So Capablanca is the best of all time, regardless of era.  Good to know.

Right.

PB doesn't need such computer geeks to form his expert opinion, because he already has one. PB thinks they should have been more careful in their nonsensical conclusions, because ignorant amateurs quote them a lot and tend to be improperly impudent.

so your basically sayin that we cannot measure who is better in chess objectively?

Yes.

if so,lest say player A and B playin 100 games,we can later on analyze their games and compare their moves to houdinis choices and player B got 65% accuracy and player A only 55% wouldnt you say that B player is strongergenerally in chess?

*assuming they never played together.

No, we can't. But if player B had 65% match with houdini 1st choice at fixed conditions (houdini's constant time or depth) in 100 games, we can be almost 100% sure player B cheated with some engine similar to houdini, but not exactly houdini (stockfish, rybka, firebird, strelka), in his shoes.

Carlsen would easily wipe the floor with Fischer, both ar 15 or at 22. And I'm no Carlsen fan but he plays with the accuracy of a machine. If Fischer were born in 1990, well... now we're talking.

This is true, and only a retarded bobby wanker would believe otherwise

OK, I should have answered: "No, I wouldn't say player B is stronger than player A, but player B is an idiot cheater."

quisiera ver a los jugadores actuales jugar sin la ayuda del computer!   Por otra parete las partidas actuales son mucho menos buenas que las de la epoca de Botwinik. Simplemente porque ahora tienen menos tiempo para pensar? 

I think it all boils down to character. Both are extremly strong chess players.Carlsen is very much comfortable in solid, risk-free positions. he can accept drawish positions and even play em to death. But Fischer is known to take risks in his games in drawish positions because he always goes for the win and that in itself is his waterloo. The rest is equal.

nailed it^

Caruana > Carlsen hahahahaha 4-0 4-0 4-0

How about if Carlsen was born at the same time and age as Fischer?  Wouldn't that change things the same way ? Carlsen has the accuracy of a machine but in my opinion, Fischer has the insanely mad accuracy it takes to beat a machine. 

It is not only the players that are stronger but chess itself is different. Ratings are only relevant in comparison to the current generation of players. The difference between Carlsen and Caruana is not that big, but the difference between Fischer and his peers was so great that not even the whole Soviet school of chess could beat him. If he was not such a difficult character and if the Soviets did not play between themselves for draws in order to emilinate him (this was proven to be true), he would be world champion around age 20 not 22. That is impressive strong chess when the level of chess play genius was more obvious than today's age of computers. Carlsen is a genius too there is no denying about that but he had proper mentoring from Kasparov and other grand masters as well. Ask yourselves where would Carlsen be if he was self taught in modern chess. And then ask yourselves : imagine eveyone else was playing for draws and against him for wins. That is a fair comparison.

Ultimately, in 20 years there will be chess players that dwarf even Carlsen or whoever rises up now. But everybody will be comparing the new guy always to Fischer not Carlsen. It is logical.

Everyone who knows Bobby's games would give an accurate and undoubtedly the only meaningfull answer: Fischer would win!

Don't mind me, just testing my first post here.

I'm amazed at how many people in this thread answer the question with such certainty that they're right, and that the opposition consists of imbeciles who don't know what they're talking about.

It's like the Laver vs. Borg vs. Sampras vs. Federer vs. Nadal arguments.  They're the only five with a legitimate claim in tennis, and each has his proponents.  I've heard, over the years, with various quality arguments in support of each, Morphy, Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, Tal, Fischer, Karpov, Kasparov and Carlsen.  (I've even heard that if playing with no time constraints Reshevsky was probably the greatest of all time.)

Until such time as every player has access to equivalent resources and opportunities, we have no idea who would win with each at the height of their powers. 

Frankly, I think Fischer would beat Carlsen ... but that opinion isn't even worth the time it took to type it, because someone else thinking the opposite has just as valid an opinion—that is to say, utterly meaningless.

↑ weak argument