Best chess players of all time?

looks pretty good. Was Steinitz really that good?

Carlsen as he is better than the super grand masters of today who are in turn better than the grandmasters of yesteryear. His all time high rating shows this.  [I know I will get a lot of flack for this opinion] 

Anatoly Karpov

Ulf Andersson

Arthur Yusupov

Rafael Vaganian

Emanuel Lasker

What is all this talk about Fischer shooting to the top? After 1959 he was a constant candidate. He won the US championship 9 times, every time he entered. He scored a perfect 11-0 score in "63-'64 championship. He was clearly the #1 player in the world '67-'69. He destroyed the rest of the world,in the 1970 interzonal. He blanked Taiminov and Larson,dominated Petrosian,and won the world championship by the greatest margin,in the FIDE era. His career at the top was 13 years long. That's not a one time fluke.

Chessmetrics exponent and advocate, Jeff Sonas, who wrote an article in 2005 in which he found that Steinitz was further ahead of his contemporaries in the 1870s than Robert James Fischer was in his peak period (1970-1972), that he had the third-highest total number of years as the world's top player, behind Emanuel Lasker and Garry Kasparov , and that he placed 7th in a comparison the length of time great players were ranked in the world's top three.

"He understood more about the use of squares than did Morphy, and contributed a great deal more to chess theory.' - <Bobby Fischer>.

I personally think he revelutionalized chess back in his day, he suddenly switched from an all out attacking style to a positional master and was adept at both but used the latter in the end of his career. When Lasker defeated him he was one month from turning 59 years old (while Lasker was just 25) Steinitz died 6 years later in a New York mental asylum with heart troubles and syphilis after more than 30 years at the top of the board!

Statistical rating systems give Steinitz a rather low ranking among world champions, mainly because he took several long breaks from competitive play. However, an analysis based on one of these rating systems shows that he was one of the most dominant players in the history of the game. Steinitz was unbeaten in over 25 years of match play.

I think that deserves a top ten all time ranking...how about you??

Not necessarily apropos of anything, but just something I was thinking about:

Imagine any of these players if you took away their closest rival.

Kasparov - remove Karpov, and little changes for him.  Karpov is the guy he overcame, he never really gave the title back, and was eventually overcome by Kramnik's superior prep, then retired.

Fischer - remove Spassky, and he still dominates the hell out of whoever he faces that year, then disappears.

Capablanca - remove Alekhine, and what happens?  Is he champion till he dies?  Does he drink too much, smoke too many cigars, take somebody too lightly, and hack up the title anyway?  Tough to tell.

Karpov - remove Kasparov, and Karpov is world champion during the most competitive era in chess history for at least a quarter century.  Amazing.  This alone is reason to rank KASPAROV #1 overall, and Karpov #2.  The only thing in the Universe keeping Karpov from being everybody's unanimous #1 of all time in a laugher of a competition is Kasparov, and Kasparov clearly had the upper hand in the rivalry.  (Even though the match score was very close.)

this is very subjective.

My list was based off of who was able to dominate thier era... how instructive their games were... How Accurate their games were... a slight bit of personal bias... and length of career.

10. Tal. was world champion, not the most accurate player, but still a force to be reconed with even defeated Kasparov a month before his death (Tal's death) <<He was the only one to beat Kasparov during that particular tournement but the win was only a win on time and if you look at the game Gary was winning because Tal had just made a sacrifice that appeared to be loosing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cm9nKUIkYyw  This was sadly Tals last game (a sacrifice move resulting in a win against the G.O.A.T. chess player, that is very fitting!)

9. Alekhine. World Champion, very strong competitor, brilliant. One of his trumps was a long reign as WC, so long that he died with the title. <<Alekhine died when Tal was just 10 years old but if Alekhine would of held on a few more years they might of played a game. They where two of the top five players of all time in playing attacking chess! I personally put Tal one tick better because of his extraordinary unparalleled ability to sacrifice for wins.

8. Capablanca. Not many people are able to play at a World Championship level in thier early teens. His endgames are very very good. Sure he was edged out by Alekhine, but really he was just a little past his prime when he was. <<WOW, (8th place???). Capablanca's endgame was not just "very very good" but it was the best ever (Botvinnik honorable mention too) and that was actually validated scientifically speaking by some of the earlier posts on this thread, Capa's games were SUPER simple in complications and how he crushed people with simple non complicated moves. That speaks volumes about talent! Alehkine beat Capa only after Capa had been crushing the WORLD's chess players for a quarter century...ofcourse he was past his prime, not to mention Alehkine ran like a coward everytime Capa offered a WC rematch. Alekhine would never accept a rematch, what does that say? I think you dropped him way to far down here and I would guess most chess experts would agree with my statement (no offense).

7. Karpov. He was a very strong player. Should have won the first match against Kasparov. He did dominate for quite some time. The one thing keeping him from being placed higher is that he never played Fischer for the title. << WOW, once again really? 7th??  Karpov has been dominant in chess for over half a century, he has the second longest streak ever of having the highest rating in the world (Kasparov has the longest), he is the only one to really push the best ever chess player Kasparov close to defeat (outside of Kraminik for one match) He tried hard to get the Fischer match going but Fischer simply put up too many obstacles and seemed disinterested in playing Karpov even for very large prize money (WHY?) Not to mention Karpov has arguably the highest rated competition of almost everybody on this list with exception of Kasparov. If  Kasparov never came along then Karpov would of been extremely dominant for an extremely long time and you would be laughed at for saying he isnt in the top 3.(no offense)

6. Botvinik. His prime extended for a very long time. Unfortunately he took advantage of the rematch rule. but he was a very strong player. <<Your right on the money here, good job!

5. Fischer. Can anyone say Dominance. He won 2 candidates matches 6-0 then he won his WC match after being down 2-0. He obviously was a strong player, and would have easily given Karpov one WC match defeat. << Dont forget Karpov is a brilliant positional player while Fischer was a brilliant attacker sorta like Kasparov, that alone suggests the WC match would of been extremely close. The 2 candidates matches that Fischer won 6-0 were impressive but that doesnt catapult him ahead of Karpov by itself. By the way "Can anyone say Dominance" that is funny becuase his dominance was very short lived until he retired as a recluse in his prime...he was not that dominant in terms of time at the top. But I agree his talent puts him in the top 5, I have him in 4th.

4. Carlsen. Sure his career is no where near finished, but lets face it, he is able to win drawish looking endgames, he is tactically very good, positionally good, and most importantly, he is head and sholders above the rest of the current line up of GM's. << Hmmm, how quickly you crown him...I think he is top ten all time right now alone but come on man, he has less than five years as the top ranked player in the world and besides that he wins drawish games from his stamina, not his talent, he is very good at elliminating blunders, (something Capablanca was statiscally head and shoulders better than anyone in history at doing and he did it for 30 years!)...to put somebody ahead of Capa or Karpov after 4 years with the top rank and 2 months with the WC is incredible to me...Capa and Karpov did it for a quarter centuruies or half century respectively. Are you Norwegian?

3. Paul Morphy. Many people will object to this dinosaur being placed this high on the list, some will object to his presence on the list, and some will wonder how he even manages to beat out Stientz for consideration on the list. won about 70% of his games. Morphy rarely lost. He was a much better player than Stientz  <<"He understood more about the use of squares than did Morphy, and contributed a great deal more to chess theory.' - <Bobby Fischer>. (better record against their only common opponent Anderssen. actually the record between Anderssen and Stientz was close. Morphy just blew Anderssen out of the Water) Morphy's games are brilliance... He may have played a bit on the romantic side, but his games always highlighted his better positional knowledge, better development, and of course preciseness. Plug his games into an engine and he plays very well. He could easily give modern Super GM's Problems if he were alive today.  <<   http://en.chessbase.com/post/computers-choose-who-was-the-strongest-player-     Please take look.... Morphy isnt even able to make the grade of the computer analysis because his romantic tendency was FILLED with blunders. I'll give Morphy top 20 for his great knowledge but never in a million years top 3!

2. Anand. Very modern, bridges the Gap between Kasparov and Carlsen and has the shortest victory in a WC match. <<No comment>>

1. Kasparov. not much arguing to be done here. <<Great job on #1!

Honerable mentions.

Boris Spassky

David Bronstien

Tigran Petrosian

Nigel Short

Vladimir Kramnik <<I agree here though.

Not one mention of Lasker....WOW! I think you put thought into your list but you didnt put much logic in some of the rankings. NO OFFENSE