MIKHAIL TAL VS MANGUS CARLSEN?

Tal of course , even without the magic he would upstage the young upstart

 Magnus would have had the advantage of reading Tal's books.

It's hard to make comparisons, but let's remember what living in the old-style communist countries like the Soviet Union, despite it's bad things, meant in terms of pushing people to work very hard at their craft.  It's no accident there were so many superb Soviet chess players and the national fondness for chess alone doesn't account for it!

My piano teacher is the virtuosa, Frances Cheng-Koors, who was a child prodigy in Shanghai and, from the age of 6 a piano teacher was sent to her house to ensure she practiced 8 hours per day.  Eventually she escaped to the West and became Piano Chairwoman at the world-class Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University.  Frances is one of the few pianists allowed to play on Mozart's actual piano during the Salzburg (Austria) Music Festival each year.  I met Frances at Peabody and was accepted as a student of hers in the Adult Program there a decade ago.  She's now retired but I still take occasional lessons from her or meet her for lunch from time to time.

Recently, I showed her a video of Russian virtuosa Elena Kushnerova playing Chopin's extremely difficult Four Ballades.  Frances said to me, "There are not going to be pianists like that anymore!"

That's because you don't have governments in Russia and China supporting and forcing so much hard work!

Today, the top young pianist out of China is Lang Lang - who often sends Frances concert tickets and back-stage passes which is how I got to meet, talk to him, get a picture taken of us, etc.

But here's the point: Frances teases him and calls him "Bang Bang," - meaning he needs improvement on passages that are meant to be played more softly.  And from his reaction, you can tell Lang Lang knows he's not at the level she is!

So it makes me wonder about top chess players now vs the Soviet Era.

Who forced Carlsen? 

I assume no one - and that's the point.  How much better would Carlsen be if he had been forced?  So were Tal, Botvinnik, Smyslov, Petrosian, etc. better because they were forced?

lol the soviet chess authorities had to force Tal NOT TO PLAY 

Tals games are fun to play through, but trying to play those "iffy" sacrifices against Carlsen?  He would get his you knw what handed to him.

Mikhail Tal. He is known as the greatest attacking player of all time.  He can see many moves in the future. He even beat my other favorite player: Bobby Fischer four times in a row.

Tal for a long time held the record for unbeaten games in a row (98 I think) -- so for sure he was a complete player, it would be interesting to see the match.

The magician!

Miktail Hal would kick Mangus Karlson's booty.

magnus has engines now so he can say that if not tal would crush everyone he is such a mindbblowing players wow

Magnus of course ...hey how to play the match???

TAL.PERIOD.

Bring Tal back, give him the same access to engines and other modern things that carlsen has, and let's see what happens! any speculation out of this scenario would be unrealistic and almost dumb! even nerd chess players like nakamura struggle to play well against old school chess players like kasparov.

A great player from one Era would still be a great player in another Era. Any match would be a thriller of a match with Tal.

You don't get to be the Chess Champion of the World without having a comprehensive knowledge and a well-rounded style.

Did you mean Mongoose Carlsen?

Magnus