Top 10 players ever.

Kasparov , Anand , Carlsen , Karpov , Talk , Kramnik , Alekhine , Fisher , Capablanca , Spassky.----+---- ( please consider which player has become W.C. how many times )

Kasparov , Anand , Carlsen , Karpov , Talk , Kramnik , Alekhine , Fisher , Capablanca , Spassky.----+---- ( please consider which player has become W.C. how many times )

Kasparov , Anand , Carlsen , Karpov , Talk , Kramnik , Alekhine , Fisher , Capablanca , Spassky.----+---- ( please consider which player has become W.C. how many times )

And how many times do you consider Lasker to have become World Champion? :-)

       What do you mean by forfeit?

Based on dominance in their respective eras, I would say, Kasparov, Fischer and Carlsen are the top three in a league of their own. All three would have a "Chess Ability" of "100". All three should/are having an Elo of 2800+ permanently attached to their names. It differentiates them from the other Fide rated 2800s (of today) who consistently slip down and out and are not comparable.

Then comes the rest. Chess Ability of 99 and all the way down....

If I were to rank them all specifically though, it would be something like this:

1. Fischer

2. Kasparov

3. Carlsen

4. Karpov

5. Capablanca

6. Kramnik

7. Anand

8. Alekhine

9. Lasker

10. Tal

”Based on dominance in their respective eras”

Kramnik and Anand more dominant in their respective eras than Lasker or Steinitz?

OK, didn't mention strength of opposition.

Kramnik/Anand have played top level opposition for years now, also from non computer era to computer era, while remaining near the top all the time....so I'm taking that into account as well. They've more than earned their place.

"They've more than earned their place"

To me especially Kramnik as 6th greatest ever is too high. Of course his opposition is objectively stronger than the opponents for example Lasker faced, but the results differ quite a bit too. The last time Kramnik won a classical only event was 7 years ago, and he has played a lot of them. I'm also not sure that he ever was the best player in the world at any point of his career, even if he shared first on two rating lists. Impressive to stay in the top ten almost consistently for close to 25 years, but not enough for me to place him ahead of Lasker, Steinitz, Botvinnik, Alekhine, etc

Well you could switch up his spot with Anand, because there is very little difference between them to me...the only difference between him and Anand is because Kramnik had less issues beating Kasparov than Anand ever did, in fact Kasparov practically owned Anand's number.....although in terms of tournaments, Anand has more tournament wins than Kramnik I think.

Kramnik also ranks well on the Chess.com CAPS rating list in terms of "accuracy" when measured with a computer. Objectively, there is very little difference between them both, for me. Both are dinosaurs of chess.

"the only difference between him and Anand is because Kramnik had less issues beating Kasparov than Anand ever did, in fact Kasparov practically owned Anand's number"

Kramnik scored much better results against Kasparov, but I don't know if that's the only difference...  I would rank Anand a bit ahead in match results, average ranking, highest rating, tournament results, longevity, World Championships, speed chess results and Candidates results. Kramnik said before their title match in 2008 that the result would decide who would be the greatest of the two career wise. And Anand won that match convincingly, as well as two more title matches, and then another Candidates.

I have Anand as around #10 on my greatest ever list, but maybe that is being too harsh. Still, Anand was never anywhere close to be in the position of say Steinitz 1872-92, Lasker 1895-1915, Capablanca in the early 1920s, Alekhine 1927-34, Botvinnik 1940-50, Tal in 1960, Fischer around 1970, Karpov 1975-85, Kasparov in 1990s, Carlsen in 2010s etc. But it is more difficult today, so maybe both Anand and Kramnik deserve to be higher than I place them.

By checking  Their Caps   Alekhine(2541) Lasker (2498) Steinitz (2323) While Kramnink(2898) and Anand(2769) ..

You don't look at how dominant they were in their eras, but by how strong their games/opponens were.. Keep in mind that modern players play alot of games too in comparison..

https://www.chess.com/article/view/should-we-trust-computers

1. Garry Kasparov

2. Anatoly Karpov

3. Magnus Carlsen

4. Boris Spassky

5. Vishwanathan Anand

6. Victor Korchnoi

7. Tigran Petrosian

8. Jose Raul Capablanca

9. Alexander Alekhine

10. Levon Aronian

In 1975, extremely doubtful. Fischer's major weakness was his fear of losing, and that was only before he sat down at the board. We're talking about the guy who took sabbaticals more than once during his career, only to come back even stronger. He would have polished off Karpov in 1975 (aged 32 he would have been at his absolute peak as a chess player), and in 1978 it would have been an interesting contest. Karpov's stamina was very poor and the format first to six wins would have worked in Fischer's favour (but he would have won also in the old 24 game format). Korchnoi was clearly not Karpov's equal, but still ran him extremely close in both '74 and '78.

Difficult to pick a top 10, but one of the most under-appreciated world champions was Mikhail Botvinnik. To all intents and purposes, he was an amateur (with quite long absences), and considerably older than his competitors. Had he devoted himself full time to chess in the postwar period, it's hard to see Bronstein and Smyslov drawing him in '51 and '54. Also, on my list Rubinstein would get a place, even though he never became world champion.

As for the claim, 'today's players are much better': yes, of course. They're already standing on the shoulders of giants.

Tal

top ten players ever: 1 me 2 me 3 me 4 me 5 me 6 me 7 me 8 me 9 me and 10 me