Who Is The Greatest Chess Player That Has Ever Lived ???

Thanks a lot for all of the posts.

   ---   That brings up the question as to how many people were able to make a living playing Chess in those days ?

people just love the morphy wankery.

he played some pretty atrocious games, they dont show those in the history books. 

Magnus Carlsen?

Fischer can never be the best due to a single dominant year, sorry. If we go by that, Kasparov and Magnus and Karpov far surpass him

The greatest chess player is of course subjective.

I tend to believe that one measure is the dominance in any era AND how long you remain unbeaten. 
Capablanca had not been beaten in eight years and so that ticks my box 

I agree completely that the greatest is completely subjective (as opposed to the best). I consider Edwin Moses the greatest 400m hurdler of all time. But Warholm is definitely the fastest ever.

Capablanca's unbeaten streak was impressive, but the eight years unbeaten just meant he didn't play much. Carlsen and Tal have both had longer unbeaten streaks.

top 4 is Morphy, Fischer, Kasparov and Carlsen

Thanks for all of the posts.

Serious answer= your mom

bobby fisher definatly

No

If a Soviet player had  become World Champion once, while an American had a bunch of successful title matches against stronger opposition and stayed #1 twenty years after winning the title, you would probably find few that would consider the Soviet player the greatest ever :-)

Honestly, I believe in Lasker’s claim that lies and hypocrisy don’t last long on the chess board.

Players from all over the world acknowledge Fischer’s greatness. He was meteoric.

Smyslov, by comparison, won a strong tournament 11-0 as a kid (sound familiar?) played with the clarity of Capablanca suffused with the dynamism of the Soviet School. He played beautiful chess at the highest levels for about 40 years, qualifying for the Candidates’ Final in 1983, nearly 30 years after he won the World Championship.

And yet people seem to have forgotten how good he was. That’s not due to his nationality, it’s due to his being great at the same time as Botvinnik, his quiet manner, and his style of play. 

”And yet people seem to have forgotten how good he was. That’s not due to his nationality”

I’d say it’s part of it though. If Fine or Reshevsky had his career I think they would probably be much more well known than Smyslov is. 

It's the current world champion at any one time.   There are always new lines being discovered that can defeat older players.  For instance, I believe that Judit Polgar (a player that is still alive) was as good as Bobby Fischer, but she was getting crushed by newer players and so she retied at 37.

Nah, few would rank Euwe as greater than Lasker or Anand as greater than Kasparov just because they won the title later.

I know for a fact that Judit Polgar would strongly disagree with you. 

Magnus Carlsen is the best!