I would also point out that for a considerable part of his early career Karpov and Kasparov were in a class of their own. In 1991 Kramnik would have only been 16. So if Kasparov played in a tournament without karpov - yes he was likely to win.
IMO their is much more competition at the very top tournaments, that Carlsen has to deal with.
Kasparov is slightly fatter than Carlsen and hence, a bit more rubust. Kasparov also has a few more wrinkles and so, when he makes a blunder, he can contort his face with consternation a little more easily and scare the shit out of his opponents. Based on this lengthy assessment, Kasparov is the better player.
Well, it's like comparing Vettel and M.Schumacher in Formula 1 I guess.
Would you say Vettel is better because he already has 3 (almost 4) W.Ch. titles?
I believe we still agree Kasparov and MSC are gods in their sports. :)
Carlsen is taller than Kasparov!!
it seems like kasparovs pushed his opponents into death, while carlsen just seem to wait tell they put their head themselve in akward position were he has to pull the trigger. but maybe im wrong, i havent seen too many Carlsen games to be honest.
To follow up the comparison with more "normal" World Champions than Kasparov, these are Anand's last 18 tournaments, 2009-13:
2009 Linares 4th +2-2=10
2009 Tal Memorial 4th +2-1=6
2010 Wijk 4th +2-0=11
2010 Bilbao 2nd +1-0=5
2010 Nanjing 2nd +3-1=6
2010 London 2nd +2-0=5
2011 Wijk 2nd +4-0=9
2011 Bilbao 3rd +2-2=6
2011 Tal Memorial 6th +0-0=9
2011 London 5th +1-1=6
2012 Bilbao 5th +0-1=9
2012 London 5th +1-1=6
2013 Wijk 3rd +4-1=8
2013 Grenke 1st +3-0=7
2013 Zurich 2nd +1-1=4
2013 Alekhine Memorial 3rd +2-1=6
2013 Stavanger 4th +3-2=4
2013 Tal Memorial 8th +1-3=5
18 tournaments: 1-5-3-4-3-1-0-1 (i.e. one first place, five second places, three third places etc)
First place: 6%
Top three: 50%
Not a plus score: 44%
Carlsen's style of play is closer to Karpov than Kasparov. Waiting for opponent's inaccuracies in equal positions is Karpov's hallmark which gave him so many points.
Still, Karpov's tournament records are unbeaten by anyone. Also, his victory in Linares 1994 was awesome both in the result, the score difference to the 2nd place and the rating performance (it is considered by the statisticians to be above 3000 expressed in the current standards which takes elo inflation into account).
To compare with Kasparov, Carlsen has no chance of beating his age record of becoming the World Champion because he is a few months older than Kasparov was in 1985 when he won the match with Karpov.
Kramnik's tournament results after the last time he played Kasparov (not including matches or minimatches with rapid and blitz, but only round robins):
2005 Wijk 4th +2-1=10
2005 Sofia 5th +2-4=4
2005 Dortmund 6th +2-2=5
2005 Russian Superfinal 7th +2-2=7
2006 Dortmund 1st +2-0=5
2007 Wijk 4th +3-0=10
2007 Dortmund 1st +3-0=4
2007 FIDE WC 2nd +3-1=10
2007 Tal Memorial 1st +4-0=5
2008 Wijk 7th +2-2=9
2008 Dortmund 7th +1-2=4
2008 Tal Memorial 2nd +2-1=6
2009 Dortmund 1st +3-0=7
2009 Tal Memorial 1st +3-0=6
2009 London 2nd +3-1=3
2010 Wijk 2nd +4-1=8
2010 Dortmund 3rd +2-2=6
2010 Shanghai 2nd +1-1=4
2010 Bilbao 1st +2-0=4
2010 Tal Memorial 7th +2-2=5
2010 London 4th +2-1=4
2011 Wijk 5th +3-1=9
2011 Dortmund 1st +5-1=4
2011 Russian Superfinal 3rd +3-2=2
2011 Unive 1st +3-0=3
2011 Tal Memorial 8th +0-2=7
2011 London 1st +4-0=4
2012 Tal Memorial 4th +2-2=5
2012 Dortmund 3rd +3-1=5
2012 London 2nd +4-0=4
2013 Candidates 2nd +4-1=9
2013 Alekhine Memorial 4th +2-2=5
2013 Tal Memorial 10th +0-3=6
2013 Dortmund 2nd +5-1=3
2013 Zurich 3rd +0-1=5
35 tournaments: 9-8-4-5-2-1-4-1-0-1
First place: 26%
Top three: 60%
Not a plus score: 37%
Carlsen's last 18 was
18: 12-4-2
First place: 67%
Top three: 100%
Not a plus score: 0% (+2 or better in every tournament)
Edit: if Carlsen's last six years are counted instead of three, his results suffer slightly compared to the above since the first events were played when he was 16 years old and not yet a top ten player. Still the last 36 tournaments give such a good score as:
36: 20-9-6-0-1
First place: 56%
Top three: 97%
Not a plus score: 8%
Carlsen can obviously not be compared to Kasparov with regards to career achievements when he is 22, but it is interesting to compare his recent tournaments with Kasparov’s from the middle of his reign. That this is even possible to do says something about how good Carlsen’s results have been lately.
The last three years Carlsen played these tournaments:
2010 Nanjing 1st +4-0=6 2901
2010 London 1st +4-2=1 2815
2011 Wijk 3rd +5-2=6 2815
2011 Bazna 1st +3-0=7 2853
2011 Biel 1st +5-1=4 2833
2011 Sao Paulo/Bilbao 1st +3-1=6 2842
2011 Tal Memorial 1st +2-0=7 2849
2011 London 3rd +3-0=5 2875
2012 Wijk 2nd +4-1=8 2830
2012 Tal Memorial 1st +2-0=7 2848
2012 Biel 2nd +4-0=6 2878
2012 Grand Slam final 1st +4-1=5 2876
2012 London 1st +5-0=3 2994
2013 Wijk 1st +7-0=6 2930
2013 Candidates 1st +5-2=7 2850
2013 Stavanger 2nd +3-1=5 2834
2013 Tal Memorial 2nd +3-1=5 2846
2013 Sinquefield Cup 1st +3-0=3 2966
18 tournaments: 12 first places, 4 second places and 2 third places for Carlsen.
In 1991-96 Kasparov also played 18 (individual) tournaments:
1991 Linares 2nd +6-1=6
1991 Max Euwe Memorial 3rd +2-0=7
1991 Tilburg 1st +7-1=6
1991 Reggio Emilia 2nd +3-1=5
1992 Linares 1st +7-0=6
1992 Dortmund 1st +5-2=2
1993 Linares 1st +7-0=6
1994 Linares 2nd +6-2=5
1994 Max Euwe Memorial 1st +3-1=2
1994 Novgorod 1st +4-0=6
1994 Horgen 1st +6-0=5
1995 Riga 1st +5-0=5
1995 Max Euwe Memorial 2nd +3-2=1
1995 Novgorod 1st +4-0=5
1995 Horgen 5th +1-1=8
1996 Max Euwe Memorial 1st +5-1=3
1996 Dos Hermanas 3rd +3-1=5
1996 Las Palmas 1st +3-0=7
18 tournaments: 11 first places, 4 second places, 2 third places (1 fifth) for Kasparov.
One remarkable thing with Carlsen’s results is that his worst TPR in these three years has been good enough for clear first on the rating list. Kasparov had better periods than 1991-96, but those were not bad years for him while Carlsen still is quite young. Comparing Carlsen’s results with “weaker” World Champions rather than with the maybe greatest player ever would make them look even more impressive.