Today's Top Players/Players in the 60's

The top 5 are all currently over 2770 yet there were world champions in the 60's that are rated much lower, in fact they wouldn't even get into the top 50 these days. Even though the rating system is not perfect, do you really think that there are at least 50 players or so that could beat the likes of Spassky and Petrosian, who were world champions in their own right. The 60's had a lot of great characters that were capable of producing great chess ideas over the board (leonid Stein for example), whereas today's games feature players (even Anand) who follow theory well, then immediately go off the rails and lose the second they forget the theory. Today's game is too theory-laden, and today's players lack personality. We currently have very few players that will be remembered in history unlike the 60s. What do you think? Are today's players that much better than those in the 60's? 

Ratings inflation is one cause.

However, todays players are drawing on quite a bit of theory that's been developed since the 60s, including many contributions made by engine analysis that wasn't available back then.

Assuming each of the sets of players were utilizing the resources available to them in their respective eras, there would be little contest.  Today's players would dominate.

It is hard for me to believe Petrosian would have had much problem beating Gelfand, that's for sure.

Am inclined to agree. Karpov said of Fischer that his ability to generate ideas over the board is unrivled. That's what I find with Leonid Stein. He wouldn't even get into the top 100 today, even though he was 3rd in the world at one point, yet his ideas are often far superior to a lot of top players today. Petrosian also. Not knocking the top players today but I don't see them as being any better.

i think one should take into consideration rating inflation that has occured. you must factor the fewer games [played  against inferior players. today there are many more tournaments with many strong players but the bulk do not measure up to reshevsy,spassky,stein,keres,geller,larsen, and many more whose peak rating was 2650 tops .thses players were they playing today at peak performance would surely be in the top 50 at least,probably higher!

In my opinion Larsen would beat just about everyone today except possibly Carlsen and Anand. 

Assuming that they all have access to today's resources, I'm inclined to agree. 

If you dont believe there is rating inflation you would have to believe there are 30 players ( at least ) that are better today than Spassky was at his peak. His best was 2680 or so.... do you believe everyone over 2700 is better than he was at his best ?  I do not. 

That there is rating inflation seems indisputable.

Gauging how much of the increase in ratings is due to the evolution of chess play among GMs is much harder.

Note that Korchnoi was 2643 at age 70, not far off his peak 2695 about 3 decades earlier. This is not wholly due to his remaining sharp .

I think the inflation is 50-100 points .

It's hard to compare, but nowadays players have less time for their moves, and no adjournments during which they and their teams can analyse the positions, and that may explain some mistakes. The competition is tougher today and maybe the rating inflation hasn't been all that huge. On the first unofficial rating list from 1969 Spassky was 2690. That's somewhere around Giri-Morozevich-Polgar 42 years later. Maybe the World Champion of 1969 would have beaten them but chess has gone forward since the 1960s and I'm not totally certain about it.

has this ever been done-

compile a database of (eg.) spassky's games and one of a recent world champion,allow a computer to use ONLY the best move as found in the database(not one generated by the computer-let's be clear on that)and see what transpires.if no exact move is found,which is more than probable after opening,then an extrapolation would be used.

this quandry presents itself in every other sport most notably the  'Tyson or Ali' debate.while conclusions are elusive the debates are always interesting.

Yes, it has, although not in that specific context:

http://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CB0QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fciteseerx.ist.psu.edu%2Fviewdoc%2Fdownload%3Fdoi%3D10.1.1.110.9628%26rep%3Drep1%26type%3Dpdf&ei=Yy7uTebUN474sAOnn83IAw&usg=AFQjCNEFLw4zuBQpFD-YrPv1rEngkse3gw&sig2=kGVRTwmSEUKVKAF4DaSt0A

See also:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methods_for_comparing_top_chess_players_throughout_history

excellent articles.thanks.i will peruse them later.

Wouldn't more tournaments simply make the ratings more accurate, not necessarily higher?

So players are rated higher today because players are rated higher today?

If Fischer had a bunch of 2700 players to "feed" on his rating would have been unbelievable ! The closest to him was 100 points lower in fact. The top guys today dont play any Open events where they would be playing guys 100 points lower, and more, they play among themselves and keep their ratings bloated. If they played big open events I bet a bunch of them would soon drop below 2700. 

Don't forget that women's ratings were also inflated by 100 points to allow them to compete in more men's tournaments, that had an effect also. 

Sure, but it still doesn't explain why there are more 2700s around.  Citing the fact that there are extra rating points at the top end of the pool as compared to 50 years ago and saying that this explains the higher ratings at the top end of the pool is somewhat circular reasoning.  The question is why are those extra points there in the first place?

Reb's explanation seems reasonable as a contributing factor, for example.