ivanchuk 8-2
Anand vs Topalov 13-12
Carlsen vs Topalov 8-3
Then Anand is +1 against Kramnik while Carlsen is -1, but how conclusive those stats are with regards to Carlsen's playing level today is hard to say. I think it's difficult to say if Carlsen at his best plays better moves than Karpov at his best, maybe, maybe not. Karpov had more time for his moves, and the advantage of adjournments when his very strong seconds could help him with endgame analysis.
"To compare Carlsen to even Karpov is ludacris. Karpov thoroughly dominated the chess world for 10 years!"
Steinitz and Lasker dominated chess for longer periods than that, but how long a player dominated the chess world doesn't have to say much about if he played stronger moves than the best players today.
C H O'D Alexander
Ribli
Lengyel
Ftacnik
Sax
Muddy Waters... :)
Clapton
Stevie Ray
Johnny Winters
Jeff Beck
Hendrix
(whoo!!!)
it also tells us that you're laughing out loud over something vague or incoherant (I think)...
Hey, watch how you're talking to Boris Spassky!
Paul Morphy
Jose Raúl Capablanca
Bobby Fischer
Anatoli Karpov
Garry Kasparov
The guy with the Fischer avatar has Fischer as #1, and the guy who has the Morphy avatar has Morphy as #1. I guess it's to be expected.
1.Kasparov
2.Fischer
3.Karpov
4.Capablanca
5.Lasker
1. rat
2. jonden
3. davidpuree
4. ciljettu
5. X-factor
Now in your last post you AGREED with me that he's not a top five best player of all time, yet you're still arguing with me?!
Here's you agreeing with me... "If Keene and Divinsky wouldn't rank him top ten among the greatest players ever today it wouldn't be hard to understand, I don't rank him there myself."
No, I say that I don't rank him as one of the ten greatest players ever. As I have said I don't think Carlsen is a greater player than Steinitz, but if I would rank the individuals that have played the objectively strongest chess I'd rank Carlsen ahead of Steinitz. That's why I made two lists, one called "greatest" based on career achievements while the other was a guess at who have played the best chess. I see no reason that the strongest player in the world around 2010 should play weaker moves than the best player did around 1870.
You say that we only can go by results, and rank Anand and Kramnik ahead of Lasker, Steinitz, Alekhine, Botvinnik, etc. I first assumed that you ranked players based on objective playing strength rather than career achievements, since I find it hard to see how Kramnik can be said to have had better results than for example Lasker (or why all your picks were World Champions less than 40 years ago).
From S:t Petersburg 1895/96 to New York 1924 Lasker won every tournament he played except for one second place (when +7 in 15 games wasn't enough). A leading GM like Vidmar stated before New York 1927 that it was a pity that Lasker didn't play "since he still is the strongest player in the world". Then he was 59 years old, and had won convincingly ahead of Capablanca and Alekhine in his latest tournament. Add to that a couple of 8-0 wins in title matches and being the best player in the world for at least 25 years and I think it's hard to overestimate his career achievements.
As for the truechess site, I don't find it particularly credible. Smyslov is supposed to have played his best chess in 1976, when he was 55, and played much better than World Champion Karpov did in the same period, as well as better than Kasparov at his peak? Kramnik was at his best in 1992, and Euwe, ten years before winning the title, played better than Kasparov and Karpov at their best, etc etc.
TMIMITW, you got me started, so here is mine
1. AndyClifton
2. chrisr2212
3. chubbychocobo
4. DrSpudnik
5. TMIMITW
6. ShakaZulu, oh wait that is 6, not 5 players, my bad, sorry,
1. Garry Kasparov
2. Bobby Fischer
3. Magnus Carlsen
4. Viswanathan Anand
5. Jose Raul Capablanca
I want to be like Fabelhaft. When a poster asks for the 5 best players off all time, I'm going to make two lists. I'm going to label one 'best' and one 'greatest' (practically synonyms in this context) and then argue for 3 days about the difference. Actually, I'm going to do him one better...a THIRD catagory! This one is 'ginormous'...'top 5 ginormous chess players'. Let's see...who's number 1...well Fischer was over 6 feet tall so he's a contender...but Steinitz was fat...hmm.
How can someone who has never won a World Chess Championship be rated above most World Chess Champions?
Because best players and greatest players are two different things. I think Carlsen plays stronger moves than Steinitz did, but I think Steinitz career achievements make him a greater player. If "five best players" mean the players that played the "best" chess I'd rank Carlsen ahead of Steinitz, if it's a question of the greatest players based on career achievements I'd rank Steinitz ahead of Carlsen.