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

"Granted that Kasparov was good for a longer period of time and with so much more time you would think he could have done just one of the four things Fischer did ( listed above ) and yet he did not . If being good longer is the decisive criteria then you have to go with Lasker anyway .... "

According to chessmetrics Kasparov had 17  2820+ tournament performances, Fischer had 2.

Fischer took entire years off, 1964 and 1969 maybe to avoid the strongest version of Spassky.

"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."

According to chessmetrics Kasparov had 17.  2820+ tournament performances, Karpov had 4.

It gave Kasparov the Gold medal for the most dominant player of all time, followed by Karpov with Silver.

I trust someone who has done extensive statistical.anaylsis of the greats over someone's opinion.

Not to mention that Kasparov beat Karpov 3 times in matches, has everyone forgotten this??

Fishcher, he lived in a time with no computer engines, while lots of world champions nowadays, rely on them to do lots and lots of opening preparation. Fischer didn't have that, and yet he became so much higher than anyone else in his time.

It is Fischer AND Kasparov.  Fischer for most brilliant and dominant at his best, Kasparov for the best, the longest amount of time.  Obviously fischer and kasparov had book learning going back decades or even a century.  So it can't be determined how good the previous greats would have been if time traveling into the future.  And champions past Fischer and Kasparov, are not innovators in the same way, as they rely on computer assistance in training and research.  It's a different era.

whatever I loves me some tuna says I agree with that's the greatest name of all time.

Fischer could've been the greatest of all time if he had kept playing on instead of what really happened.

He proved enough to himself any many chess fans.  I always say, if a tennis player came in, played and won every major for 2 or 3 years, he'd be in the running for GOAT even if he then suddenly retired.  Same with boxing or other individual sports.  Duration is an overall criteria, it doesn't say who was the absolute best, when they were at their best.  So there's two categories, greatest career and greatest stretch run.  Kasparov wins greatest career, Fischer wins greatest peak performance.

People always consider it easier to have a big advantage over the other players if all of them have engines, but I am not too sure about that...

in all honesty he was a really good chess player but i personally find  kasparov and carlsen better

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I would definitely say Bobby Fischer, just my opinion.

 What about Botvinnik or Steinitz? They were fairly ahead of their peers at their peaks.

 Would like to point out that no one would be quite as excited about Fischer if he was from Montenegro or something like that ... 

I don't know 

Since "of all time" hasnt happened yet, the question cannot be answered.

That is probably true, but the same could be said about Russian and other ex-soviet players worshiping Kasparov...

dead thread

My personal favorite has to be Paul Morphy. 

His story reads like a script for a movie or a fairy tale. 

Learned chess at a young age. Grew up in a family of chess players, but NOT in New York. Went to Europe and conquered EVERYONE. 

Statistically ... it might have to be Garry Kasparov. (#1 in the world for like 20+ years.) Won - or tied for first - in every major tournament that he played in for a period of about 10 years. Played some of the best chess the world has ever seen. One of the most accurate players who ever lived. (etc.) 

as a note to Fischer fanes "he voted for Morphy"