The best chess player ever

It is all chronicled in his volumes of My Great Predecessors.

If one may judge a player's strength by comparing him with his contemporaries, it seems to me that Fischer's achievement is unsurpassed - the gap between him and his closest rivals was the widest there ever was between a World Champion and the other top-ranking players of his time. He was some 10-15 years ahead of his time in his preparation and understanding. This could be attributed in part to his dedication to the game, which was unequalled by any other player before or since.

that is a quote by Kasparov, if he was 15 years ahead of his time in understanding, he definetly was ahead of Karpov.

Ever heard of this guy named Steinitz? By your definition he is the greatest player of all time.

that was a quote by KAsparov!!!

and according to Botvinnik Steinitz opponents were amateurs, while Fischers opponents were professionals and yes i just realized that Kasparov is not a good person to quote, because he doesnt even care what he is saying.

tesuoshima you are talking trash. Fischer dropped out because he didnt want to loose his title and he would have lost it , if he had matched karpov. Fischer just had not enough charisma to defeat Anatoly Karpov, end of the story.

you are talking trash, stop using twisted logic, he was champion he told under what condition they could play.

Karpov was scared and didnt accept. Its a fact google it

now i get it, thanks for warning me. yes now its obvious fischer is the best and all the rest are just talking trash....

TetsuoShima:

Who is using twisted logic now?!

It is difficult to call, but Karpov himself put his own chances of winning at 40% and considered Fischer the favorite. Kasparov also was careful to note in this 2011 book review that he's not arguing that Karpov was the favorite or that he was better than Fischer in 1975, only that Fischer may have been nervous about the prospect of facing Karpov after a long layoff and Karpov's superiority over Spassky and the previous generation of Soviet players.

What is the source of Kasparov's recent statements about Fischer-Karpov? I've seen a couple of references now to the idea of Kasparov believing Karpov would have won in 1975, but that doesn't match up with Kasparov's statements on the subject that I've read in the past.

Any hypothetical match between Karpov and Fischer would have been between a more experienced Fischer and a Karpov that still had a bit left to his peak, so it wouldn't necessarily have been some final result of who the greatest of the two had been. If Karpov had beaten Kasparov in their first match it wouldn't have meant that he should be counted as the greater player of the two.

To me Fischer disqualified himself from all greatest ever discussions by quitting, just like Morphy in his time. It doesn't make him any less talented or impressive at his best, but only playing one title match against one of the lower ranked World Champions past his peak and then not playing again isn't much to go by when comparing career achievements with players that kept scoring top results decades after winning the title against higher ranked World Champions.

I Disagree the star that shines brighter, shines shorter and Fischer wasnt a star anymore, he was a Supernova .

Seriously we cant definetly say Whos best, but we cant go by quantity .

2 average looking women also dont give more pleasure than a really pretty One

Actually 50 average ones are combined not as good.

Seriously 100 Grams of good Handmade choclate are definetly than 500 Grams of cheap choclate.

Real Good Sushi is worth more than 1000 bad sushi plates

lol, it wasn't too long ago that he dropped out of the top 100 for the first time. Plus his rating is still a "terrible" 2619...

2 average looking women also dont give more pleasure than a really pretty One

Actually 50 average ones are combined not as good.

Ummm, the way a woman looks does not correlate with how much pleasure she can give.

AGREE... but don't forget about Paul Morphy, He was the FIRST unofffical 2700 GM

Fischer himself out of his own mouth word for word said, "If Paul Morphy came to this (his) era he would beat any chess player including me" 

Fischer also said the King's Gambit was busted.

Bobby FISCHER.