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

I must say I have absolutely no idea about tennis so I'm honestly asking: would such a result (in tennis) have the same significance as Fischer's victories over the 3 best players in the world?

Another way of asking this: would anybody write something similar to the following about a player who scored 6-0 6-0 6-0 in the quarterfinals? 

"Who would have imagined that any challenger's match would ever have been decided by a perfect score, when the participants are all to be ranked among the strongest players in the world?"

"It is difficult to portray to non-chess players the magnitude of such a shutout. A typical result between well-matched players might be, say, six wins to four, with nine draws"

"To a certain extent I could grasp the Taimanov match as a kind of curiosity–almost a freak, a strange chess occurrence that would never occur again. But now I am at a loss for anything whatever to say... So, it is out of the question for me to explain how Bobby, how anyone, could win six games in a row from such a genius of the game as Bent Larsen"

"No player has ever shown a superiority over his rivals comparable to Fischer's "incredible" 12–0 score in the two matches"

”Who would have imagined that any challenger's match would ever have been decided by a perfect score”

”It is difficult to portray to non-chess players the magnitude of such a shutout. A typical result between well-matched players might be, say, six wins to four, with nine draws”

Ivanchuk once won all the games in a Candidates match up until the last one, where he took the draw being piece up (a draw was sufficient to end the match). If he had won also the last game I don’t think anyone would have cared particularly...

"No player has ever shown a superiority over his rivals comparable to Fischer's "incredible" 12–0 score in the two matches"

Possibly if you talk about superiority over Taimanov and Larsen in these two matches, otherwise it is quite a subjective subject. Steinitz scored 7-0 without draws in a match against #2 Blackburne, and won 25 games in a row against top opposition. Fischer scored 12.5-8.5 against #2 Spassky, and that was impressive enough. But if that was some sort of uncomparable superiority depends on what player one likes, and which results one counts.

Let me tell you something you already know: you'll struggle to find a WC or any other top GM whose merits are not exaggerated, especially in the context of a comparison, and especially from the critic's point of view. 

It just so happens that some people are more mesmerized by a guy who can lift 200kg once (when everybody else can lift only 150kg), than a guy who can lift 180kg for 10 years. Nigel Short put it better than I can when he said: He [Kasparov] is the greatest player in chess history, in my opinion. He had a much longer reign than Bobby Fischer, though Fischer probably shined brighter for a short period of time.  

Kasparov no doubt has had the longest tenure at the top (even more significant than Lasker's for a number of reasons), but one tends to forget that his titanic battles were against the same opponent over and over again. In that sense, every new K-K felt - to some - as some sort of "Kasparov - Karpov reloaded" affair, especially since he didn't necessarily win the next match more convincingly than the previous. Short and Anand were strong respectable players, but only about #12 and #6 respectively at the time those matches took place. And against Kramnik well... he lost that one without a single victory. 

Go on any chess forum, and you won't have much trouble finding a dozen users who claim "boy, if only Kasparov had to deal with the same patzers Fischer played, he would have wiped the floor with them". Well, as it turns out he wiped the floor with Short exactly the same way Fischer did with Spassky: 12.5-7.5 (rating wise at least, Spassky of 1972 and Short of 1993 were pretty well matched i.e. 2660 vs 2655). It's not like Kasparov was winning by the same margin against a guy rated 2785 or higher. 

Another example is the 'Massacre in Meran', which refers to the Karpov Korchnoi rematch. Yet when looking into it objectively, Karpov won by a smaller margin than Fischer did, against a 50 years old guy . When is the last time you've heard somebody speaking of the 'Massacre in Reykjavik'?

”one tends to forget that his titanic battles were against the same opponent over and over again”

That doesn’t exactly make it easier when that same opponent is Karpov... But I don’t think one should just count title matches, Kasparov scored great results in the strongest tournaments decade after decade. He had a ten year period during which he never finished behind another player. His results against top players like Leko, Gelfand, Shirov, Morozevich, Grischuk and Adams was something over 40-0 in wins, and the first three of those players won the Candidates. So it isn’t just ”he only won against Karpov”.

”Karpov won by a smaller margin than Fischer did, against a 50 years old guy”

Korchnoi wasn’t just ”a 50 years old guy” :-) He was an incredible player also at 50. And if one should make such comparisons one could just as well say that Karpov scored a higher percentage in his match against Spassky than Fischer did, or that Karpov scored better against Korchnoi than Fischer did. But I don’t think such comparisons necessarily say much.

You have to remember, when making these assessments, that more recent players have access to more modern resources. Deeper opening theory, greater libraries of chess games, and - the big one - phenomenally strong engines to learn from. Even seemingly minor factors like the improvement in the top players' lifestyles have an impact. So testing various players' moves' accuracy with AlphaZero is not a fair comparison - Carlsen has had the chance to study how AlphaZero plays positions, and internalise the patterns in its play. Fischer had no such opportunity.

Nor can you just look at players' win records. Players from different eras faced different opponents. A player in a time where strength in depth in chess was low would enjoy an unfair advantage under this criterion.

I think the best way of looking at it is to ask "which individual player improved the overall standard of top-level chess the most?" And I think you have to go back further than most posters here have done. To my mind, the best player ever is Capablanca. He revolutionised endgame theory, and pretty much invented hypermodernism - a school which was so successful that his long, long unbeaten streak (eight years, I think) was finally ended by another player, Reti, who had copied his style. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

I think you meant Stockfish.  AlphaZero is not available for analysis.  Also, I'm not 100% sure but I think that Nimzovitch "invented" hypermodern chess, not Capablanca.   

Thanks Alinfe.  This is just about the most solid argument I've seen.

Performance ratings in matches often don’t say that much about the greatness of players. If a 2800 and a 2600 play a match with all draws the TPR claims that the 2600 player played 200 Elo stronger than his opponent, even if they obviously played on the same level.

When Anand drew his 12 game title match against World #20 Gelfand his TPR was higher than Kasparov’s when winning the title match against Karpov in 1986.

The answer can be found here ... https://goo.gl/7UgGKh

Let's pull the numbers again:

Fischer - Spassky, 62.5%, PR 2749

Karpov - Spassky, 63.6% PR 2747

Ok, let me start by saying that Karpov did score a slightly higher percentage (even though the PR was the same). I'm surprised though that Kasparov or anybody else would make such a big deal about an infinitesimal difference, or claim that Spassky played much better in that match. Nevermind that Spassky was in a slow but steady decline since at least 1971. Nevermind the crushing defeat and the post-mortem welcome in Moscow. Nevermind the fact that all the attention and assistance went to the new kid on the block (it might seem trivial today, when GMs at least have strong computers for analysis and sparring). 

fabelhaft wrote:

I am not sure who is/was the greatest chess player of all time as the chess history is so rich with talented players and many of them deserve to be one of the best.

However, one thing I am 100% sure of is that Fischer DEFINITELY SHOULDN'T be counted as the greatest player of all time. His international playing time is pretty limited of 3-4 years and his inability to gain enough courage to face a rising Karpov and trying to hide it behind weak excuses in '75 showed his lack of belief in his own chess abilities.

Fischer was what generally can be termed as 'one hit wonder'. Somehow managed to reach a high peak for 2 years('71-'72) but then decided that instead of challenging himself with new opponents and strategies, he would rather shy away from international arena to preserve his stats.

He is similar to a newcomer in a baseball who somehow manages to hit a home run in almost every ball in his debut season but then quits after the season to preserve his high stats.

Don't get me wrong. Bobby Fischer was undoubtedly a great chess player. But 'greatest player of all time'??? Puh-leeze. His failure to prove that he even had the tenacity or ability to play consistently in international arena for a long time keeps him out of the contention imo. 

”Ok, let me start by saying that Karpov did score a slightly higher percentage (even though the PR was the same). I'm surprised though that Kasparov or anybody else would make such a big deal about an infinitesimal difference”

I don’t think the difference matters at all, I just think that if one looks at results against different opponents to suggest the superiority of one player, one could just as well look at results against the same opponent. I.e the suggestion that Fischer was better because he a scored a better result against Spassky than Karpov did against Korchnoi might be completed with the stats that Karpov scored no worse against Spassky and Korchnoi than Fischer did.

Magnus looks like the greatest ever. He is on top in both Classic, rapid, blitz and 960.

He is among the best in all parts and aspects of the game, tactic, openings, middle game,attack, defense, positional, competitiveness..... and in endgame he is simply the best, I guess unrivaled? Magnus both has fantastic memory and calculation. He also is very physical fit , which is good for calculation and stamina.

Capablanca did not live to see the 1945 radio chess tournament and what came after.

It's Magnus, here is the full treatise:

https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/who-was-the-greatest-chess-player-of-all-time

"Lasker ... didn't understand positional chess." - another Fischer quote from around the same time as his Morphy comments.
Extended discussions of Morphy have been written in books by GM Franco, GM Beim, GM Ward, GM Marin, GM Bo Hansen, GM McDonald, Garry Kasparov (with Dmitry Plisetsky), and GM Gormally. Anyone see any of them express the view that we should accept Fischer's conclusion about Morphy? There seems to be general agreement that Morphy was, as GM Fine put it, one of the giants of chess history, but that is a long way from saying that he was better than anyone playing today.
https://www.chess.com/article/view/who-was-the-best-world-chess-champion-in-history
"... Morphy became to millions ... the greatest chess master of all time. But if we examine Morphy's record and games critically, we cannot justify such extravaganza. And we are compelled to speak of it as the Morphy myth. ... [Of the 55 tournament and match games, few] can by any stretch be called brilliant. ... He could combine as well as anybody, but he also knew under what circumstances combinations were possible - and in that respect he was twenty years ahead of his time. ... [Morphy's] real abilities were hardly able to be tested. ... We do not see sustained masterpieces; rather flashes of genius. The titanic struggles of the kind we see today [Morphy] could not produce because he lacked the opposition. ... Anderssen could attack brilliantly but had an inadequate understanding of its positional basis. Morphy knew not only how to attack but also when - and that is why he won. ... Even if the myth has been destroyed, Morphy remains one of the giants of chess history. ..." - GM Reuben Fine
It is perhaps worthwhile to keep in mind that, in 1858, the chess world was so amazingly primitive that players still thought tournaments were a pretty neat idea.

Another 1886 Steinitz quote (about 28 years after Morphy's major chess competitions): "We all may learn from Morphy and Anderssen how to conduct a king’s-side attack, and perhaps I myself may not have learnt enough. But if you want to learn how to avoid such an attack, how to keep the balance of position on the whole board, or how to expose the king apparently and invite a complicated attack which cannot be sustained in the long run, you must go to the modern school for information."

Even I have to admit Fischer the greatest of all time - AND THIS COMING FROM AN AMERICAN!!

Notice that Kasparov wrote of the "next" stage, rather than the last stage. At that point, there was still the rest of his first volume and four more volumes in which to describe subsequent stages.

"... Morphy became to millions ... the greatest chess master of all time. But if we examine Morphy's record and games critically, we cannot justify such extravaganza. And we are compelled to speak of it as the Morphy myth. ... Even if the myth has been destroyed, Morphy remains one of the giants of chess history. ..." - GM Reuben Fine