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

"When interviewed in 2008 shortly after Fischer's death, he [Anand] ranked Fischer and Kasparov as the greatest, with Kasparov a little ahead"

"In 2012, Magnus Carlsen said that Kasparov is the greatest player of all time"

"Levon Aronian stated that he considers Garry Kasparov the greatest player of all time"

"The other world champions had something 'missing'. I [Kramnik] can't say the same about Kasparov: he can do everything."

"In his 2008 obituary of Bobby Fischer, Leonard Barden wrote that most experts ranked Kasparov as the greatest ever"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_top_chess_players_throughout_history

"Bobby Fischer was the greatest chess player who ever lived. He was a very special person, and I was fortunate to meet him two years ago... He passed away recently, now I consider that I was lucky to meet him". Anand (The telegraph, Calcutta, 2009)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6g77y_4OQs - Carlsen said in terms of peak/dominance and overall rank Fischer > Kasparov. So, clearly in terms of pure ability he is better even without anyone helping him unlike Kasparov.

The precision and energy that he played with is just unmatched in the history of chess. So Bobby Fischer from 1970 to 1972." - On his dream rival Carlsen CNN 2015

Kasparov wins in longevity that's it. But that would make Lasker the GOAT.

Anand and Carlsen have answered that question many times, and with just as many different answers :-) The funny thing is that no one of these great players ever mention Lasker, to me it is between Kasparov and Lasker, depending on how much one values activity. Lasker played little but scored amazing results 40 years after winning the title when he did play. Kasparov played lots of top events every year for 20 years after winning the title. Both defended the title numerous times, but Lasker could pick his opposition. He did show in tournaments how great he was regardless of that.

Yeah I noticed that too. I saw Aronian mention Alekhine as the GOAT before changing to Kasparov.

Honestly I prefer Fischer because of his sheer dominance. Winning 20 games in a row without draws against GMs. 6-0 against a top 10 GM (twice), winning major event by 100% and winning 4 games in a row against a guy like Petrosian is out of the world. Not to mention, he lost rating points after winning WCC. And he did this alone. I just don't see Kasparov achieving all that by himself.

Though I can understand if someone considers Kasparov the GOAT. He stayed at the top for longer.

Not a huge fan of Lasker.

Well in that case they shouldn't be quoted to support either view. 

As far as dominance goes, it's pretty clear.

As far as longevity goes, at least in the modern era, it's again pretty clear.

When it comes to strength, it will have to be decided by computers because humans are biased and have egos the size of cathedrals. Deep inside all these champions might think they're the strongest. At least Fischer was honest enough to admit so.

Hands down, it is Vladamir Putin!

https://www.chess.com/article/view/who-was-the-best-world-chess-champion-in-history

You have two tries left!

According to several different engines analyses, Fischer was the most accurate player, also the the strongest over a one year period.

He never blundered for more years in a row.

and he got even better behind the public eye, his very prime, I think we would have beaten Deep Blue

Until there's a consensus on the definition of "greatest," there can be no answer.

About Fisher unmatched in history of chess. What about Carlsen?  I think Carlsen has harder competition than Fischer had. Caruana, So, Kasparov, Nakamura, Aronian are all fantastic players. I guess that nr 10 today is stronger than number 5 was back in the seventies.

it can't be judged in the modern era; everyone is training with computers.  opening prep, memorization...the over the board creativity is lost.  Many of todays top players may not have been as good in decades past, without those tools.

Magnus is creative over the board. A lot of players are both creative and well homeprepped/computerprepped. All good  players at age of Magnus or older was good before they got a lot of computerhelp.

And about that creativity. I have played kids (like Isak Sjøberg) born in the computerage, and seen how they spend long time figuring creative things out over the board.

It's extremely difficult to compare players of different times, since the information which was given was hugely different. It's a lot easier to compare players to other people in their time and here it is easy to see that Kasparov was clearly the best player between 1985 and 2000. Bobby Fischer was the best in a short time span and it is not clear if he would have succeeded to come on top against someone like Karpov. Probably the players today play "better" since they have much more information on especially the openings than Fischer had back then.

Not counting the abandoned 1984 match, Kasparov and Karpov have played a total of 4 WC matches with the following scores:

1985 - 13-11

1986 - 12.5-11.5

1987 - 12-12

1990 - 12.5-11.5

So Kasparov tied one match, won 2 by the narrowest margin possible, and won the 4th by a 2 point lead, and that makes him "clearly the best player between 1985 and 2000"? If any other 2 chess players (or competitors in any other sport/game for that matter) would have had the same score between them, one would rightly proclaim player A to be slightly stronger than player B, and occasionally at the same level. 

Only when the said victory margins apply to Kasparov then suddenly they take on a very different meaning.

And people scoff at Fischer's fans...

Yes, plus: after analysing K-K games for 2 years, Fischer said there were fixed (to maintain USSR supremacy).

IMO Fischer would have blasted Karpov, but he was annoyed by noises, cameras etc. and Karpov was bringing with him in the playing hall his hypnotist (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xT2BokRYJs). No go for Fischer. 

The point of this exercise is to demonstrate that training with engines confers a real advantage. Sure, Fischer was great in his day, but today's elite players really are better than Fischer at his best.

We can make excuses, we can try to explain it, but the evidence is clear: Fischer was the best player ever, until Kasparov came along. Kasparov helped Karpov to surpass Fischer's best, making me wish even more that Fischer and Karpov had played a few great matches.

Chess is the poorer because Fischer decided not to play Karpov. And Fischer probably didn't reach his potential precisely because he did not test himself against Karpov's best.

what does GOAT mean?