Since you don't believe in ratings, let's use rankings. How many games did Fischer play against the top ten players in the world, and how many has Carlsen played against the top ten in the world?
What were their respective scores?
Who is the greatest chess player of all time ?? Bobby Fischer ??
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Ratings have been inflated to a degree ... from 50 to 100 points over the 70s . I believe in ratings as a rough guide but dont think they are infallible. In Fischer's day there were very few of these top round robin events so ofcourse Carlsen has likely played more games against top 10 players and I dont know what their respective scores are against top 10 players . I do know that Fischer beat 2 top 10 players in candidates matcheswith 6-0 scores though . 
After that he crushed former champ Petrosian who was , at the time, considered the hardest man in the world to beat .
Jun 2, 2014
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#45
for me karpov is the greatest he one more first class tournaments then anyone plus a true gentleman and got time for people. fischer was good but let himself and the usa down. kasparov second then capa.fischer wouldnt even be in my top 20.
Sure Reb, but we could say that the highest rated player generally plays the best chess, which is the main objective of ratings. If we pitch a 24 game match between a 2600 rated player and a 2400 rated player we probably won't be surprised if the 2600 rated player wins the match. If Carlsen is rated 2881 now and manages to maintain such a high rating for awhile we could then say that Carlsen has played the best chess than anyone since Fischer's time when FIDE began this rating system because his rating is showing us that he has a higher standard of play than anyone else who was rated in the same system. This would include Fischer, Karpov, and Kasparov. The fact that Fischer got some notable achievements such as his sensational run to the World Championship Title is worth mentioning and does indicate a very high level of play but it doesn't speak about his general performance over-all. His rating in my opinion more accurately shows that. I think we need to also distinguish achievements from raw performance- the quality of play of games- which to me represents the real meaning behind the question who is the greatest chess player, the strongest in actual play.
To trust so much in ratings , their accuracy and that no inflation has occured means that one must believe that all players rated over 2700 today are stronger than Spassky was at his best , since he never broke 2700 . I simply do not believe that at all and dont see how anyone can . GM Kevin Spraggett was a candidate in the 80s and never broke even 2600 yet after the age of 50 he did break 2600 . I asked him if he felt he was better now than he was in the 80s and he said ofcourse not ! I asked him then why is his rating finally over 2600 now and he couldnt break 2600 in the 80s and he said ofcourse due to rating inflation in FIDE . He also pointed out how few top players play in big open events , thus keeping their bloated rating . Ivanchuk is one exception . If the top players also played the big open events I think their ratings would all fall . Spraggett is certainly not a stronger player in his 50s than he was 20 years ago but his rating indicates that he is , this is only possible with inflation . There are also studies done showing the existence of ratings inflation ... so much for studies .
Anand won the recent Candidates event to earn another crack at Carlsen and he was definitely NOT the highest rated player in the field . nuff said
Reb wrote:
Anand won the recent Candidates event to earn another crack at Carlsen and he was definitely NOT the highest rated player in the field . nuff said
Ratings doesn't mean that the highest rated player always wins, just that he wins more often than the lower rated players. But one can't disprove ratings by pointing at one or two events where there was a surprise winner.
Reb wrote:
To trust so much in ratings , their accuracy and that no inflation has occured means that one must believe that all players rated over 2700 today are stronger than Spassky was at his best , since he never broke 2700 . I simply do not believe that at all and dont see how anyone can . GM Kevin Spraggett was a candidate in the 80s and never broke even 2600 yet after the age of 50 he did break 2600 . I asked him if he felt he was better now than he was in the 80s and he said ofcourse not ! I asked him then why is his rating finally over 2600 now and he couldnt break 2600 in the 80s and he said ofcourse due to rating inflation in FIDE . He also pointed out how few top players play in big open events , thus keeping their bloated rating . Ivanchuk is one exception . If the top players also played the big open events I think their ratings would all fall . Spraggett is certainly not a stronger player in his 50s than he was 20 years ago but his rating indicates that he is , this is only possible with inflation . There are also studies done showing the existence of ratings inflation ... so much for studies .
This is answerable by a statistical analysis of the games of an individual when put up to the scrutiny of an engine analysis of their games and the difference between the engine move suggestions to that of the player in question. Ken Regan had a recent article that touches on this subject (and who is also one that produced evidence that suggests rating inflation doesn't exist). Do you think spassky played better or equally to 2700 players of today? You can determine if he did by matching up his statistical analysis of his games when scrutinized by houdini to those of the 2700 players of today, and find out who has the better statistical analysis. It could be a fun and interesting project.
The question is who plays the best chess though, not their chess achievement. You mentioned Anand winning the Candidate tournament dispite not being the highest rated player. That's great and he certainly played better in that tournament than the others did over-all, but his rating DOES indicate that over-all, he doesn't play the best chess anymore, and most would agree with that.
Rating is a good general indicator but also has flaws in determining who plays the best chess- for one who do you rate players from long ago that didn't get a FIDE rating as those today? To me, the best way to determine who played the best chess in history is how Ken Regan has been suggesting, by seeing how well players match up in their moves to that of chess engines which are now superior to humans and therefore play "better chess". This is a more objective form of seeing how well players have actually played and takes out a lot of variables (such as achievements). I've heard that Capablanca for example matches engine moves surprisingly close, perhaps suggesting that he played incredibly good chess, dispite playing many many years ago before modern theory of today. So are ratings perfect indicator for who's the greatest chess player? No. But it certainly IS a good indicator of how well a player plays chess. Better however is to subject the nominees to a statistical analysis of an engine as I've suggested above.
TheGreatOogieBoogie wrote:
Reb wrote:
JGambit wrote:
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.
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 .
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).
Rubinstein didn't once in his whole career finish ahead of Capablanca or Lasker. Between S:t Petersburg 1895/96 and up until Zurich 1934 Lasker won every tournament he played except two, where he finished in second place. Now that is longevity as a top player.
Jun 2, 2014
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#52
aman_makhija wrote:
Anand. And one more thing: I hate Carlsen. lol
Where does hate come into chess? This is very strange.
Jun 2, 2014
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#53
Reb wrote:
To trust so much in ratings , their accuracy and that no inflation has occured means that one must believe that all players rated over 2700 today are stronger than Spassky was at his best , since he never broke 2700 . I simply do not believe that at all and dont see how anyone can .
That actually is the expanation that makes the most sense to me. In literally any other field where there are indistputable performance measurements you will see a similar number, say roughly 40 being objectively better than WCs from the 70s.
GM Kevin Spraggett was a candidate in the 80s and never broke even 2600 yet after the age of 50 he did break 2600 . I asked him if he felt he was better now than he was in the 80s and he said ofcourse not ! I asked him then why is his rating finally over 2600 now and he couldnt break 2600 in the 80s and he said ofcourse due to rating inflation in FIDE .
That Kevin is objectively a slightly better player now than then also doesn't shock me. While he would have undoubtably have lost much of his former sharpness (and wouldn't be better if his profession was say soccer), chess is very much an information game to a large degree. No doubt he's kept up with 30 odd years of developments in the chess world, perhaps IMO balancing what he's lost in that time.
He also pointed out how few top players play in big open events , thus keeping their bloated rating . Ivanchuk is one exception . If the top players also played the big open events I think their ratings would all fall . Spraggett is certainly not a stronger player in his 50s than he was 20 years ago but his rating indicates that he is , this is only possible with inflation . There are also studies done showing the existence of ratings inflation ... so much for studies .
I hear this a lot, but don't really understand it. How does most of the time playing players only around their level make a difference? Also, what studies?
Roma60 wrote:
for me karpov is the greatest he one more first class tournaments then anyone plus a true gentleman and got time for people. fischer was good but let himself and the usa down. kasparov second then capa.fischer wouldnt even be in my top 20.
It is difficult to rank Karpov ahead of Kasparov when the latter won their matches and only finished behind once in a tournament after his teen years. When Kasparov won the three strongest tournaments ahead of Karpov in a year, while the latter won four weaker events without opponents in the top ten, it is still a year when Kasparov did better.
Jun 2, 2014
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#55
Reb wrote:
If being good longer is the decisive criteria then you have to go with Lasker anyway ....
And by a similar logic if the criteria is peak dominance over pears then you have to go with Morphy. To me both Kasparov and Fischer's achievements are respectively more impressive though.
oldfart61 wrote:
Fischer would crush carlsen but so would all the other great champions!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You can't be serious. Nakamura is just as good as Fischer (practically, Naka's peak is four points higher than Fischer's) yet the best he could achieve against Carlsen is a draw. Even a draw against him is impressive though Carlsen has a commanding lead over Nakamura. We can thus logically conclude that Carlsen would have approximately the same lead over Fischer.
Jun 2, 2014
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#57
fissionfowl wrote:
Reb wrote:
If being good longer is the decisive criteria then you have to go with Lasker anyway ....
And by a similar logic if the criteria is peak dominance over pears then you have to go with Morphy. To me both Kasparov and Fischer's achievements are respectively more impressive though.
Yes, we all know that without inflation pears are better than apples or any other fruits or nuts.
Reb wrote:
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 .
But Fischer didn't have to deal with the likes of Grischuk, Onischuk, Gelfand, Bacrot, Aronian, Caruana, Kramnik, and the others either. Fischer didn't play against people who studied from the CCE and ECE, Dvoretsky books (builds on previous training methods of authors such as Romanovsky and Lipnitsky), computer prep, etc. Training methods and materials have advanced a great deal since Fischer's day.
In Aagard's "Calculation" GM Prep book in the introduction he mentions that Gelfand studied from Practical Chess Defense (another excellent Aagard work), so there are materials that keep even the elite's game sharp. Fischer had a certain magic and talent, but chess proliferated all over the world, and more chess players combined with superior training tools and methods means that logically we'd have far more good players than in Fischer's day.
Naka hasnt even come close to a match for the world championship , he hasnt even qualified to the candidates tourney yet , please dont compare him to Fischer .... its ridiculous .
Reb is correct in his last couple of posts. My comparision to wilt dominating his peers is similar to fischer. Dominating your peers is easier the younger the sport/game is. The more advanced it gets the harder it becomes.
It is truley amazing how many people look at stats and have no idea what they mean. Yet they think they are interpeting data!
Fischer would crush carlsen but so would all the other great champions!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!