Best chess player ever

Oops, I switched the 5 and the 8. Still, his rating right now if he would be alive would be over 3000. Fischer and Carlsen are the best players in my opinion.

Capablanca...

Greatest Players of All-Time

1-TOURNAMENT PRIME:

1. Bobby Fischer
2. Anatoly Karpov
3. Jose Raul Capablanca
4. Paul Morphy
5. Garry Kasparov

1-YEAR PRIME:

1. Bobby Fischer
2. Jose Raul Capablanca
3. Garry Kasparov
4. Paul Morphy

2-YEAR PRIME:

1. Bobby Fischer
2. Jose Raul Capablanca
3. Garry Kasparov
4. Paul Morphy
5. Mikhail Botvinnik

4-YEAR PRIME:

1. Bobby Fischer
2. Jose Raul Capablanca
3. Paul Morphy
4. Garry Kasparov
5. Anatoly Karpov

7-YEAR PRIME:

1. Jose Raul Capablanca
2. Paul Morphy
3. Bobby Fischer
4. Garry Kasparov
5. Anatoly Karpov

10-YEAR PRIME:

1. Garry Kasparov
2. Paul Morphy
3. Anatoly Karpov
4. Alexander Alekhine
5. Jose Raul Capablanca

15-YEAR PRIME:

1. Garry Kasparov
2. Anatoly Karpov
3. Emmanuel Lasker
4. Alexander Alekhine
5. Jose Raul Capablanca

20-YEAR PRIME:

1. Garry Kasparov
2. Emmanuel Lasker
3. Anatoly Karpov
4. Mikhail Botvinnik
5. Jose Raul Capablanca

OVERALL (WEIGHTED "/1 for Years 1-7" + "/1.5 for Years 10-20"):

1. Garry Kasparov - 16
2. Jose Raul Capablanca - 17
3. Bobby Fischer - 18

These bottom rankings are a bit unfair and are unreasonable indications of a players' skill. I cannot name who I think is the greatest player of all-time, but I can say this: Fischer had the greatest "unbeatable, brilliant short flash" prime ever (1-4 years), Capablanca had the greatest "dominant period of invincibility" ever (4-9 years) and Kasparov had the greatest overall career from start to finish (10-20 years).

 This is the best "who is the best" type summary Ive seen yet.

Bobby Fischer the best chess player ever

Chess engines now in the 21st century are finally beginning to consistently select candidate moves similar to Capablanca, and those engines can already crush any super-GM, hence the human chess machine rules and has a better last name to boot.  

If Capa were alive today he'd be about the age of the oldest human in history (real humans, not fairy tale humans).  That'd be awesome.

Pillsbury!

Alekhine FTW

Here's an interesting piece of info I came across recently. "For the next eight (8) years after becoming World Chess Champion, Kasparov won, or tied for first, at every tournament he competed in." I'm still trying to determine how many tournaments those were...but this record is astonishing.

My vote goes to Kasparov. (Sorry if I revived an old thread, but it seems worth it.)

Considering who was the best chess player ever should include competition that top player had at its own time. 

Chess quality and strength of players base is improving every year, more and more people play it professionally, more have excellent trainers, more money is involved which yields to greater motivation.

With this said, I'd say Kasparov stood out the most because he had to beat stronger players than other champions of their time. 

In recent years I don't think we have a champion like that, which would be so above other competitors, there are several excellent chess players of very close quality and strength, so it's hard, if not impossible, to pick just one, but time shall tell.

It's hard to imagine who'd win the tournament of best players throughout history. Maybe computer analysis can help us with that? If we analyze 100 of best games of best players we could see who made the best moves statistically - sure, this still cannot tell us who'd win the tournament, but it would be a nice visual to wonder on. (Though, games would have to be analyzed to very high plydepth. Any ideas as of how high?)

Nooo!

Interesting findings:

Methods for comparing top chess players throughout history
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methods_for_comparing_top_chess_players_throughout_history

Top 10 greatest chess players in history 
http://listverse.com/2009/09/06/top-10-greatest-chess-players-in-history/

No need to read it then ;)

 Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That was of course very good, even if ten years sounds more impressive than the number of games or opposition in the mentioned tournaments. They were very weak compared to modern day top events, but beating Lasker was of course a different matter. It's often said that Lasker wasn't interested in playing by then and already had resigned the title. He didn't prepare at all and played the match just to get money etc, even if that of course doesn't change the fact that Capablanca was #1 at the moment. Maybe Lasker was better already a few years later though (New York 1924).

Kasparov.

I vote Fischer.

1st kasparov, 2nd bobby fischer, 3rd anand, 4th carlsen