Best endgame player ever - Andersson or Smyslov?

The greatest endgame players of all time IMHO inc most of the modern World Champions beginning with Lasker on up and maybe excluding Euwe and Tal, who were no slouches in the endgame either but probably not on a par with Smyslov, Fischer, Capablanca, Lasker and most of the other modern WCHs. 

Among other GMs Akiba Rubinstein is considered to be one of the greatest endgame players ever, esp. excelling in R+P endgames. Geza Maroczy was also considered to be an outstanding endgame player who excelled in Q+P endgames. According to IM Silman (and many others) Bobby Fischer was one of the greatest endgame players ever and is particularly notable for his B+P endings, although Silman is the only source I know of for this interesting nugget.

I dont buy SmyslovFan's argument Alekhine was any better at endgames than Capablanca, who did the best he (or anyone else) could do in lost endgames vs Alekhine in their 1927 WCH, which were by and large a result of being outplayed in the openings and/or middlegames. An examination of Alekhine's papers after his death in 1946 revealed an unfinished manuscript he was working on - a collection of his arch-rival Capablanca's games, not his own!

Capablanca was snatched too early from the chess world. With his death we have lost a great chess genius, the like of whom we will never see again.  ALEKHINE

FUN FACT: Capa's lifetime record vs Alekhine is +11 -7 =32 (3 of Capa's wins were exhibition games, the rest are tnmt and match games)   Aside from the 1927 WCH Alekhine only beat Capa once, at AVRO in 1938

Shameless self-promotion dept: Check out my blog on Capablanca - Alekhine, Nottingham 1936 with a very unusual 2 rook vs 3 minor piece ending:

http://www.chess.com/blog/NimzoRoy/3-minor-pieces-vs-2-rooks

I was always amazed to see Andersson win so often from equal positions.  At one point he was 3rd in the world I think.

great

Thanks, Petrosianic, for sharing those games!

I never said Alekhin was better than Capablanca in the endgame. I didn't say he was worse either. I used Alekhin's success in the World Championship match to illustrate a point made by Kasparov: Capablanca's mythical endgame dominance was just that, a myth.

In another thread, I quoted Kasparov at some length where Kasparov argues that Capablanca's endgame technique was shot in the match because Alekhin forced him to defend long hard endgames throughout the match. Kasparov, and many others (including Fischer), have argued that Capablanca's real strength was in simple middlegames rather than the endgame itself.

I did say that the best endgame player of their generation was Akiba Rubinstein.

Carlsen is the king of endgames

The endgame player increases further north you go in europe.

Poland- Akiba Rubenstein

Germany- Emanuel Lasker

Sweden- Ulf Anderson 

Norway- Magnus Carlsen.

what about Botvinnik? perhaps not the best endgame player, but surely the best in analyzing adjourned positions

Akiba, still the best endgame player ever.

Capablanca.

Why doesn't anyone ever mention Salov when discussing the greatest endgame players of all time?

When it came to technical endgame accuracy compared to tablebases he was certainly the best in the world throughout most of the 1990s. And when it came to squeezing half a point more than he deserved out of endings against the best in the world,  he was basically Carlsen before Carlsen.