fischer was definitely the best and most natural talented, no seconds and no use of computer engines
How do you measure that Fischer definitely was more talented than Morphy or Capablanca or Carlsen?
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 .
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 .
Counterfactuals can be fun. But without computers or other modern training tools, Steinitz, Fischer and the rest are not as good as today's players. It says a great deal about how good Fischer was in 1972 that his rating is still good enough to be around the top 10 in the world. But in absolute terms, the quality of his play is below that of Kasparov and Carlsen.
ty very iteresting particularly your remark about computer as a tool for studying : what if Fisher or Steinitz could have spent time with new lines studied in few minutes instead of having to move wood pieces n he board for simulations? it' likewhen VISICALC arrived to help mathematicians and bookeepers, unbelievible amount of simul could have been done .
Steinitz coud have been the number one : at the end he wanted to play with ... GOD! and offering white + one pawn !!! even Fischer didn't think to challenge GOD !
yours, truly
Very interesting particularly your remark about computer as a tool for studying: what if Fisher or Steinitz could have spent time with new lines studied in a few minutes instead of having to move wood pieces n he board for simulations?
Steinitz could have been the number one: at the end he wanted to play with ... GOD! And offering white + one pawn!!! Even Fischer didn't think to challenge GOD!
Interesting comment. Let's look at it from a different angle. If Fisher or Capablanca, which I doubt he would even look at computer analysis or any other great prolific world champion and even the ones that did not become world champions such as Korchnoi, Keres, Tarrash and others.
To become the best in anything it is not what tools you use that can quickly bring you to a higher level of accomplishment it is rather the amount of work you put in. Deep analysis of the lines for variations can only be retained when a player does the analysis on it's own.
Fisher and other masters of the game created from nothing in the sense that they spent time to review, analyze and come with patterns of play. Computer does not do yet, they simply tell you this is the best move and never ever explains why. Well perhaps someday someone will create such software that will analyze position of all of the pieces on the board and explain what to do best and why.
Top chess players have above all 2 qualities for the chess game and yes likely more. One quality is the understanding of the mechanics of the game, I mean: positional play, evaluation of a position etc. The second one is a tremendous memory to retain not only games played but also lines of play.
And today best players do have an excellent memory and with the aid of computers they can progress very quickly.
I personally mesure the strength of any given player by how she/he fared against the competitors of their time period, nothing else.
The new generation of computer players though they have won many games and have the longest reign such as Kasparov, what new lines of play did they bring or what new variation I ask. Think about this the answer is NONE! Why? Because they rely on their game intelligence, their memory and their acquired computer skills plus the aid of former champion such as in the Carlsen episode.
Players today are not interested to come up with deep analysis of new lines to play, their interest is only in winning as this is what brings the money.
Now do not tell me that the combinations for new lines of play are exhausted. Fisher proved wrong with his refutation of the King's Gambit.
There are billions and billions of combinations so one can tell me nothing else can be found. There are more combination than the billions of galaxies that we can observe. Hardy (1999, p. 17) estimated the number of possible games of chess as 10^(10^(50)). This is 10 with 10 zeros and again the answer with 50 more zeros.
So there is room for discovery and improvement but who cares today to come up with new analysis, it should be easy with the advent of computers. Well no one cares to create new lines of play as the only goal is money and everyone fights hard to get a piece of any prize.
Counterfactuals can be fun. But without computers or other modern training tools, Steinitz, Fischer and the rest are not as good as today's players. It says a great deal about how good Fischer was in 1972 that his rating is still good enough to be around the top 10 in the world. But in absolute terms, the quality of his play is below that of Kasparov and Carlsen.
Quality of his play you say? What about the quality of play of Capablanca, Alekhine, Lasker champion for 27 years the longest ever.
Coming from an expert with an USF rating of 2000 I would say that your evaluating rating of the best chess players is not par with your play rating
yeres30 wrote:
Carlsen may be today's world champion.
But in one game, Carlsen - get this - got mated in one move in a Rook ending, a mistake most beginners make.
Then there is his famous blunder against Anand.
Well stated!!!!
Those kind of blunders are not worthy of a world champion.
"Those kind of blunders are not worthy of a world champion"
Shame on Carlsen!
You say this as though the world championship was simply handed to him.
He's a worthy world champion because he won the world championship. It's as simple as that.
Note that Anand's career is not free of blunders either.
As has been repeated a few times above, Carlsen missed a mate in one with one second on the clock in a blitz game when he was 15 years old, so he can hardly be a worthy World Champion today.
Fischer faced 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 f6?? twice against the same opponent and couldn't win either time!
Take a look!
Of course, pointing out a player's weakest moves is just a way to make the rest of us feel better. When Fischer was at his best, he was one of the top players of all time.
Carlsen at his best is the best player ever.
Capablacnca has the least nubmer of losses. Kasparov is worth considering.
dr lasker was world champ 24 years he was no slouch he made moves that totally confused his opponents! lasker only played chess part time!
you could argue that the only reason that lasker was champion for 24 years is because of WW1 and because he did not play the strongest opponents.
Capa and Fischer played far fewer games than any other world champion. Capa played in fewer tournaments than any modern GM, and against fewer strong (top 10 in the world) opponents than anyone else.
Capablanca was also one of the game's greatest players. But take a look at the sort of moves he was capable of playing:
All of our heroes are made of clay. Kasparov noted that Alekhin's victory over Capa in the world championship wasn't a fluke. Alekhin pressured Capa on every move, and Capa's brilliant technique abandoned him in that pressure. In fact, Alekhin's endgame technique was as good as Capa's in that match! Capa was fine as long as he was faced with "correct" opponents, but dynamic opponents such as Alekhin and later Botvinnik gave him real trouble. I'd pick Tal in 1960 over Capa in 1927 as being the better player.
As has been repeated a few times above, Carlsen missed a mate in one with one second on the clock in a blitz game when he was 15 years old, so he can hardly be a worthy World Champion today.
Wow, what a disappointment! This is truly shocking news.
Somebody should start an online petition requesting FIDE to strip him of his title.
Bobby Fischer