Most underrated world champion in your opinion?

As of late, I began to study Tigran Petrosian's style of play and I have suddenly gained a lot of appreciation for him.

Which world champion needs to be mentioned more, in your opinion?

Probably Euwe as most underrated. It is widely believed that Alekhine took their match lightly and was doing too much drinking which is why Euwe beat him. I'm not sure about that. Anyway Euwe sportingly accepted an almost immediate rematch (which other world champions had not been forthcoming in doing in previous years), and Alekhine won this time. Still, a great achievement to beat Alekhine whatever the circumstances. He also played a significant role in chess organisation and administration later in life.

Yes, I have heard that afterwards many top grandmasters analyzed his games and concluded his playing was on level.

a world champ is a world champ I do not believe in a world champ leaderboard. if, say, morphy knew everything that carlsen knows, he will be significantly stronger. skills increase over the years.

Spassky?

For me, Kramnik is probably the most underrated World Champion of all time, perhaps followed by Steinitz. Those two just aren't given enough credit for how good they were in relation to their opposition. 

Kramnik pulled a Capablanca, and became only the second player to win the World Championship by defeating the incumbent without a loss. He beat the best player in history with an incredible performance. and yet his accomplishment doesn't seem to have been noticed by many amateur chess players.

Kramnik's match against Leko was a bit of a lackluster, but he defeated Topalov so decisively that Topalov resorted to dirty tricks to to try to even the score, and even that didn't work. He eventually lost his title to Anand, who is generally considered one of the greatest players of all time. Even now, in the twilight of his career, Kramnik is #6 in the world (ahead of Anand) and may find a way to get another shot at the title. And yet, Kramnik doesn't get much respect.

The lack of respect for Steinitz is seen in the countless forums that suggest Morphy was stronger, and ignore his long tenure as World Champion. He created the title in 1886 after 20 years of being the acknowledged best unretired player in the world, played five championship matches, and only lost in 1894 to Lasker.  Lasker, who is credited as having the longest tenure as World Champion, only defended his title six times, and avoided playing some of the very best players of his time. Steinitz deserves more credit for his accomplishments. 

Btw, I love Euwe's chess, and his personality. His accomplishments and sportsmanship are truly worth celebrating. He was also a very well respected President of FIDE. Every world champion is special, and great. but if there were a list of the weakest matchplay World Champions of all time, Euwe would top that list. 

Probably Bobby Fischer, he's definitely one of the most overlooked chess players of all time. He "wrote" a little known book called Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess. I highly recommend this book. My only complaint is that it didn't talk about back rank checkmates enough.

Topalov doesn't belong on the same list as the other 4.

I don't know... maybe because he never was the undisputed world champion?

I actually have that book. And it does teach back rank mates enough times for me.

I always think of Karpov when this question comes up.  He was overshadowed by Kasparov, who earned the right to be called the best, but Karpov was just a hair behind him.  They played very close matches, Kasparov holding on to his world championship by very small margins.  

Their first championship match was in 1984, Karpov held on to the championship 5 to 3 with 40 draws!  The match was taking to0 long and it was called off.  (Rules were the first player to reach 6 wins).

In 85, they had instituted a 24 game limit, and Kasparov won 13 - 11.  (16 games were draws).

1986 - Kasparov 12.5- 11.5

1987 - 12-12 Kasparov retained title 

1990 Kasparov 12.5-11.5

Crazy huh?  It must have been so frustrating for Karpov to be so close to regaining his championship, to know he had the ability to beat him, then to lose time and time again by the smallest margin!

To add insult to injury, as I was typing this, the spell checker doesn't recognize the name Karpov, and suggests Kasparov!!

I don't know if Karpov was/is underrated. How many players have a style named for them? There is Karpovian but not Kasparovian.

Well, that i do agree with you on that.  Capa has always been one of my favorites, but yea..he did have a bit of a "tude"  Now i understand what you mean by over rated.

Could you please tell us more about these dirty tricks?

That's basically a list of the top 5 players of all time.

The only one Ive heard with so much hate is Carlsen. Seems like every time someone has said why his opposition was close or should have won or is going to be beaten this time for sure.  I dont know of anyone else at their historical time who was , if not a 'celebrity', at least had nodding heads of favortism.

Heres the wikipedia regarding the 2013 chess championship..."This was heralded by Garry Kasparov and others as the start of a new era in chess, with Carlsen being the first champion to have developed his game in the age of super-strong chess computers."...its like 'oh yeah he only won thanks to computers'.

It started off on schedule...2004 gets him press as Mozart of chess, but then he wins 2013 candidates on tiebreak and it starts the bad press.

I think you're the only one reading the sentence that way.

Indeed, his opponents are in the same situation.