Adolf Anderssen, Paul Morphy, Alexander Alekhine, Mikhail Tal, Boris Spassky, Bobby Fischer, Garry Kasparov, Alexei Shirov, Viswanathan Anand and Veselin Topalov
Greatest Attacking Chess Players Of All Time
Karpov? Forgive me if I'm wrong but everything I've heard and seen of him is that he plays incredible positional games and takes away all possible counterplay before going for the win. He has to checkmate to win (maybe), but hardly an 'attacker'.
Yeah... "gashimov???"
Think a litlle!
Mikhail Tal and Rashid Nezhmetdinov are the 2 greatest attackers of all time!
Kasparov was a genuis indeed, but all his sacrifices were calculated till the end!
Tal and Nezhmetdinov where the ones who invented the intuitive sacrifice btw!
don't come up with people like topalov etc... those didn't prove anything.
A championship now is only 9-11 rounds in the time of tal etc... there were 21-32 rounds! Show more respect for tal,geller,bronstein,etc...!
Geller was btw a totally underestimated player, he had a positive score against almost every world champion he played against.
Because he hasn't become world champion when he was on his best; but he deserved to be world champion. Nowadays he's because of that 'forgotten' (or something like that). Most trainers show there pupils practically only games of the world champions, but not much games of players like bronstein and geller.
May I suggest Smyslov?
A positional player, yes, but still one of the best attakers ever. For example:
Smyslow was just one solid player, not an attacker!
He's known because of the harmony his pieces have in his games, not because of spectacular attacks!

Geller's problem was that he wasnt a good match player. In 2 matches against Spassky he failed to win even one game and yet in tournaments had a + record against Spassky.

I got interested in Chess, while I was a kid, when I saw a game of Alekhine .... Awasome attacks... So he would be my candidate
May I suggest Smyslov?
A positional player, yes, but still one of the best attakers ever. For example:
http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1126406
Smyslov was like a dog chewing on a tasty bone there, no way was he giving it up.