Greatest Tournament Ever?

I'd say Nottingham 1936 was the best, but there were so many! What do you think?

Candidates 2013

1851 first ever official World Championship.

Linaires, 1999.

+1

Las Palmas 1996.

Depends on what "greatest" means.

Thrilling: Candidates '13
Best: Hmm... 

It was played in December and it was first on the January list the participants were top 6, but it isn't just about being top six at the moment of the tournament. A few years ago Mamedyarov, Morozevich and Svidler were top 6 on the same list, but Las Palmas 1996 had this field:

Kasparov, maybe the greatest player ever in the middle of his reign

Karpov, maybe top three among the greatest ever, the same year he won a FIDE title match against Kamsky (and only two years after Linares 1994)

Anand, a future World Champion the year after qualifying for his first title match

Kramnik, another future World Champion that shared first on the rating list in 1996

Topalov, who won five tournaments in 1996 and scored great results

Ivanchuk, one of the greatest players ever not to win the title

I don't know many old tournaments so let me know what made you like this one even if it "should" be obvious to me

The problem with a lot of super gm newer tournaments is they're almost book knowledge tournments.. one players preparation against another..  and the games are palyed at such a high level with computer aided training that your average player will learn a lot less than by studying older games.. it's why I really would rank any modern tournements among the best ever.

Tal Memorial 2013 was boring! Magnus Carlsen got second place and Viswanathan Anand tied for last! And the old man Boris Gelfand, who played Anand in the World Championship last year won.

With events like Vienna 1882 and Nottingham 1936 the question is how much a bunch of "weak" players prevent a tournament from being the greatest. Nottingham had four British players (Winter, Thomas, Alexander and Tylor) that were nowhere near competitive at the top level. Thomas scored +0 -8 =6 and Winter +0 -9 =5, and the four of them lost in all 33 games. Some other players were well past their peak, for example Bogo scored +0 -8 =2 against the top ten, and Lasker was 68 years old. Also Tartakower and Vidmar were a couple of decades past their best days.

Still, the field was of course incredibly strong, with all the best players present, so it is certainly one of the greatest tournaments ever.

Well, it is one of only 3 tournaments in history to include 5 past, present, or future world champions. (Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, Euwe, Botvinnik) The other 2 were Soviet Championships I believe. The tournament was really a meeting of the generations that was unique, with the "old men" (Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, and Euwe) and the young stars (Botvinnik, Fine,Reshevsky,Flohr) This was the first time many of the participants even played each other, and the first time Alekhine and Capablanca played since their 1927 World Championship match. This was Lasker's last great performance, Botvinnik's first foreign success, and an incredible triumph for Capablanca when everyone thought his career was over. The results (given from memory, so I might be wrong, and I'm too lazy to look it up right now) were that Botvinnik and Capablanca tied for first with 10, Fine, Reshevsky, and Euwe were half a point behind with 9.5, and Alekhine with 9. Flohr and Lasker were next with 8.5.

It's hard to choose but I'd say Hastings 1895

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Contestants_at_the_Hastings_1895_International_Chess_Tournament.jpg

Cambridge Springs 1904 next!

I agreee. Nottingham 1936 was a good chess tournament. A lot of people were close to each other.