Who is better, Anand or Karpov

Who do you think is better the Russian and used to be World Champ Karpov or current World Champ Indian Anand.?

YOU DECIDE And post below.

Karpov is leagues away from Anand.

Karpov

Anand. He plays at an amazing level now, especially the way he played in the last three world championships, and the last one was after he had lost the most crucial days to a volcano!

He could also have beaten Karpov himself in the FIDE WC if Karpov hadn't shamelessly force him to play the final right after the knock out eliminations.

Clearly Anand

Well, Karpov just isn't really that good these days.

(But I don't think he puts a lot of effort into top-level training)

But if you're measuring their respective careers, it's not even close. Karpov was the world's measuring stick for 10 years. Anand, it could be argued, has never been the world's top player. Even if you argued that he was, at some point, it wasn't for very long. And it was after Kasparov retired. He's world champ right now, but is he the best?

The thing I find amazing about Anand is that he has been top 5 for SO long. Entire careers have started, peaked, and ended during that time.

No it couldn't. He obviously was, and it's definitely not short and yet continues (some time before Mexico till now). Yes he is.

Karpov was awarded the title by default, defended it against Korchnoi and lost against Kasparov.

Anand won the title, won once again against Kramnik, and then against Topalov, and especially against Kramnik he showed an exceptional form and preparation. Against Topalov, he dealt excellently with horrible circumstances (the volcano plus being in Danailov's homeland.)

Not to mention he won the title in three possible formats (2 with the real title and one with the fake fide title), would have won the fide title earlier if Karpov weren't a shameless wolf.

Oh, have I mentioned I'm a huge Anand fan?

This kind of comparison is so difficult across eras.

It's like trying to compare Newton to Einstein, for example.  The argument could be made that because Einstein's theories effectively supplanted Newton's he clearly had the superior scientific knowlege, but if you try to compare them based on the knowlege they had available to them at the time, and how much they advanced it, Newton's probably going to come out ahead.

The point being that it's entirely subjective.

FWIW I think Anand, based on a bootstrapping argument: I think Karpov at his peak vs Kramnik at his peak would have been too close to call (perhaps a very slight edge to Karpov but, if so, a miniscule one). Yet Anand has been demonstrably better than Kramnik.

Ether is fine by me, really. 

Money's on Karpov ... though waiting for somebody to run ChessMaster (it has to be alteast 5+ years old and bought at a software bargain bin for this experiment to be completely sound) and play the Karpov vs. Anand personalities and come back with some insightful results. 

It was an irresistible pun.

Ether, not either.

Ahh, right, it is were I'm from. 

let's get Yigor's take...

Well, I would say that Karpov isn't that good nowadays, but is still an extremely successful player. Anand is pretty strong at the moment as a world chess champion, but the real chess heroes are Kasparov and Fischer. Full Stop!

the best way to find out is...if they played a match

anand<karpov<kasparov

Only if TheGrobe lives in a place where they mispronounce words

I'm surprised they got the board the right way around.