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

 I could have a million lessons from Kasparov and still not play like Magnus.  

Besides that fact, most 13 year olds don't show up to a simul and play the current world champ to a draw either...

...I hate when people's biases make them utter assinine and ignoramous typed things....

Vishy Anand.

Mikhail Tal and Capablanca

I agree with others mentioned here:  Tal (brilliant attacker), Capablanca (who defeated the Alekhine defense over the board after Alekhine introduced it after years of preparation) and Fischer (who defeated the Russian chess machine when 8/10 of the best players in the world were Russian).

Tal has my vote.  I find him the most fun to watch anyway.  I don't know enough about all their histories to truely make an opinion.

Natural talent at chess? Or natural intellectual talent generally and at playing chess?

Morphy strikes me as being someone who had not only great chess talent but intellectual talent that enabled him to be not only a superb chess player, but a linguist and a lawyer too. A superb all round intellectual talent.

I am genuinely surprised how little mentioned is Anand. People forget that he didn't have the benefit of lots of early mentoring in chess as the highest rated player in India at the time was 'only' an IM. Clearly his incredibly rapid play at very  high levels, his quick rise to the top ranks despite little formal training and the speed of his calculative powers is indicative of his tremendous natural talent and he certainly ranks among the most talented players in chess history.

 vb

FIscher no doubt

Morphy, Capablanca.

ALL SuperGMs, especially WCs had a great natural talent. It is simply impossible who was gifted more than all others, if only since the second criterion comes in which is necessary for becoming an extraordinary player: passion and hard work.

Fischer did work a lot, perhaps more than many players from the soviet Union (he had to: no trainer, no chess club in the US of that time would even nearly match the strength of the centers in Moscow, Leningrad and Kiev).

he also COULD work more than the Soviet players: life in US was more easy than in Soviet Union.

Schlechter did you even read anything about chess history?? It was the other way around. Chess players were treated like stars in soviet union and got paid, Fischer got no money from the us government. He even had to waste his time to play simuls to have enough money.

Capablanca and Morphy, equally but in very different ways.

They teached the world how to play Chess (beyond pure tactics), with little to no earlier examples to study on. Their "natural" talent was shown by how much they understood on their own.

Unfortunately for more modern players, these two left no chance to show just as much innovation (all the greatest of Chess brought their own brand of new understanding, but to a lesser extent), as it happens when pioneers are so successful in their exploarations: this is the tribute which has to be payed for standing on the shoulders of giants!

Aye, Brady writes about it at length.

Fischer worked enormously hard before being successful, so he doesn't come in question in that respect. Maybe Morphy or Capablanca had an advantage in that chess was on a different level in their days but they are still a couple of the more obvious choices. Kasparov was extremely talented too, but is often overlooked since he had tougher opposition in times when talent alone without very hard work wasn't enough.

fabelhaft i totally disagree with you on the FIscher.

Fischer was probably the greatest natural talent ever.

To me, "natural talent" means a guy who doesn't really care about chess, learns the moves by himself, starts beating everyone around from day one. This means Capablanca, Sultan Khan, Morphy. None of those "hit the books" types.

ok if that is the definition, do we really know that capablanca really never studied chess. To we have an honest objective proof???

Also understanding new aspects of the game, which nobody could grasp before, is a sign of "natural talent", imho. And having a completely "personal" and yet very successful style.

Otherwise there could be no "natural" talent in Chess when Botvinnik first, Fischer later, and Kasparov eventually, completed a process of progressive professionalization of the Chess Player in its development and preparation.

Also Capablanca analysed his games, it would be weird if he never studied chess and just started playing.