5 Greatest Chess Players of All Time

Who are the 5 greatest chess players of all time according to you and why?

My view:

According to me, the 5 greatest chess players of all time are:

1) Paul Morphy.

2) Emanuel Lasker (27 yrs)

3) Alexander Alkhine (17 yrs)

4) Garry Kasparov (15 yrs)

5) Fischer

I have simple way of judging who is the greatest of all time. If a player has reigned as the world champion for the longest period, then he is the greatest in my view. The only other factor that might influence this metric would be if a player has voluntorily stopped playing chess for some reason and may still be arguably the best in the world in that time period. And there are only two such cases: Paul Morphy & Fischer. In these cases, their reign period would be until the rise of a new champion. Paul Morphy played in 1850s and retired in 1860s(even though he was still the best). Then, Steinitz was there but its unclear when he should be treated as a champion. I am putting Steinitz champion from around 1880s. So, according to me, Morphy remained undisputed champion for 30 yrs(1850s - 1880s) even though he had stopped playing chess in 1860s. Similarly, Fischer voluntorily pulled out and Karpov became the nominal champ. So, Karpov was second-best and his reign also belongs to Fischer. That would mean Fischer reigned for around 13 yrs effectively.

I'd say your way of assessing greatest is severely flawed!

First off, level of opposition.  Morphy would have gotten creamed if anybody that was of any strength at all existed then.

Secondly, Karpov would have creamed Fischer

Thirdly, as an off-shoot from the first, length of time means nothing because again, it's a matter of timing of when another strong player comes into the picture.  Take American Football.  If one team in the division goes 11 and 5, and nobody else in the division wins more than 6 games, and this happens for 8 years straight, is this the greatest team ever because they won their division 8 years in a row?  Uhm - NO!  It's because their opposition at the time was weak!

Therefore, the top 5 list should look something more like this:

1) Kasparov

2) Carlsen

3) Karpov

4) Anand

5) Kramnik

Also, on your flawed system, Botvinnik was WC for 13 total years, and actually played all 13 years, not like that stupid clown that was world champion for 3 years and then refused to play Karpov, and sat idle during those 10 years that you claim was his!  Karpov's brain does not work as a proxy for Fischer!

Also, the OP's math is severely flawed.  Lasker was WC for 27 years, not 25.  1921 - 1894 = 27!

^^^^

Why is reigning period important?

Because, thats the only unbiased way of judging clearly if one is good. If a player is not good, he will not be able to reign for much time. He'll be soon found out and defeated. It takes a really great player to remain on top for a long period. The longer you remain on top, the greater you are.

About Morphy:

This idea that Paul Morphy would not be able to face the current crop was started by Capablanca when he was champion in 1927. He was the one who came up with this theory. It seems like a clever way of pulling down a past giant player. At that time, Capablanca perhaps wanted to portray himself as the greatest player of all time. But, Capablanca was on the top for just 6 yrs. So, he is nowhere in contention.

About Fischer:

Karpov was never the best. He remained the second-best. Karpov was on top only when the really best(Fischer & Kasparov) were not playing.

 Sorry. I'll correct it.

So i guess there is no point in playing the Olympiad then, as the title will go to the Armenians anyways.

Can't say I'm surprised that another "greatest" shot misses a target that isn't even there in the first place. The bit bbeltkyle quotes is priceless though, so thank you (?).

What made Morphy so impressive was that he played intuitively (and seemingly with little effort) at a level of mastery that most players today take years of study, practice, and engine training to develop.

Morphy didn't seem to need any of that. He just popped onto the chess scene as a young new player, obliterated all challengers in dazzling fashion, then got bored and wandered off to pursue something else.

And centuries later, players are still talking about him and studying his moves. :-O

It is too obvious who the strongest players of all time are, just simply look at the top five best peak ratings and that should be the answer.

Kasparov

Tal

Carlsen

Fischer

Petrosian

In no particular order.

About the argument of 'level of opposition':

Basically, the argument is, "level of opposition of a particular player(in this case Morphy) was mediocore, so his wins are not so great. And so, he is not all time great."

I think this argument was first used by Capablanca to pull down Morphy in a clever way. But, this is an argument that can be used to pull down any player(in the past or future). For example, you can say that Garry Kasparov was not really the greatest because his 'level of opposition' was poor compared to the past or future. Literally, you can use this argument to pull down any player you dislike. There is no way to know the 'level of opposition'. The opponents of Morphy look mediocore because Morphy makes them look mediocore. Infact, if you look at any player's lost matches, they'll look mediocore. That does not mean they were mediocore in general. It just means that they made a mistake in a match or they were outplayed by their opponent.

Capablanca used the argument that Future chess player is better than the past chess players. If that argument is true, then Carlsen would be the greatest and the next greatest would be Anand just because they are the most recent champions. This is clearly a bad argument but some people keep repeating it to pull down an all time great player like Paul Morphy. They tarnish all the players of his generation just so they can decrease the greatness of Morphy. Because they don't have any other argument to belittle him.

"... Morphy became to millions ... the greatest chess master of all time. But if we examine Morphy's record and games critically, we cannot justify such extravaganza. And we are compelled to speak of it as the Morphy myth. ... [Of the 55 tournament and match games, few] can by any stretch be called brilliant. ... We do not see sustained masterpieces; rather flashes of genius. The titanic struggles of the kind we see today [Morphy] could not produce because he lacked the opposition. ... Even if the myth has been destroyed, Morphy remains one of the giants of chess history. ..." - GM Reuben Fine

Kasparov, Fischer, Karpov, then Lasker and Capablanca. That is leaving out those who are still playing. I think Carlsen is on the road to the top 3.

I really don't think we need yet another thread on this topic - please contribute to one of the existing threads on this topic, like https://www.chess.com/forum/view/chess-players/who-is-the-greatest-chess-player-of-all-time - I am locking this one.