5 Best Players of All Time

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. 

It doesn't take much common sense to understand that Smyslov didn't play better chess in 1976 than Karpov (not to mention play better than Karpov or Kasparov ever did). Since the "research" states that Smyslov played better than the World Champion in 1976, why did the latter score so much better results than the 55-year-old Smyslov?

Karpov won the Soviet Championship in 1976 with a +7 score while Smyslov didn't reach top five, and in the Interzonal Smyslov failed to qualify for the Candidates. The fairly weak Hastings the same year was won by Romanishin on +9 while Smyslov scored +2. Needless to say, with these results Smyslov was nowhere near top ten on the rating list that was topped by Karpov in 1976.

As for your claiming that I don't believe that Smyslov played better in 1976 than Kramnik did when he was 16-17 I don't know where that one came from. What I said was that I don't believe in the "research" result that the 16-17-year-old Kramnik played better chess than he ever did later in his career, and that I don't believe Euwe of 1925 played better chess than Kasparov and Karpov ever did. It's hard to take such results seriously.

and how about that guy in Singapore near the Marina Promenade, maybe it was a stray cat you saw

   Again, you're not framing your criticisms so I can go to the charts and see what you're talking about.  You do realize there are 1, 2, 3, 5, 10, 15 year charts, each with the options of with or without draws included, don't you?  That's 12 possible charts; without you referencing which one you are criticising I don't know which one(s) to look at.

   Your argument in this post contradicts your original stance.  You are currently saying that "common sense" says that Smyslov COULD NOT have played better chess than Karpov the World Chess Champion in 1976, however, your original stance was that Carlsen (who is not the current world champion) IS playing better than Anand the current world champion. 

   So which is it?  Does your 'common sense' only apply to years before 1977 and ceases to apply to the present? 

I have another best chess-players list too :

1. Muddy Waters
2. John-Lee Hooker
3. Howlin' Wolf
4. Sonny Boy Wiliamson II
5. Chuck Berry

Why is everyone arguing about smyslov, I wouldn't even consider putting him in my top five. And as for Magnus Carlsen...

Top five = World Champions ONLY!!

We may need another topic-a list of best lists!

This discussion seems pointless to continue so I'll just address this point. To me the idea that Smyslov played better than Karpov in 1976 goes against common sense since Karpov's results were vastly better than Smyslov's during the year. We're talking about a #1 that won Soviet Championship, Montilla, Amsterdam and Skopje during 1976 (going +10 in the last event) vs a Smyslov that won nothing and was far behind not only Karpov when they faced each other but also far behind a player like Kagan (not ranked in the top 400) in Hastings.

I don't think it goes against common sense to think that Carlsen plays better chess than the current World Champion since Carlsen's results have been better than Anand's lately. He won four top tournaments in 2010 as well as in 2011, and was voted the best player the last years. In all his nine latest tournaments he performed 2815+, something no other active player ever did. Anand hasn't won a tournament in more than four years, and finished in the middle or bottom half in his latest events in 2011. So the idea that Carlsen currently plays better than Anand seems quite logical to me.

As for the truechess study I only looked at the first table, "ranking of Champions based on best years", where it was stated that Smyslov's best year was 1976, Euwe's best was 1925, Kramnik's best 1992, Spassky's best 1980, etc. I'm sure there are more merits to the study than my quick glance discovered, but that first table was hard enough to swallow :-)

,V. Anand, M. Carlsen,Nakamura, N.Sort and CMILYTE!!!

CMILYTE ?  Nice choice !!   (am part-Lithuanian:)  

LOL.  Pretty much sums up the "serious" forums... 

1. Fischer

2. Lasker

3. Carlsen

4. Kasparov

5. Capablanca

1. Kasparov

2. Lasker 

3. Tal

4. Karpov

5. Capablanca

No place for Fischer, likely the best of his time, but there weren't a whole lot of other class players in that time. All those listed stood out amongst other class players

I like zman1234 's list... I think I would have Alekhine over Lasker. lasker had more longevity than anyone in history however. I think in terms of pure talent Alekhine. 27 years as a World champion has to count for something.