top 10 greatest opening players

You know the guys who get a advantage from the opening and never let go.

the ones who opening prep in certain pet lines of theres take them to the endgame.

just considered all around a great openings player.

My top 10

1.Garry Kasparov

2.Botvinnik

3.Efim Geller

4.Bobby Fisccher

5.Max Euwe

6.David Bronstien

7.Tartakower

8.Henry Nelson Pillsbury

9.Vasily Smyslov

10.Krammnik

tie for 11th

Every 2700+ player of today (opening prep freaks)

I'd throw in Karpov & Anand. Also, allegedy Fischer's repertoire was based on Boleslavsky's...

I am not sure Kasparov belongs, since he has a team of specialists prepare his openings.  Karpov certainly doesn't as he is absolutely devoid of original opening ideas and would play what his seconds gave him to without analyzing it much himself. 

well entire team or not kasaprov has been a trend setter in the opening for some years now and he even admitted when retireing that he still has 2000+ novelties he hasn't ever used in his datbase waiting to be released and as fake that sounds it's  nowhere to unbelievable since all you need to do is capatlise on certain variations and game continuations and GM hikaru Nakamure once played up to 32 moves without using anytime on his clock matter a fact he even gained time ! when asked afterwards he said all that was part of his opening home prep and he only has one person working as his second and to be more bold it's not a GM its a NM. Krammnik says that in certain continuations of the Berlin defense in the Ruy Lopez he's able to go 60 moves deep simply based off his home opening prep so ya thats why I think anyone over 2700 is a opening prep freak.

So Kasparov has a database of 2000+ novelties that his army of analysts found, why is that hard to believe?

Haha but if they found them then why dont they use any of them in there own games Kasparov records all i mean ALL his games form simuls to blitz etc... using recall or just wrinting them down so i'm sure through analysing all thoshe games he's come up with the novelties himself and nowadays I hink he only has 2 GM working with him as personal coaches.

I would bet it's in their contract.  They have been paid for their research.  Also they would probably like to work for other GMs, but wouldn't get hired if they can't be trusted.

I would say the worst opening player by deffinition of preprepared openings would be Morphy, he played off of intuition and built his own opening database. I wish I could have that, the I would never get forked in the opening again

Actually Morphy had the reputation of being a book player.  Its hard to tell if he was playing by intuition or consciously following certain principles.  I tend to think he was following certain principles such as development and opening lines of attack.  He did write a newspaper column which shows that he had definite principles he followed. 

yeah but he never studied books he practically wrote a lot of theory on his own

To some it does matter.  It puts his accomplishments in perspective.  It sort of like comparing jockeys in horse racing .  It's hard to do because the best jockeys get the best horses.

What is your source for this statement?  I remember reading that when in school Morphy would borrow chess books from his classmates and return them in a few days having quickly absorbed what he wanted from the books.  There is a famous story that Morphy inscribed on the title page of a book authored by Staunton under Staunton's name "and the author of a number of devlishly bad games" 

Wikipedia states (citing among other sources Lawson, D. (1976). Paul Morphy: the Pride and the Sorrow of Chess. David McKay. ISBN 0679130446. Retrieved 2008-06-19.):

"The Contemporaries, including Steinitz and Morphy, regarded Staunton's writings on chess openings as among the best of their time."

Where is batgirl when you need her? 

 but what about his near photographic memory, When he was a small child, he was watching his Father and Uncle play eachother, both abandoned the game as a draw, but Morphy called them back rearanged the pieces to where they were around ten moves before, and showed a winning combination that if initiated was unstopable

Igor Zaitsev and Evgeny Sveshnikov were great opening theoreticians, but presumably weaker in other respects.

still of pre database, Greco, was awesome, he somehow knew which of his opponents moves were crap and then showed that he knew why

Alexander Alekhine certainly belongs on the list. 

go Alekhine defence

 How so I hope your not saying this just because of the alkhine defense.

well think about it, how many people would think about playing Nf6 had alekhine not done it