whos the goat

magnus Carlsen or Garry  Kasparov

ok

There are different Goats for different time limits !

Then we can always have Goat for just "understanding chess", ie; not an over the board, competitive chess player, but one who shows their chess expertise with mind blowing chess problems or endgame studies.

”New analysis shows” that it can’t be taken seriously… Only in America can Pillsbury be greater than Karpov or Botvinnik due to winning a couple of strong tournaments…

I think the Chess GOAT is an illusion, although an entertaining question to watch responses to. Knowledgeable people struggle to decide the best Chess player in a given decade, let alone across centuries. I thought this article was a good concept, but it will always come down to opinion.

https://www.chess.com/article/view/chess-player-of-the-decade

Thanks for that link in your reply above DKW.

Cheers!

”Pillsbury was a great player, died young. And beat the best players in his day”

He was good enough to win a couple of top tournaments but was never the best player in the world. In greatness he can’t be discussed in the same sentence as players like Karpov and Botvinnik, who were the best player in the world for at least a decade each.

”With super strong computer analysis. It is not a matter of opinion anymore. You can do analysis of the moves of the players. And the result is Bobby Fischer was the greatest chess player of all time by mile”

Not really, no. I’d say the greatest three are Kasparov, Lasker and Carlsen, then Karpov, Fischer, Alekhine, Capa, Steinitz in some order that depends on what one values most. But it is certainly a question of opinion. I don’t rank Carlsen as the greatest ever even though engines see him as playing better than Kasparov and Fischer etc. Of course he does since the best player in 2020 plays better moves than the best player in 1990 and 1970.

Greatness is about other things than that. Number of years as the best player in the world, number of title matches won, number of top tournaments won are probably the most significant criteria.

”Best World Rank: #1 (16 different months between the January 1903 rating list and the April 1904 rating list )”

And later in 1904 Chessmetrics has Janowski as #1. Lasker was the best player in the world at the time though. Pillsbury didn’t win any of the four tournaments he played 1902-04, the last being Cambridge Springs 1904, where he shared 8-9th with Mieses. He was a very good player, but any ranking that places him ahead of Karpov in greatness should be taken with a pinch of salt.

”And that make you bias statement wrong”

I think you may place too much faith in Chessmetrics. This is how it looked in the events where Lasker participated around the turn of the century:

Then Chessmetrics have him as inactive and rank Pillsbury first in 1903 and up until Cambridge Springs 1904, where Lasker scored +7 and Pillsbury -1. Another rating system has these numbers for 1903 and 1904:

http://www.edochess.ca/years/y1903.html

http://www.edochess.ca/years/y1904.html

Fischer is definitely third.