If Fischer would played Karpov for the World Champion, who would win?

When and what did Carlsen say about Fischer being the best?

Carlsen on who he ranks as the best ever (i.e. Kasparov, even if voiced quite diplomatically):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6g77y_4OQs

Here is the link. Or just search "Carlsen answer Fischer vs Kasparov" on Youtube. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6g77y_4OQs

That's the same clip, where he says that he considers Kasparov the best of all time (just after 2:00).

True dat : )

I understood that he means that Fischer was the best, as chess player. But Kasparov was superior in the "career", because he was the World Champion for many years, and Fischer desapeared from the chess world after 2 years as WC. 

I can confirm I heard EXACTLY the same rumour at the time.

    Clear to who?  To me, Karpov was clearly superior to Fischer as a chessplayer.  Karpov was champion for 10.6 years, Fischer 2.6 years.  Karpov had FOUR 2820+ tournament performances, Fischer had TWO. Karpov had ELEVEN Chess Oscars gold medals, Fischer had THREE.  Karpov spent TWENTY-THREE YEARS in the top 2 performers, Fischer had SIX.  Karpov played in 10 World Championship matches winning 6, losing 3 and drawing 1...the 3 losses were all extremely close contentions with Kasparov as was the draw.  Fischer played in 1.  Karpov also holds the world record for most tournament wins...120.  All of these stats are even more impressive when we observe that Karpov was a contemporary with Kasparov.  So how do we measure chess greatness?  Karpov played against much better competition, more frequently, more times, with much better results.   Karpov's match results are far superior; Karpov's tournament results are far superior.  What are you Fischerphiles basing your hero worship on?  What he might have done???

Karpov had a much longer time to amass such results. Fischer's greatness is not being debated; it's his chess strength in 1975.Based on the strength of his play leading up to and during the world championship match, it's not too far-fetched to assert that he was clearly superior. We'll never know what Fischer could have done with 20 extra years; he quit.

Fischerphiles! Excellent word choice.

chessman1504 wrote:

"Karpov had a much longer time to amass such results. Fischer's greatness is not being debated; it's his chess strength in 1975.Based on the strength of his play leading up to and during the world championship match, it's not too far-fetched to assert that he was clearly superior. We'll never know what Fischer could have done with 20 extra years; he quit."

That's not a simple thing to discuss. Karpov was striving for all those results, he readily participated in tournaments, olympiads, matches. If a chess player does not have a desire (a possibility or whatever else) for gaining such results and participating in so many chess events to gain high results, it's no matter how much time you give to him - extra 20 years, extra 50 years ... - it would not change much

It would end 40-0 fischer.

"But nevertheless Lasker did not opt out of his obligations to have a match with Schlechter: after all, under the contract he was getting fantastic odds. In order to be considered the winner, Carl had to win with a margin of two points – the contract said that if the score was 5.5:4.5 in favour of the challenger, the match would be declared to have… ended in a draw."

http://moscow2012.fide.com/en/history/90

"There are still some who doubt whether this two-point clause existed, and as far as I know, positive proof does not exist. But the evidence of Schlechter's play in that final game, plus the difficulty of imagining a cagey bird like Lasker risking his title in such a short match without some extra protection seems pretty telling. Not to mention the fact that negotiations for a Lasker–Capablanca match broke down the very next year over that very same 2-point tie clause." - Graeme Cree

"To all appearances, one of the points stated stated that to win the title the challenger had to gain an advantage of two points, and that if Schlechter were to win by one point (5.5-4.5) the match would be declared drawn." - G Kasparov

With regard to the 1911-1912 negotiations between Lasker and Capablanca ...

Lasker drew up a list of terms for a possible match with Capablanca. Some of the most important of these were:

• 6 Wins OR Best of 30
• Match to be considered drawn in the event of a tie match OR if one player were to lead by one point only.
• Champion decides the match venue and stakes.
• Challenger must deposit $2000 forfeit money.
• Time limit to be 12 moves per hour.
• The Champion has an exclusive right to publish the games.
• Play conducted no more than 5 days per week, no more than two 2½ hour sections per day.

http://web.archive.org/web/20050120165616/http://members.aol.com/graemecree/chesschamps/world/world1921.htm

"Carl had to win with a margin of two points"

Yes, as I said some have claimed that this was the case, but no one has ever had any proof behind these claims, and the majority of chess historians believe there was no two point margin clause. Lasker himself wrote before the last game that it looked as if the chess world would have a new World Champion after the final game, but then Schlechter failed to draw it and Lasker kept the title.

I wouldn't have considered it acceptable if Spassky had demanded in 1972 that FIDE must change the rules and that he just wanted what Lasker allegedly once had against Schlechter. It would obviously have been no less unfair whichever World Champion demanded such rule changes with appeals to history instead of accepting to continue with the much more fair system that existed when the player in question was the challenger.

However, the same clause was demanded by Lasker in his negotiations with Capablanca, the following year.  That gives the suggestion it existed in the abbreviated Schlechter match (which originally was to be longer) a greater degree of certainty.

By 1910, Lasker was already 42 years old.  He was "hedging his bets."

The point I made earlier was there was precedent for both the 10-win condition and the drawn match condition (i.e. must win by two).  And, you do realize, Fischer would have to have won by the same minimum margin to have claimed the winner's share of the purse.

Fischer is just too damn strong. Karpov is great, but Fischer is better. It's indeed sad that Fischer's career was so short.

"the same clause was demanded by Lasker in his negotiations with Capablanca, the following year"

That is undeniable, just like it is a fact that there was no such clause in Lasker's title matches against Tarrasch, Marshall, Janowski and the one that later was played against Capablanca. But the first negotiations with Capablanca broke down quickly because of the suggested +2 clause, and the people Lasker turned to for mediation, like Burn and Shipley, all sided with Capablanca in finding the +2 clause unacceptable. Of course a +2 clause in a ten game match would have been even worse.

Tim Harding on the year 1910 in chess and the match:

http://www.chesscafe.com/text/kibitz164.pdf

Your source:

"The consensus, however, is that the title was at stake. Ken Whyld explained in his chapter about Lasker in Winter's essay collection "World Chess Champions" (Pergamon Press 1981) that the champion had committed himself in 1909 to defending his title against Schlechter, but that the original plan had been for thirty games in half a dozen cities, in which the Austrian would have been required to score two more wins than Lasker to become champion. Due to thelack of outside interest in  such a match, finance was not forthcoming for such a marathon and it was scaled back first to fifteen games and then to ten.

Whyld wrote that "clearly, to expect a margin of 2 points in a ten-game match would have destroyed what little interest there was, but equally clearly Lasker would not have agreed to put his title at risk in the shortest title match ever arranged without some sort of safeguard." A return match clause would seem to me to have been the most likely safeguard. Whyld's speculations in that article seemed to lack a firm basis, like those of most people on the subject.

Graham Burgess raised these questions again in his "Chess Highlights of the 20th Century," but didn't try to answer.

http://www.chesscafe.com/text/kibitz164.pdf

Harding also refers to a chess author and aquaintance of Lasker, who said that there was no +2 clause. The match conditions were published in advance in the Pester Lloyd newspaper, where Lasker contributed at the time, as "most points wins" and nothing else. It's true though that the previous preliminary agreement with Schlechter was for a 30 game match with a +2 clause, but sponsors weren't interested.

Match conditions: "Es werden im ganzen zehn Partien gespielt ... Sieger it's wie die Mehrzahl hievon gewinnen"

http://content.onb.ac.at/cgi-content/anno?aid=pel&datum=19100108&seite=6&zoom=33