Top 5 players of all time

I feel like so many people have recency biased now a days, I tend to value what older players did more due to lack of resources in their generation (lines, computers, coaches, internet). My top 5 of all time are:

5. Karpov

4. Carlson

3. Kasparov

2. Fischer 

1. Morphy

respond with yours, or your thoughts!

Fischer.

Capablanca.

Karpov

Lasker

Alekhine

Who is "Carlson"? Everybody is writing wrong, I guess.

Carlson

Kasparov

Fischer

Karpov

Nepo

I trhought the name was CARLSEN not carlson.

Chronologically:

    Philidor

    Morphy

    Capablanca

    Botvinnik

    Fischer

    Kasparov

Carlsen is still in the middle of his chess career but it seems highly likely that he would be next on the list.

Who is the rival of Carlsen? Because i do think this period of time is pretty mediocre.

Who knows who might show up in the next few years and beat Carlsen convincingly? When he's nearer the end of his career we'll have a clearer idea. He certainly looks like a "top ten" player.

In no particular order:  

Fischer

Kasparov 

Carlsen

Karpov

Of course it's possible to add players like Morphy, Capablanca, Alekhine, Botvinnik, etc BUT....  as far as a match today, I'd pick the more modern players. Also, Lasker was only wc for 27 years because he got to pick the challengers. Capablanca went undefeated for 8 years because he didn't play much during that span! Hahahaha.  

Those are my top 4, I'll come up with a 5th later.  I'd like to mention my list of the top players to never be called world champion.  

Korchnoi, Fine, Reshevsky, Rubinstein, Bronstein, a few more. I'll list them later.

If one looks at the other top ranked players when he won the title, Anand, Kramnik, Topalov, Caruana and Aronian are in the top ten, together with Nakamura, Grischuk, Gelfand and Mamedyarov. It’s not a weak bunch on the whole.

When Fischer won the title his top ranked opponents were Spassky, Petrosian, Polugaevsky, Korchnoi, Portisch and Botvinnik. Not exactly a weak bunch either, but only Botvinnik would be a Candidate for a top ten greatest ever list spot, even if he then was in his 60s and far from his top level.

I don’t think today is any weaker than previous time periods, I suppose current players often look less impressive because they are still young and have much left of their careers.

Kasparov

Fischer

Carlsen

Karpov

Capablanca

I think he has done enough for a top three spot already, regardless what will happen in the future. Capa was a giant in every way, but lost convincingly in his only title defense. Carlsen won five title matches and after 13 years as #1 he is still 59 Elo ahead of #2. It will take a lot of really bad results for him to drop down to #2.

But to me Kasparov and Lasker are still ahead, with Carlsen in third.

My estimation at their respective peaks:

1.  Carlsen - best all around

2.  Fischer - best attacker, possible tie for #1

3.  Petrosian

4.  Kasparov

5.  Anand - nicest

Morphy might deserve a place; I'd like to see a computer assisted analysis of the strength of his games at his peak.  I view Philidor, Steinitz, and Fine as being among the top contributors to the progress of chess, and perhaps Botvinnik also in a slightly different way.  I'm curious why Karpov shows up on so many peoples' lists.

his estimated rating based on accuracy of his games was around 2400, which is pretty impressive for his time period given no one else was estimated to be above 2200 or so

"My estimation at their respective peaks:

1.  Carlsen - best all around

2.  Fischer - best attacker, possible tie for #1

3.  Petrosian"

Petrosian? He won the Candidates with a margin of 0.5 points, beat the 52-year-old Botvinnik. who was keeping the title halfway through the match before tiring, and then scored a small minus in his two matches against Spassky. If he ever was the best player in the world it must have been for a short time and with a small margin. I find it diffult to rank him ahead of players like Kasparov...

 "I'm curious why Karpov shows up on so many peoples' lists"

Well, he was the best player in the world for 10 years, and #2 for another decade. If not for Kasparov he could have been World Champion for 25 years. I wonder by what metric you rank Petrosian ahead of him and Kasparov.

The GOAT

1.Anish Giri

2.Carlsen

3.Caruana

4.Ding Loren

5.Gukesh

Ah, I see - people are failing to see the difference between a world champion and the best player in the world.  Karpov won the world championship because of a dispute over the format, not because he was the best player in the world - in fact, at the time Fischer was rated 75 points higher, and that's not a small difference.  There's some question whether Karpov was ever the best player in the world, let alone for 10 years.

”Ah, I see - people are failing to see the difference between a world champion and the best player in the world.  Karpov won the world championship because of a dispute over the format”

”There's some question whether Karpov was ever the best player in the world”

Well, if Carlsen quit playing chess today I wouldn’t call him the best player in the world a dozen years from now. Back in the day Fischer got three years on top of the rating list without playing. If the rules were the same as today, Karpov would have been #1 considerably longer.

But Karpov wasn’t just some guy that benefited from ”a dispute over the format”. He played five even matches against Kasparov and could score results like this 19 years after becoming World Champion. I certainly disagree about him being so far behind Petrosian.