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

"Kasparov never achieved the dominance Fischer did in the early 70's it's a statistical fact"

Actually, it's not.  Kasparov may be the greatest player ever, but he must be a rather inferior amateur chess historian as the largest rating gap between the best and second best player in the world was Steinitz over Bird in April, 1876 with a rating gap of 199 points!  Far more than Fischer over Spassky in December, 1971 of 146.

And Kasparov lead was only that low because of Karpov. His gap over #3 was much larger. Kasparov and Karpov were both very much ahead of the rest of the pack.

There were no ratings back then so  ...  

Players were more or less dominant also before the Elo lists that were published from the 1970s onwards. Kramnik meant that Lasker was more dominant than any player after him, and Chessmetrics rank Steinitz as the most dominant player. But for how long is maybe even more interesting, both Lasker and Steinitz had huge gaps to #2 for quite long periods.

I was using Chessmetrics rating list.  It uses even more precise mathematics than ELO.  But if you prefer ELO, how about Kasparov having SEVENTEEN 2820+ tournament performances, Karpov having FOUR, and Fischer having TWO?  

Fischer played his last tournament already when he was 27 years old, so he played quite few tournaments before retiring. That in itself makes it difficult to compare him with players that did much more for a much longer time.

Fischer had a much higher performance rating in his candidates matches and the 20 game win streak against GMs .... higher than anything anyone else has ever done ... Fischer is also very likely to have shattered 2800 had he continued playing , he was only 29 when he quit . 

That's a meaningless measurement.  Ratings are relative to their pools.  Prior to Fischer, how many 2700+ performances were there, period? ;)

I agree that Fischer's 20 game run was impressive!  Can we keep the discussion to what the players actualy did alccomplish and not include what they would/could/should do that they didn't actually do?  I mean saying Fischer would have done this or that if he kept playing is a lot like saying pigs could fly if they sprout wings.

Steinitz 25 in a row was quite impressive too, including 7-0 without draws in a match against then #2 Blackburne, but still i don't think Steinitz can be compared to Lasker.

One thing about Steinitz is that he didnt have a 10 year stretch in which he didnt defend his title ,  Lasker had 2 such stretches !! Seems easy to be WC 27 years when you have 20 of those in which you dont defend the title ... no ?  

In '75?

Silly question.

Fischer 12-4.

Easy? No!

Imagine all the ducking and diving he had to do!

If Fischer had played three months at any time in his life ...

He would have destroyed Karpov or Kasparov at any time in theirs.

It's always overlooked 'how hard' the K's worked to pull Fischer out of retirement.

They knew what you know.

In the mean time, they got to play with his title.

Lasker did score some incredible results in for example St Petersburg 1895-96, London 1899 and Paris 1900. To me the impressive thing with Lasker is that he won the World Championship in 1894, and then had a 30 year long period after that, counting from St Petersburg, during which he won all tournament he played except one, where he finished second.

In Lasker's case the title matches/length of reign is less impressive in itself, it's more his very high playing level the 40 years after winning the title. He was 56 in New York 1924 and won clearly ahead of the much younger Capa and Alekhine, both close to their peaks then. That was 30 years after he became World Champion, and a decade later he still scored a top result in Moscow, ahead of Capa as usual but 0.5 behind Botvinnik and Flohr in first, but they were 40-43 years younger.

Agreed.  Also, Tal's records for longest stretch without a loss in competitive chess at over 90 games is mind boggling (he also has the 2nd longest stretch at over 80 if memory serves)!  As were Kasparov's 'supersimuls' where he beat multiple GM's at the same time.  Likewise for Karpov's 1994 Linares 11/13 Kasparov, Anand, Kramnik, Topolov, Gelfand Ivanchuk, Kamsky etc. 2nd place was Kasparov with 8.5!

p40 Kamalakanta refers to Viktor as Krochnoi!

HAHAHAHAHAHA!

Lasker was indeed very impressive , even after he got " old " .  I think Steinitz is more deserving though of the one who held the WC longer as he didnt have a single long stretch in which he didnt defend the title and he never ducked anyone ... 

What made Fischer accomplishments so remarkable is he had No trainer or Soviet school of chess to help him develop his talent, he did All the hard work himself. Not so with Karpov and Kasparov, they had trainers and the Soviet shcool of chess to help them, Botvinnik being one of their trainer.

 If Kasparov dominated chess so much why did he tie in Seville, Spain in 1987 and their final score was 12-12, that is not dominating your opponent, Kasparov was 25 years old to Karpov 37. Of all their five matches in world champion, Kasparov is only ahead two wins and again that is not dominating, in their final match Karpov was 40 years to Kasparov 28.

 Kasparov had help from Botvinnik and all his trainers.

Early Years

Originally named Garry Kimovich Weinstein (or Weinshtein), he was born in Baku, in what was then the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic (now the Republic of Azerbaijan), and is the son of Klara Shagenovna Kasparova and Kim Moiseyevich Weinstein. At five years old, young Garry Weinstein taught himself how to play chess from watching his relatives solve chess puzzles in a newspaper. His immense natural talent was soon realized and from age 7, he attended the Young Pioneer Palace in Baku (where for some time he was known as "Garry Bronstein".*). At 10, he began training at the Mikhail Botvinnik Soviet chess school. He was first coached by Vladimir Andreevich Makogonov and later by Alexander Shakarov. Five years after his father's untimely death from leukaemia, the twelve year old chess prodigy adopted the Russian-sounding name Garry Kasparov (Kas-PARE-off) a reference to his mother's Armenian maiden name, Gasparyan (or Kasparian).

Fischer had no help and did everything on his own. His great achievement in Interzonal-Palma de Mallorca, Spain in 1970, 3 1/2 ahead of his oppositions, that is dominating!

That is what make Fischer greatest world champion not Karpov or Kasparov, they have a team of Gms to help them in their adjournments and opening preparation.

"If Kasparov dominated chess so much why did he tie in Seville, Spain in 1987"

Because he won all events he participated in many years before and after that match, and no one plays a lot for decades and ends up sole winner every time?