Which Elite Chess Player of All Time Has the Most Natural Talent?

Laszlo Polgar should be mentioned here.

I think it makes sense because unlike the silly people with natural talent who play(ed) chess, Laszlo made chess players.

Literally. He found a partner, said something along the lines of "Natural talent is nonsense, let us make science babies and prove it to be so." And then proceeded to make babies and...whatever your position on it is...reared them with tremendous intellectual talent manifest at a young age.

So in terms of natural talent for chess...the man made chess players.

An interesting question....I thought immediately of several players:

• Jose Raul Capablanca
• Bobby Fischer
• Garry Kasparov
• Mikhail Tal
• Magnus Carlsen

Even though I am not a big fan of Kasparov as a person, my two top candidates are 

• Kasparov
• Capablanca.

You can decide for yourself:

Information about Capablanca;

"I was born in Habana, the capital of the Island of Cuba, on the 19th of November 1888. I was not yet five years old when by accident I came into my father's private office and found him playing with another gentleman. I had never seen a game of chess before; the pieces interested me, and I went the next day to see them lay again. The third day, as I looked on, my father, a very poot beginner, moved a Knight from a white square to a white square. HIs opponent, apparently, not a better player, did not notice it. My father won, and I proeeded to call him a cheat and to laugh. After a little wrangle, during which I was nearly put out of the room, I showed my father what he had done. He asked me how and what I knew about chess? I answered that I could beat him; he said that that was impossible, considering that I could not even set the pieces correctly. We tried conclusions, and I won. That was my beginning....(From My Chess Career,1920.)

Garry Kasparov:

"...That same evening of decision Garry's parents set up a position from the local newspaper column run by the old chess master, Suryen Abramian.  Their little one, Garik (familiar form of Garry), did not raise his eyes from the board; after awaking the next morning--at breakfeast-- Garry suggested a move to solve the position. This amazed the family; no one had taught him the game. His father, curious, tested him on the notation for the different squares!...(From Garry Kasparov's Fighting Chess by Garry Kasparov, Jon Speelman and Bob Wade, Batsford,1995.)

Another candidate is Paul Keres (or perhaps Benko), who achieved success even though  he grew up in an enviorment without any way of getting any chess knowledge: Throughout his childhood his only chess book was the outdated Dunfrense Manual of chess openings (and the weekly newspaper chess collumn). His chess growth was mostly through playing Online Chess (<g>) Games. (Correspondence Games)

Magnus Carslen is the most talented chess player ever, just look at the figures.
He was 9 when he startet to take chess seriously, four years after he became the second youngest GM (at that time, third now).
At age 19 he topped the FIDE ranking as the youngest ever - and he has had that position almost continously after that.  
At the age of 22 he became the second youngest world champion of all time, a position he very likely could have had before if he had not refused to play in the candidates tournament two years earlier.
He has won 21 of the last 30 tournaments he has played. And we have to go back four years to find a tournament where he did not end up in first or second place.
He has the highest FIDE rating of all time, a rating that has been very stable since then. Number 2 on the rating list is 70 points behind. 
And a lot more could have been mentioned.
 

Over his long chess career Alekhine played generations of the world's most elite players. He said that he had met many talented players during his career, but only one genius. Only one. And that was Capablanca. 

Fischer discussed Capablanca, and mentioned that he (Capa) overstated the quality of his own games, that they were not as flawless and impressive as Capa believed. Fischer could see flaws in his play that Capa did not see. It takes someone like Fischer, someone who plays and sees on an extremely high level, to detect such things, and properly evaluate the play of a chess genius. There are other metrics, but this is an important one. 

Fischer was more impressed with Morphy, and put him first. If given some time to learn contemporary theory, he would beat anyone alive today -- that was Fischer's statement. 

Morphy was extremely unusual among elite chess players in having the intelligence to see that it is just a game. Others are intelligent enough to play the game well, but stupid enough to give it great importance. Morphy was intelligent enough to see that it was way overvalued by many. 

He also showed genius academically, more so than any other elite chess player, and completed law school impressively at an early age. He would not have bothered going to Europe if Louisiana law had not prohibited someone so young from practicing law. 

So Morphy over Capablanca. 

As far as more recent players go, I don't think Carlsen matches Morphy's genius, neither his chess genius nor his more generalized genius. Ditto for Fischer, Anand, Karpov, Kasparov, Caruana, Karjakin, Naka, Tal, and the others that have been mentioned. 

Petrosian thought that Bobby Fischer was a very talented young player, but he couldn't call him a genius. Then he said that the fully developed Fischer, Fischer at his peak, was - he had to admit - real and full chess genius in the truest reserved sense. 

Carlsen has said that Fischer in his prime was the strongest player in chess history. 

"Natural talent" though? 

One could say that he developed his natural talent. Or that his drive and work and focus unleashed or helped tap into his native (or natural) genius. He had a chess mentor in his mid-teens who advised two things in order to take his chess to new levels: (1) Total dedication, and (2) Eidetic imagery.

Fischer is an extraordinary case, but I don't think it speaks of the sort of natural talent in question. Morphy's case is quite different, and better fits the description "most natural talent." "Natural genius" might also be considered. 

[If there is some truth to what is called "reincarnation," it opens a variety of alternative possible explanations for (some cases of) early or "natural" chess genius. Those who are certain of its untruth may scoff; but they have no logically tight proofs or disproofs. Epigenetics similarly offer a variety of possible explanations. ]

Fischer studied ad nauseum. Capablanca hardly studied at all apparently. I think Capablanca had the most "natural" talent.

Another myth. Capablanca had probably read every chess book that was available around 1900 (there weren't many of them). He was even borrowing books from the library of his Chess Club, and returning them with his own annotations. You can read Sanchez's biography of Capa on the subject.

Another indicator of the level of (extreme) natural talent: how quickly and easily they proceed from learning the game, to defeating serious players, to defeating elite players and world-class players.

So should we exclude from the conversation every chess player who has read a chess book?

Both Capablanca and Reshevsky were child prodigies, and both claimed to have hardly studied chess at all, professed to own very few or no chess books at all. They were undoubtedly talented, but such talk is also part of a carefully cultivated attitude of upmanship. (Of course they studied and read chess extensively.)

In my view, one of the greatest natural talents was actually Lasker. Despite several long layoffs from chess, he competed at extremely high level into his 60s.

Having said this, what do we mean by 'talent'? Kasparov, for instance, was not what you call a 'natural player'. As opposed to say Karpov and Kramnik, he didn't have an intuitive feel for where the pieces should go in the opening. On the other hand, he was an extremely hard worker, and I agree with him when he says that this is also a talent.

No, we don't have to exclude those who have studied books; but the ability to proceed well with little or no study is correlated with natural talent.

The ability to learn or play extremely well on one's own, without (or with minimal) books, tips, pointers, guides, mentors, tutors, etc. is an indicator of natural talent. 

No. Just debunk the myth that Capablanca has never read anything on chess. 

Sure, but when we only have their own words for it, how much store can we set by their statements?

Agreed. Journalists are also often responsible for distorting the truth. Kasparov's supposed and often repeated but highly inaccurate and exaggerated  IQ is just one example. 

Hard work may be a talent, but (1) is that the sort of talent the OP had in mind? Of course we are free to consider other talents or aspects, and related issues; but it seems to me that the OP did not have those in mind when posing the original question. (2) Those who show world-class chess ability with little (or much less) work, effort, struggle, study, etc. surely demonstrate something the others do not demonstrate. 

Hence my asking for a definition. The ability to work hard is often a precondition to make it to very top. Another is mental toughness. A friend of mine had masses of raw talent, not only in chess, but also in sports. However, he didn't have the mental toughness to make it, and he often made sure that he had a 'pre-excuse' for failure by playing hung-over.

magnus

Magnus is obsessive about chess. He has said in interviews that it is virtually always on his mind, even when doing other things. 

Morphy studied law, mathematics and philosophy, and didn't play much chess during those years of study. It was a recreation for him, not a profession. He had to be talked into going to New York and Europe after he finished law and was still too young to practice. He was not obsessed with chess. Nor did he have high-level mentors and tutors (as Carlsen did). Nor seconds, nor assistants, nor computers. 

I'm open to hearing other points here, but from the evidence so far, it seems Morphy has both more and more natural ability or talent. 

”He was not obsessed with chess. Nor did he have high-level mentors and tutors (as Carlsen did). Nor seconds, nor assistants, nor computers”

It isn’t easier to be the best player in the world just because all top players have computers and tutors etc...

Agreed; but it is more difficult if your contemporaries (in the world of elite chess) have these sorts of advantages and you do not. Morphy's contemporaries also had more access to high caliber players, sparring partners so to speak, with whom they could hone their chess skills. They also had more tutoring and mentoring, and on a higher level. They also dedicated more time to chess. 

So to rise to a very high level of dominance against such opponents speaks of very unusual natural talent or genius. I don't see anyone else in chess history who has achieved such dominance despite such disadvantages on the nurture side of the nature vs nurture considerations -- which points to something very unusual (and beyond very unusual) on the nature (/natural talent) side. 

Capablanca and Fischer were both dominant for a period, but neither had the same low levels of 'nurture-side' benefits. 

Cultivated talent is different, it seems to me, from natural talent; and Morphy's talent seems more natural, and less cultivated, than any other player's (at the level of elite world-class chess), from the evidence so far.