The best chess player ever

but the majority of GMs think that Fischer is the best.

I mean when their is a voting in america, who is going to get president. the guy who gets the majority of votes (yes i know the voting is a tad different in america)

or the guy whos supporters think the president is overrated???

I don't know how many times you have complained about poor von Bardeleben being overrated. Chessmetrics and Elo are different systems, and at his peak Chessmetrics rank von Bardeleben as 157 Chessmetrics points from first place. That's further from first than Areshchenko is with the Elo system today. Overrated or not, I have no idea, but he did have some good results at his best, for example beating Teichmann clearly in a match when the latter was ranked 6th in the world.

I agree about Kasparov though. :-)

As for the Fischer fanatics, it's hard to decide if they are scary or funny, but there is often a religious fundamentalism over the whole thing :-)

It look like this has just devoloved to Which Chess Player Accomplished the Most. That is beside the point so anyway, I woudl say Kasparov or Fischer. From what I've heard. I would agree with the majority of people but, as someone else has mentioned early, where's thr love for Capablance? I've heard Alekhine but still. And Karpov, not much mention of him.

It seems people will just continue to compare achievments. Oh well...

But in the end I think it comes to taste.

You can't understantand? Let say there are 100 thousand voters. Candidate 1 gets 55 thousand votes(meaning he gets the majority votes),candidate 2 gets 45 thousand votes. Just because candidate one gets 55 thousand votes does not make the 45 thousand votes few. Does 45 thousand constitute as few? Nope it is still many.

I am wondering with these GM who voted for Fischer. How many of them are low class GM? Who did great players like Anand, Kramnik, Topalov,  Korchnoi etc voted? We don't know the answer.This voting is not really accurate measurement of who is the best. There are certain  bias there. Many idolize Fischer charismatic storyline(USA vs Russia) as a player(like what you see in movies). Many are attracted to such things like the win streak(which is overrated, his opponents could settle for a draw but declined), forgetting that Steiniz has 25 win streak. Another thing what is their criteria for voting? 

Fischer, of course

Any serious discussion of who the greatest player ever was should start with deciding what criteria that matter most. All too often it all starts with someone having a favourite player, and then deciding that whatever he did is the only thing that really matters. Often this is combined with total ignorance about facts.

Person A posts a list of the greatest players ever with Fischer as #1 and Steinitz outside top ten.

A: Fischer is the greatest because he won 20 games in a row!

B: But Steinitz won 25 in a row.

A: Doesn't matter, Fischer is the greatest because he had the biggest distance to #2!

B: But Steinitz had a bigger distance to #2.

A: Doesn't matter, Fischer is the greatest because he won matches 6-0!

B: But Steinitz won 7-0.

A: Doesn't matter, Fischer won 6-0 against tougher opposition!

B: But Stenitz won 7-0 against the #2 rated player.

A: Doesn't matter, Fischer is the greatest because that's what I want and who was that Steinitz guy anyway?

If I'm a GM in the future, I will vote for fischer

Probably the only reason why I wanted to be a GM.

Correct,exactly it should be decided by criteria like this,many people idolize/choose someone not because they are the best, but because they are charismatic and has good cinderalla storyline.

My favorite World Champions are probably Tal and Spassky, but I rank them in the (still obviously very strong) bottom half among the World Champions. For greatness my main criteria would be world ranking, longevity, tournament results, World Championship wins, distance to opponents and comparative strength of them. Fischer ranks very high in distance to opponents 1970-72, but in most of the other mentioned fields he is far behind players like Kasparov and Lasker.

No GM judged the players and using the term low rated GMs just to support your argument is pathetic. you really rather call GMs weak than accept the truth that GMs voted for FischeR???

there are only over 1000 and something GMs.

I think the best judge who is the best is clearly a GM and GMs voted in the majority for Fischer

I'd rather vote for my self

Objectively: Probably Carlson or Kasparov.

Compared to their peers: Morphy.

Raw talent: Carlson, Capablanca, Morphy, Fischer, Kasparov

Achievements: Kasparov and Lasker.  Kasparov obviously has more raw objective skill, but Lasker was world champion longer than anyone, Terrasch, Pillsbury, and Nimzovich were among his competition so it wasn't exactly a weak period in chess either.

1300 over the internet greater than all, yeah, sure.  I know you're joking but still, Staunton or a random modern expert could give you rook odds blindfolded (not that there's shame in that). 

ofc objectivly Fischer because GMs know the most and they voted for him

Let's not forget about Botvinnik. He won the world title three times while holding down a full-time job as an engineer. Ok, he had to lose it to win it back, but when playing the likes of Smyslov and Tal, what do you expect?And when he found the time to prepare properly, he was nearly unbeatable. I'm no expert, but if you're going to argue the greatest player of all-time, I think Botvinnik is a legitimate contender.

Ciao,

John

Tetsuo, remember that even GMs might not have a great knowledge of chess history.

And when you look at each player's achievements side by side (Fischer and Kasparov) and remove all bias, I don't know how anyone ever thinks Fischer is the best of all time.

i know you are joking ofc