Who is the greatest chess player of all?

My personal favorite player is Kasparov, but Fischer was the best player ever. His rating was very high, even by todays standards, and ratings have inflated since then.

Well, if you're talking about the full range of a chess player's accomplishments, personally, I would say it comes down to one of two individuals, and only two: Albert Einstein, probably the most important scientist since Newton, and Napoleon Bonaparte (like him or hate him, his influence and importance to European history is indisputable.)  These two individuals really dominated their epochs and, if you were to remove them from the history books, you would see significant changes set in.  And yes, they played chess. 

How can Botvinnik be the greatest? He lost World Championship matches 3 times! (Smyslov, Tal, Petrosian.) And he kept the World Championship twice with drawn matches (Bronstein and Smyslov). No one can match Botvinnik's record of 5 World Championship matches not won.

ApPaReNtLy ThIs HaS bEcOmE tHe AlL CaPs ThReAd. (just thought I would mix it up a bit) 

Dude - you see that key on the left side of your keyboard that says "Caps"? If you hit that once it will disengage and return your keyboard to normal. 

Probably Fisher but Capablanca is a personal favorite.

Yes the Kasparov/Karpov angle is interesting.

Many players would rate Kasparov #1, Fischer 2, Capa 3 , then maybe Lasker, Alekhine, Botvinnink, Keres, Tal.....

If yer gonna make Kasparov 1 or 2, then what do yo do with Karpov ? His tournament record equalled Garry's, and in match play they were awful close to dead even. 

At spider- all true, but those last 2 WC 'matches' haven't exactly added lustre to his crown. It wasn't even so much that all the games with Caruana were drawn, but more that nothing happened.

Over the past couple of years Carlsen was in the process of rounding out his playing style to become more aggressive - and when he played Caruana it was still a work in progress (Carlsen has continued to play the Lasker-Pelikan Sicilian with considerable success since the WC match). Secondly, if you play someone who's adopting a safety first approach, it's very difficult to break him/her down at that level. Twelve match games is too short, and has been considered so for over a century. Emanuel Lasker was of the opinion that 30 match games was a suitable number to ensure a decisive and conclusive result.

Let me ask my mirror 🤔

Sorry,  but when your approach to a world championship match is ' I have a better chance at Blitz than at standard time controls so I'll just play out the regular games taking no chances in an attempt to win' you are hardly staking a claim to being the greatest chess player of all time. 

You pick one title match, that Carlsen won, to conclude his lack of greatness...

You mention eight other great players instead,  but making a similar assessment of them it is easy to pick Kasparov's match against Kramnik, or Lasker's against Capablanca, to conclude that they weren't so great either. Keres? When was he ever the best player in the world or reach a title match? Capa? Won one title match. Alekhine? Picked Bogo and Euwe as opponents and even lost to Euwe. Botvinnik? Won two of seven title matches. Tal? Won one title match but was never close to win another one. Fischer? Only played one. 

A more fair assessment would maybe include that Carlsen already at 28 has four World Championships without having the benefit of draw odds and rematches, scores great results in tournament after tournament, has been fairly clear #1 for almost ten years, etc etc. I think he already is unavoidable as top five, then it's a matter of taste where to place him.

To be fair, Carlsen has won two WC matches at Blitz. In the two together he has, in 24 games, won ONE GAME at standard time controls. And in the games of the last match there were really no serious attempts to win . Not exactly Tal/Botvinnik.  This does not stake much of a claim for being the greatest of all time.

Yes, WC matches are hard, and there have been many that did not do great credit- most famously the desultory Alekhine/Capablanca match. Though your examples were poor- Lasker lost to Capablanca after holding the title for over 25 years. Kasparov vs Kramnik was also a decade after Kasparov's prime. 

”Carlsen has won two WC matches at Blitz”

He hasn’t won any WC match in blitz.

”your examples were poor- Lasker lost to Capablanca after holding the title for over 25 years. Kasparov vs Kramnik was also a decade after Kasparov's prime”

That is also an example of how difficult it is to compare the ”unimpressive” Carlsen with other players. Lasker chose to defend against players like Janowski, Marshall and Schlechter. Unlike Carlsen he could keep the title without even beating Schlechter. He (twice!) went 11 years without defending at all. And then lost the title as soon as he faced a top player as challenger. Still I think he is one of the three greatest ever, but as World Champion I find Carlsen more impressive.

Kasparov also is top three in my book, but considered himself to be at his best around the match against Kramnik. But he still lost. Sooner or later the top players just underperform in an event or two, and that was what Kasparov did there.

Carlsen had to play four title matches 2013-18, and defended against qualified challengers every time, without draw odds or rematches. He has lost two games in four title matches, one after playing too hard for the win against Karjakin, one after falling into a prepared line against Anand. But it isn’t only about title matches, he has been the best player in The World for ten years, and not least his results and games this year show how great he is.

Schlechter was recognized as absolute world class at the time, thanks to his tournament results in the mid 00s. Furthermore, it has to be said that Pillsbury died young, Tarrasch was never really a patch on Lasker, whereas Capablanca and Rubinstein had both entered into negotiations about a match before the First World War interrupted, and then in the immediate aftermath of the war (which left Lasker virtually penniless) it was clearly not so easy to arrange a match. Lasker wanted a proper purse to stake his title, and so did Capablanca.

Before FIDE took over the WC, it clearly was in the incumbent's interest to set as difficult conditions as possible to deter challenges and make matches as lucrative as possible. Capablanca got it in the neck when Alekhine subjected him to the same conditions that he himself had had to fullfil, but with an international depression finding backers was not easy.

I love you right now

No theory.... ecstacy

So true about Morphy. For those who think he played some sort of Neandrathal chess, here is an example of his genius. http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1027914&comp=1

Realizing that Bird played Lasker in tournaments, and Lasker played Botvinnik, Morphy is not that far removed from 'modern chess; as one might think. This game is analyzed in West's very cool book 'The Dynamic Philidor Counter Gambit ' (Morphy's opening line still has theoretical value) - Karpov and his computer looks at the position after White's b4 to see if the sacrifice was sound, and after 17 moves comes up with the evaluation 'unclear' !

When assessing individual players, it's worth looking at their longevity. There were numerous GMs who got the title in 70s and 80s, and then relatively quickly fell back to E2300-E2400, and many players begin to tail off as early as their mid-30s. This is what makes players like Lasker, Rubinstein, Botvinnik, Smyslov, Tal, Korchnoi etc. so remarkable. They were able to continue developing as chess itself took huge leaps. Lasker was 67 when he took third place at Moscow 1935 - ahead of all the young guns. Botvinnik was 52 years old when he lost the WC against Tigran Petrosian in 1963 and still top 10 in the world when he retired in 1970 (E2640, only 30 points below Spassky, the world champion). Smyslov reached the Candidates Semi-final aged 64. Korchnoi was still above E2600 when he was 75 years old, above E2550 when had his stroke and nearly E2500 when he died at the age of 85.

way to die on top : )

nice little stuff you to the dieties