Who is the greatest chess player of all time ?? Bobby Fischer ??

you say in your post that many consider Anand to be the greatest player of all time...i like vishy and think he is a very fine player but to suggest that many think he is the greatest is ludicrous..the only people who consider Anand to be the greatest of all time must be dangerously deluded and should be afforded the finest psychiatric care that is available.

I believe that Fischer is the best ..certainly better than Magnus  ...Magnus has not got that indefinable wow factor.

Kasparov was the greatest fischer second.

Only one problem, you would like niether trotters.

They played with their pawns, and I remember fondly you saying you only like it when players play with their pieces.

So sadly you would like none of the great players in history, they all used pawns to great effect.

For all you that say ficher was they best because kasparov couldn't do this or that.

Is wilt chamberlin the best bball player because no one else will reach his 100 point game. Or was that hundred point game from a variety of factors.

Same with fischers dominance in his short span. In that era certain things were more easily acheived than now.

Anand is a great player, but ranking him ahead of players like Lasker and Kasparov, who dominated for decades, is of course impossible. Anand was maybe the best player in the world for a short period around 2007-08, but he was always far behind Kasparov (and scored 3-15 in wins against him).

As for Fischer vs Carlsen, going by performances up until age 23 Carlsen has done much better, then we'll see what people will think a few years from now.

I guess it all depends on what criteria is used to determine " best of all time " . Kasparov himself said Fischer was the greatest ever if you judge by who most convincingly dominated their peers at the time and I agree .  If one judges by longevity then Lasker is better than Kasparov , if by most tournament victories then Karpov wins and if by top tourney wins in a row then its Kasparov  . One thing certainly favors Fischer and cannot be argued .  He brought real money to the game of chess so all who follow him owes him gratitude in that respect .  Spassky won less than $ 5 k  when he defeatd Petrosian in 1969 for the world championship .  Fischer certainly changed all that . 

manual lasker.

I would say its morphy. But that's just my opinion on it.

Carlsen because of his ability to grind out a win in objectively drawn positions or seemingly drawn positions and outstanding endgame technique. 

Best concise answer to the compendium of Who's The Best...Threads that grossly over populated this chess site.

Thanks kindly, NM Reb.

Tal would maybe be the best of all time if it wasn't for all the booze and fags.

As much as I like and respect Lasker his longevity was only because circumstances prevented him from playing Rubinstein, who'd have a very good chance of winning.  If ratings existed back then Rubinstein would have been the world number 1 from 1908-1914.  I consider him an unofficial world champion (like Carlsen was before actually winning the official one).  Lasker barely beat out Schlechter for the world championship (game 7 in their 1910 world championship match was simply fantastic). 

That was just posted there recently and is still in dispute, thus the asterisk.  Regardless, it's 22 years later with a couple of decades of ratings inflation behind it.

Best at their peak vs all the rest?

Probably Fischer & Kasparov.

The greatest gulf between the best & the next best was probably during the late 1850's when Morphy, after beating Anderssen, offered pawn & a move against any other player in the world.  The offer was not taken up & so Morphy effectively retired from chess.

Rating inflation may not exist. Ken Regan has shown evidence that suggests this (google it, to long to write here). He suggests, based on his evidence, that there are just more players that play better chess and that for example Carlsen's rating is actually that much higher than Kasparov's previous rating record. It's an interesting argument and over-all presentation. If true it may help eliminate another variable in defining who is the best player to play chess. Carlsen is presently building a very strong case for himself.

Magnus Carlsen is the greatest one, cuz he has the highest rating in history.

End of the debate.

This would be a great argument IF the higher rated player ALWAYS beats the lower rated player , which ofcourse we know isnt the case ...  

Reb, what would you need to see from Carlsen for you to accept that he is better now than Fischer ever was?

Perhaps winning a major event with 100% , or a candidates match with 100% or even win 10 games in a row against all GMs ?  Fischer won 20 in a row so asking Carlsen to get half as many  seems a reasonable request . 

If Carlsen faced the same level of competition, it may seem more reasonable. The level of competition now is much higher.

Carlsen has about 100 rating points over the #2 guy , so did Fischer when he was playing .