The "Almost" Best players of all time

Rudolf Spielmann: should he be included?

The problem with being a chess player from 1920-1930 is that Capablanca will overshadow you.

Larsen got beat up in the Caro-kann often. 

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1257904

the thing is who was in that shadow? Boboljubov was a great player actually but played Alekhine's whipping boy. Ruben Fine was another great player.

Chucky deserves a mention, also Zsofia Polgar.

Ruben Fine- I'm trying to understand his endgame book. I think it's for players a bit better than me, but I'm learning.

I constantly get him mixed up with Fred Reinfeld.

This is a very nice game Tarrasch played against Janowski:

Aron Nimzovitch, Paul Keres, Adolf Anderson, David Bronstein, Victor Korchnoi, Rudolph Spielmen, Paul Morphy... suppose that is my list. 

Morphy IS one of the best players of all time.

What about Miguel Najdorf? Not sure how good he was, but he came up with my favorite opening . Maybe Seirawan as well, just because of his Winning Chess series.

remember players who are deceased . 

Victor Korchnoi. He almost beat Karpov. He made an incredible come-back in that match, almost winning it from being far behind.

Judit Polgar. No other woman comes close to her strength in chess. She has had elo ratings that have placed her in the top 10 list (men's) several times.

OP seeks those who have passed on, and contributions left behind

see #30

op says only those that have passed on, but included Sveshnikov on the list. Therefore he should suggest a different person to fill the slot.

Well, we all die one day, why do they have to be deceased? Okay, I'll play by the OP rules. Let me think . . . Paul Keres.

Post your top 10 please :) 

After having put much thought into this issue, I think the all-time top ten list that excluded formal world champions would be:

          1. Paul Morphy, United States (active 1846-1860)

2. Ruy Lopez de Segura, Spain (c. 1530-1580)

3. Pedro Damiano, Portugal (c. 1480-1544)

          4.  Gioachino Greco, Italy (c. 1600-1634?)

          5.  Francois-Andre D. Philidor, France (1726-1795)

          6. Giovanni Leonardo di Bona, Italy (Calabria) (c. 1542-1587)

7. Norman T. Whitaker, United States (1890-1975)

          8.  Giulio Caesare di Polerio, Italy (Rome) (c. 1550-1610)

          9.  Luis Ramirez de Lucena, Spain (c. 1465-1530)

          10.  Louis-Charles Mahe de la Bourdonnais, France (1795-1840)

All this hype about Nimzovitsch, Tchigorin, Rubinstein, Reshevsky, Bronstein, et al., are simply the product of combined modernist bias and pro-Soviet-Slavic propaganda.

Dude have you read My System?  The book redefined chess.  Nimzo's ideas, along with the rest of the hypermodernists, balanced the field and created a whole new way of looking at the game.  Now we combine the two schools of thought, and have modern chess.  But as much as Lucena et al were great players, they missed some of the concepts and certainly never elucidated them the way that Nimzo did.  So yes - it is fair to put him in the top slots. 

hmm ok you make a statement can you provide some games to prove your point? Morphy we have games, de la Bourdonnais there is an argument for I guess. The others are pretty much unknown as far as theory goes other than their names attached to some study done in old manuscripts. Lopez I Know a bit about and he didnt suggest the Ruy Lopez in the form we know today with the plans today. Its been awhile since i read about it but I know it was really just some really basic tactical idea. Greco , Philidor and lucena I know from modern theory names. Whitker was a character but well with a peak rating of 2400 not the 2nd tier or those in the shadow of the great players that I was looking for.

You do bring up a good point though about bourdonnais and Philidor. I think morphy considered Bourdonnais one of the best players ever and studied the match with Mccdonnell extensively

It is best to look at what people of his time think about him. Below is an excerpt from Capablanca regarding Tarrasch:

Tarrasch, the hero of a great number of tournaments, is at 51 years of age the oldest player in the tournament. Back in 1889 it happened that while Tarrasch, then the strongest player in Germany, was obtaining first prize in a major tournament, Dr Lasker was winning first prize in a minor tournament and obtaining the title of Master. At that time everyone’s look was concentrated on Tarrasch, since it was expected that he would be the one to fight against the elderly Steinitz for his world championship title, and nobody could imagine that the young Lasker, then only 20, would be the one to achieve what the then famous Tarrasch would never do: dispute a match with the mighty Wilhelm Steinitz. Lasker beat Steinitz 10-5 in 1894 in a memorable match, and it was only four years ago that, after strong arguments in print, Dr Tarrasch faced his rival Dr Lasker in a match. At the time Tarrasch had an enormous reputation. He had won eight first prizes in international tournaments, three of them consecutively with the loss of just one game. His views on opening moves, etc. were almost infallible for Germans, who were on his side and wanted him to win; Lasker was German by birth and world champion, but they disapproved of his living in the United States. The result of the match was a disaster for Tarrasch and his supporters; Lasker beat him by eight games to three with five draws. The chess world wrote Tarrasch off – “a hope which has passed”, and even believed that he had never been as strong as he claimed, and that now that this had been discovered he could no longer excel in tournaments. But this has not been so; in the two San Sebastián tournaments in 1911 and 1912 his play showed that he is still a player to be feared and that beating him is a Herculean task. In 1911 he was equal 5-7th with Nimzowitsch and Schlechter, and this year 4th, ahead of Marshall, Schlechter, etc. In first-class tournaments this indicates a very great latent strength.

Dr Tarrasch has studied, and continues to study, the game a great deal, and modern theory has advanced under his impetus. He sometimes plays the first 15 moves of a game at lightning speed, which, in a player as calm and deliberate as him, is clear proof that everything has been studied and prepared. Against me at San Sebastián in 1911 he made his first 16 moves in three minutes. His style is characterized by solidity; he tries to construct a wall of steel and leave his opponent to crash into it. He will take great pains to obtain or maintain a pawn, and this often costs him the game. Finally, though this does not concern chess but rather the personal character of the chessplayer, Dr Tarrasch is a great admirer of music and of the fair sex.

Taken from http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/extra/capablanca9.html

I don't believe in Chessmetrics, their formula is clearly flawed. ???

huh? based on what clear evidence? Sonas is a very good statistician that was asked by FIDE to help modify and possibly look at changes to the rating formula and publishing the rating list more often. 

My goal is of course to create some discussion though. Tarrasch was clearly a very strong player 

A great admirer of the fair sex? Maybe he was one of the strongest women oglers to never win the title?

This is a great topic but obviously theres no 'right or wrong' answer. I always feel like Adolf Anderssen is hugely underrated because he got his ass kicked by Morphy but I don't think he had a losing record against any of the other top players of his era and he also won the three strongest tournaments held in his lifetime. 

I never understood why not playing meant that your rating has to be lowered as Chessmetrics system does. Surely you should keep the same rating you had before until you start playing again?