If Capablanca played Carlsen for the world champion match, who would win?

This how strong Capablanca, even when he was old and the young generation of top GMs; Capablanca still can play against the strongest young GM. Salo Flohr was a world champion contender and tie a match with Botvinnik and Capablanca beat him with no effort. Capablanca draws with ease against Botvinnik. Capablanca: 1 win, 5 draw and 1 lost and Botvinnik 1 win, 5 draw and 1 lost, tie score against a future world champion, let see if Carlsen can do the same.

Fischer and Capablanca both nodded to Morphy (which is all the more significant given the tendencies of the chess ego!):

"A popularly held theory about Paul Morphy is that if he returned to the chess world today and played our best contemporary players, he would come out the loser. Nothing is further from the truth. In a set match, Morphy would beat anybody alive today... Morphy was perhaps the most accurate chess player who ever lived. He had complete sight of the board and never blundered, in spite of the fact that he played quite rapidly, rarely taking more than five minutes to decide a move. Perhaps his only weakness was in closed games like the Dutch Defense. But even then, he was usually victorious because of his resourcefulness." ~ Bobby Fischer

"[I play in] the style of Morphy, they say, and if it is true that the goddess of fortune has endowed me with his talent, the result [of the match with Emanuel Lasker] will not be in doubt. The magnificent American master had the most extraordinary brain that anybody has ever had for chess. Technique, strategy, tactics, knowledge which is inconceivable for us; all that was possessed by Morphy fifty-four years ago." ~ José Raúl Capablanca 

Something to consider: 

Before Carlsen there wasn't any chess culture in Norway. We never heard of Chess. No media coverage. He came out of nowhere.

Cuba also has more  than twice the population of Norway.

Conveniently ignoring Leif Ogaard.

This really doesn't explain how Carlsen could become champion using the theoretically equal Reti and a number of other non-critical lines ( Nc3 instead of playing the theoretical Slav Marshal Gambit is one example.) against Anand and other players. He has a reputation of not going for the advantage in the opening and taking some very passive positions with Black. 

Capa would win. His moves are the most accurate and have the least blunders according to computer. Carlsen isn't even in the top 10 and confess , makes a lot of blunders. Of course Capa need to be up-to-date with the latest chess openings.

Capa ftw.

Of course Carlsen would win. Armed with tech, he could exploit Capa's limited opening knowledge. But that's about it. I'm not talking about theoreticals, it's the truth. I dig Capa. But when Alekhine burst onto the scene, he was considered, "next gen". Why is it we're only considering Cap vs Carlsen? Alekhine would've been able to compete with Carlsen. Botvinnik, Bronstein, Fine, Reshevsky, Geller. Karpov in his prime definitely. Even Kasparo v (prime form, of course)

Although, without such advantages. It would ve

I hate to admit it, but Magnus is probably the best this world has seen, so far.  Better than Fischer, better than Garry, and better than Capa.

So who are the 10+ players that are more accurate than Carlsen? :-) The engine analysis below was of the Candidates 2013, where Carlsen had one of his worse tournaments over the last three-four years, and still his play was ranked as better than that of all previous World Champions. I'd say he played considerably better in the title match than in the Candidates, but I haven't seen any comparable engine analysis of it yet:

http://en.chessbase.com/post/the-quality-of-play-at-the-candidates-090413

Owned 

Carlson would crush anyone who has ever lived in the history of Chess. Give him 10 more years and you'll see truly shocking moves to the likes you've never seen before.

Keep in mind he is still finding brilliant wins in positions against other players who have studied in the computer era and would win against Capa 9 times out of 10 already.

Younger right brained players are imaginative and may have an advantage at times.. Older players are set in their ways...sort of repeat themselves.Capablanca would WIN.  At a more mature age Carlsen's brain would LAG ...he would be no match 

You don't pick checkmates out of thin air, even if you are incredibly talented ; your opponent makes a mistake.

It's a no-brainer than Capablanca wouldn't survive at the top of today's chess, just like Fischer did not when he returned briefly in the 1990s.

Whether Capablanca switched at cradle and time-machine-transported to now would beat Carlsen is another question, of course, but it's hard to see how to avoid idle speculation.

Another link.

http://en.chessbase.com/post/computers-choose-who-was-the-strongest-player-

At the bottom in the blunder-rate measurement.

About Carlsen, his opponent have the tendency to make more blunder against him because he constantly sets traps.

IMO, Capablanca is the strongest chess player of all time.

ChessNovice09, sir, did you forget in your schools chess was provide and has many chess clubs; Norway has a big chess culture and before Carlsen, Norway has many grandmasters. The Norwegian Chess Federation was founded on July 20,1914. The Ministry of education makes a grant to the chess federation for the purpose to furthering chess in schools. Nearly every school in Norway has its own chess club, and the federation organises Norway in the Scandinavian schools team championship.

 In America we don't have this at all and mostly every expert and master is self-taught. In our schools our chess club is lame and most instructors are very weak players ( 1000- 1500 USCF). I would say Europe has an advantage over the American players. I can see why Carlsen had a lot chess influence and he made quick progress in chess; Capablanca did not have this advantage.

It is easier to play more accurately against weaker moves. Todays GM's play much stronger chess, from more sound theory.

While I do think that it was harder back then, that would only make the GMs of the past better comparatively, in some abstract sense of merit, not actual achievement. Just like in many "physical" sports; science brought more knowledge and technology assisting and informing a better training and practice, plus the market aspects of competitivity (always trying to raise the bar), and so they've broken the absolute records, even though one could really make the case that perhaps several great athletes of history would be better than present day's athletes, if only we took time machines and trained them in equal grounds.

I sort of recall of reading about a study that did something along the lines of using chess engines to compare the objective difference between earlier GMs and more recent ones, the more recent ones having a better score. But I may be sort of inventing this, I'm not sure. I also sort of recall the a case being made that present-day ELO ratings aren't inflated, but actually deflated, comparatively.

I played over two 2700 players who were playing blindfold chess (I don't remember the players, the game was really bad), the quality was so bad it look like beginner playing, they were blundering a piece and the last move the GM blunders a queen, a one mover blunder. Today blindfold is easy, they provide a chess board, in Philidor, Morphy, Paulsen, Blackburne and Pillsbury, they did everything in their mind, no board to view and playing simultaneously players with dead accuracy and no siily blunders. No, today GMs 2700- 2800 players their rating are inflated, if a 2700 player cannot play blindfold without the aid of a board and without making bad blunder; they are not better than the past GMs.

nobody was taking down capablanca in his prime, during his reign as world champion nobody could touch him.  carlsen is a lesser light, capablanca is the blinding sun.

Very interesting comparisons.  Check back in 27 years and see if Carlson matches Lasker's feat.  It would be like comparing Tiger Woods with Sam Snead.  Both champions of the era they lived in.  Give it a rest, none of us are Grandmasters.  oops, how did Lasker get into this?

"during his reign as world champion nobody could touch him"

In New York 1924 he finished 1.5 point behind Lasker, and was far from first also in Moscow 1925, finishing behind Lasker once again. He won a couple of strong tournaments and didn't win a couple of them.