Is Vishy Anand the greatest rapid player of all time?

Vishy Anand will remain in Chess History as the best and most accomplished international chess grandmaster in any format in an epoch between the great Kasparov and the hot star Carlsen. Whether you are is fan or not, there can be no denial that during more than a decade, he has displayed magnificent chess against every top players. Every chess player has his peak and it is not frequent to see two chess legends playing each other while both are at their prime. So one can merely speculate. The hard facts will remain in statistics only. The wiki article (and many other similar counts on rapid chess) clearly indicates Anand's supremacy.

While I do agree with that statement, I must say that the epoch between Kasparov and Carlsen is not a very long time period. 

By the way, according to the live broadcast, which just ended seconds ago, Anand is tied with Karjakin for 2nd and 3rd in the blitz. The tiebreaks will decide who gets silver, but in any case Anand has had a very good tournament.

macer75: very long or short is a relative thing. How long Mr. Carlsen is reigning and who knows how long he will continue? Kasparov spaced himself out of Fide after enjoying the crown for considerable time and did not follow Fide matches after that as a player. While that did not diminish his claim to be number 1, but history hardly remembers perceptions...it will see records; and the records shows Mr. Anand was crowned for several years in almost all formats of Chess. We have no objective results of any Vishy vs Kasparov or Vishy vs Magnus championship Challenges during those few years and so whether at that time Vishy 'really' was better than either of them is purely a matter of speculation. Same applies for Rapid Chess. Personally, I believe after decades of dominance of Russian Grandmasters on Fide Championship, it was Vishy Anand of India, who broke that grip convincingly and made the arena free for all including younger talents like Carlsen and that is now part of undeniable history and a very significant one. Long or short doesn't matter, it WAS epoch making in a sence for sure.

yes vishy is the greatest player of all time in rapid bullet and blitz

In rapid yes, absolutely. For blitz it's harder to say who is the greatest of all time, but in my opinion Carlsen has done enough to earn that title for himself. As for bullet... since when does Vishy play bullet?

One single event in Chess history proves that Anand indeed is the greatest and most fearsome rapid player of all time.

The year was 2010, and the event was World Chess Championship 2010. Anand vs Topalov. It was Game 12 and after Game 11 , the scores were equal, this was the last classical game of the event, if it ends in a draw, players have to play a rapid tie-break. At move 30, the position was more or less equal and looked drawish, Topalov did a suicidal blunder in move 31 with exf5, instead of playing a more comfortable Nd2.

He did that because, if the game becomes a draw, he would have to face Anand in a rapid tie-break, who had the reputation of being a rapid God! and he thought he had better chances in a losing but more unpredictable classical game than a rapid game.

Even in the post match conference, Topalov admitted that he did that to avoid the rapid tie-break.

How great and fearsome should a player be that, for your opponent to think, he has better chances in a losing classical game than a fair rapid game ?

Agree, so was I. Dude basically won every single rapid event.