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

Well at least he was not a chimp.

In the late 40s and early 50s, Reshevsky and Najdorf were not just the best non-Soviets, at times they were the best players in the world.

The Soviets connived to keep Najdorf out of the 1949 Championship Tournament and fixed games in behalf of Botvinnik.

The Soviets also colluded against Reshevsky at Zurich 1953, to make sure he was not the challenger - according to Bronstein.

Magnus Carlsen

rating isn't everything you know

I would say the chess player who was 1 undisputed for a very long time span

Chess fail, that would probably be, in order,

Philidor

Lasker

Steinitz

Kasparov

Morphy.

That doesn't mean they are the best of all time. Pretty much every chess historian accepts that chess is progressive. Today's players have learned from the past.

Morphy was better than Philidor, Steinitz surpassed Morphy, and so on.

Kasparov is playing an important blitz tnmt this week. It may go a long way in shaping the argument of whether Carlsen has truly surpassed Kaspy. If Kaspy breaks even with these guys, he will show that his best is still arguably the best ever.

"In the late 40s and early 50s, Reshevsky and Najdorf were not just the best non-Soviets, at times they were the best players in the world"

Good luck trying to prove that they were better than Botvinnik, Bronstein, Keres, Smyslov, etc...

The retro-ratings by Chess Metrics had Reshevsky ranked #1 for several months from 1952 to 1953 (and in the mid-1940s).  He was his rated #1 for 14 different months from December 1942 to October 1953.

The Soviets had to collude against him at Zurich in 1953, to prevent him from reaching Botvinnik - according to Bronstein.

When Reshevsky did get Botvinnik in a four game match, he defeated the then-champion 2.5-1.5.

Chess Metrics also had Najdorf ranked #2 in the world for 33 months from July 1946 to June 1949.  It is no wonder the Soviets protested so loudly to keep him from replacing Dr Fine in the world championship tournament in 1949.  Stacking the deck, as usual.

Really, the best evidence for my claim are the machinations of the Soviets to stop these two Westerners.

Your truly

"The retro-ratings by Chess Metrics had Reshevsky ranked #1 for several months from 1952 to 1954 (and in the mid-1940s)"

They also have Janowski ranked as #1 ahead of Lasker on occasion but I don't believe in that any more than the #1 ranking of Reshevsky in 1942. Also ten years later it is far fetched that he suddenly became better than all the best Soviets simply because he had done well in a match against Najdorf and in a tournament without Soviet participants, which is what propelled him from #4 to #1 in 1952. Chessmetrics has to be taken with a pinch of salt.

The same thing with Najdorf, of course. He scored great results in South America during the war but was far from the top when he faced the best Soviets just afterwards. In Groningen 1946, the Interzonal 1948, Candidates 1950 etc he finished 5th at best. Because of collusion, no doubt :-)

That's a nice example of the unreliability of Chessmetrics, fabelhaft. I usually look at the older examples, such as Kolisch and Suhle. Suhle's especially amusing. He is ranked #1 in the world in 1866. His great claim to fame is scoring 0-5 and two draws against Adolph Anderssen in one match then drawing him in a later match. Incredibly, Chessmetrics assigns Suhle a 2527 rating for scoring 1 out of 6 against Anderssen!

Suhle also beat Hirschfield in a match,+7-0 and 2 draws. But as we know, match play can often have extremely lopsided results, especially when the losing player recognises he's beaten and doesn't play as well in the latter part of the match.

Thing is, Suhle doesn't have any extant games for 1866. His #1 ranking is based entirely on his beating Hirschfield in a match. But even by Chessmetrics' standard Hirschfield was never better than 4th best in the world. 

The errors are not as obvious in later years, but as Fabelhaft points out, they are still ubiquitous.

Keres wrote many outstanding books and won in matches against players of the magnitude of

Keres is in the argument for best player never to be world champion, along with Korchnoi, Bronstein, Nimzo, Rubinstein, and Ivanchuk. Today's young players may still become world champ, so they don't count.

But I don't know of anyone who seriously argues that any of the non-world champions is better than the Olympic Gods of chess history, the actual match-play world champions.

Keres only lost one match in his career, if I recall correctly. And that was after 30 years on very close to World Champion level, just before turning 50. Then he still had chances to save the match by winning the last game, while Spassky crushed all other Candidates easily in that and the following Candidates.

"But I don't know of anyone who seriously argues that any of the non-world champions is better than the Olympic Gods of chess history, the actual match-play world champions"

I'd rank Korchnoi and Keres ahead of Euwe. Keres beat Euwe in a match and had a much more impressive career, then of course it was Euwe that Alekhine considered a suitable opponent to give a match...

Obviously the further back in time one goes, the less certain the ratings become.  Ratings are the most accurate when there are (1) many games to rate, (2) many opponents to rate, and (3) many competitions to rate.

Various statistical ratings systems existed in a number of countries by World War 2, so the Chess Metrics retro-ratings are not without support after that time.

Furthermore, statistical exercises are largely free of personal biases, which so ofter color these sorts of discussions.

I'm not saying he is better, I'm just saying that nobody is perfect, at least not to the point of being considered a chess God. All of them lost their title in matches, except in case of Alekhine and Fischer, who lost their title in dubious circumstances.

"I dont know why you would think that since Karpov's top rating never surpassed Fischer's  ?  "

Karpov didn't reach 2790?

"It may go a long way in shaping the argument of whether Carlsen has truly surpassed Kaspy."

I don't think so, Kasparov is 53, it's not the same as say a 30 year old Kasparov. Won't tell us that much, but it will say how strong Kasparov still is.

Or reverse the roles, could a 53 year old Carlsen beat a 26 year old Kasparov?:)