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

Lets compare Capablanca and Carlsen when they were playing for the world championship. Capablanca was never in danger of losing in any of his games against the incredible Lasker and won his without a lost. Carlsen is a different story, in third game Magnus was in danger of losing and the nineth game Carlsen is losing by 20th move. He badly defended in a very complex and tactical game and only won because of a very discourage Anand. Let see how Capblanca defense against a dangerous attack and his opponent took ten years to prepare and unleash in a tournament game.

 Capablanca said," I thought for a while before playing this, and knowing that I would be subjected to a terrific attack, all the lines of which would of necessity be familiar to my adversary.The lust of battle, however, had been aroused within me. I felt that my judgement and skill were being challenged by a player who had every reason to fear both (as shown by the records of our previous encountered, but who wanted to take advantage of the element of surprise and of the fact of my being unfamiliar with a thing to whichby had devoted many a nights of toil and hard work. I considered the position then and decided that I was in honor bound, so speak,to take the pawn and accept the challenge, as my knowledge and judgement told methar my position should be defendable."

I doubt Carlsen could do the same from unprepare line, just look at the nineth game a dead lost.

Let's not compare chess players from different eras please...

Ahem.

By the way, that was quite a time ago, and the guy never became World Champion (though he had his chances).

Capablanca anytime. However, if he showed up at the match, there would be a lot more on my mind than who won  the match.

So...Najdorf could beat Carlsen?

If your comparisons of players from different eras, don't go to lengths such as those discussed in the following article (don't let the title fool you) http://en.chessbase.com/news/2006/world_champions2006.pdf, then you aren't looking at things objectively enough, nor are you making sure that the biases that often arise, in the comparisons between players of the same era, are weeded out.

I have seen that before, fascinating comparisons. I wish someone would do it again with the latest and greatest software and hardware.

Throwing in the latest champions would be a nice touch...

Carlsen's Fan App was just launched on android which allowed all to play him at different ages.

If such an app is launched based on Capablanca's playing style it would be great fun to watch!!!!!!!

The thing that always surprise me with this sort of thread is how the players from a century or two back (usually Morphy or Capablanca) by many tend to be ranked as objectively stronger chess players than those of today. The development is often seen as having gone backwards a lot in playing strength over the last 100-150 years. 

Many mean that Capablanca, as he was, would win a match against Carlsen, as he is. Several others mean that if Capablanca got the chance to study modern openings a bit this would ensure that he would win. This is no less common when Morphy is the player that is discussed, even Fischer claimed that Morphy, as he was in the 1850s, would beat the best players more than a hundred years later.

I wonder about this huge belief in players of the past. The players of today have the benefit of studying chess professionally since childhood, professional coaches, chess engines, tournament circuits, Internet chess, a century of theory, better knowledge of openings and endgames etc. How big would the actual difference in playing strength be if all these differences amount to nothing, or at worst could be evened out by a short time of looking at openings?

That's an great point. Anytime someone creates an thread such this, objectivity becomes mired in "if's" and "supposing this...". Without being too pithy in my opinion, realtime players have no fear. We are better than the generation 200 yrs earlier. Maybe not me, perse...but the GMs of today.

Thank Xathan and Nameno1had for bring this studies and links; Capablanca come ahead has the stronger player comparing to the past and present  world champions. I love to see them compare Capablanca to Carlsen, I am sure they would be the top best players.

BTW, I thought more about this and wanted to point out why I believe having a point of reference to measure each player against, is better than simply getting caught up in how each player, also compares to the best engines. While it can make some difference in the accuracy of game play analyses,  as I have noticed with analyzing games of cheating suspects, it generally doesn't matter the engine you use, as long as it is above the level of your benchmarks. The results will yield a consistent level of play, above the acceptable Elo tolerance, that you believe the player should be able to perform at.

In the case of the comparing the players to each other, simply having a consistent point of reference to measure each player against, is most important and here is why. The changes that are calculated in one player's play that might occur, from one engine to the next, would also likely be seen across the board, after all player's moves are analyzed. If anything, the increase in the engine power may only serve to penalize positional players, since engines often positionally ignorant. Players shouldn't be penalized by their style. I am pretty sure that is why the engine and the method that was chosen in the article I posted, was done so...

Computer comparisons won't prove a point either way.

It's much easier not to blunder when your opponents are making all the blunders.

Look at it the other way around. Teleport current Magnus Carlsen into Capablanca's era and he'd mop the floor with everyone on the planet without dropping a single game.

Carlsen's style is characterized by making moves that are superfically annoying to the opponent. Capablanca's style is simply making good moves, being solid, and having a good plan to carry through. Obviously, though, the time that Carlsen and Capablanca lived is quite different. If Capablanca were to know all theory today(he actually didn't study much opening theory but most endgame theory), he would have a good chance of beating Carlsen in a match or at least drawing though. It's very though to make comparisons of different people in different periods of time in chess though. Of course, without the opening theory that we know of today, Carlsen would have a good chance of beating Capablanca if he went back in time.

"If Capablanca were to know all theory today(he actually didn't study much opening theory but most endgame theory), he would have a good chance of beating Carlsen in a match"

So all that is needed for Capablanca of a hundred years ago to beat Carlsen of today is equal knowledge of openings? If that would be the case Capablanca must be several classes stronger since Carlsen has many huge advantages. He has trained like a pro for ten years, plays many top tournaments every year, is used to playing without adjournments during which you can analyse all the endgames, and has had the benefit of many more super strong opponents to play against continually.

Considering Carlsen's 3-0 in 10 against Anand, what would Capablanca's score against Anand be in that case, or against Kramnik, who lost against Anand? I think the results would be quite bad for Capablanca against all three, as it should be. It isn't fair to compare when all the advantages are working for the modern players. And Capablanca wasn't exactly unbeatable in his own time, he was beaten pretty badly by Alekhine in his only title defense, and finished behind Lasker in every tournament they played until Lasker was 65+ years old.

Some of the engine comparisons between then and now fail to take the fact into the equation that the players of the past had repeated adjournments in their games, and much longer time controls. Today many top players have to blitz out the endgames with very little time on the clock, but such things never happened in the old days. The games could be adjourned several times, and players could analyse the positions for hours. In many cases the players could analyse together with seconds for most of the night, especially some of the title matches of published engine analysis had big teams on both sides that analysed every adjourned position in great detail.

I must say the idea of adjourned games for serious games seems really strange -- it's as if I were in the middle of a tournament game and then all of a sudden I'm permitted to use the "analysis board" a la chess.com. It basically turns into a correspondence game at that point.

It gets especially strange when the teams are quite uneven, take for example Karpov vs Korchnoi. It wasn't just Karpov vs Korchnoi, but Korchnoi against all the other players in the top ten.

"It's much easier not to blunder when your opponents are making all the blunders"

Yes, today every opponent in a top tournament is quite strong, and capable to pose problems for anyone. All are professionals, the positions often get messy, and the players have little time to solve the complications. It should be easier to make mistakes under such circumstances, even if this doesn't seem to be the case, going by the engine analysis of the latest Candidates.