Underrated and Overrated PlayerS

We all know the greats like Fischer, Kasparov and soon to be said Carlsen, but in all time who do you think is the most Overrated and Underrated Chess players of ALL TIME!!!

Post your thoughts on who!

you mean literally overrated? like as in ELO points? or figuratively, as in, getting too much/not enough adoration and attention from the general public? I'm assuming the latter. if so, I think Fischer is actually overrated a bit. he's amazing, but he's not God. I think Karpov and Capablanca are underrated, and Capa is the best of all time. but it's a matter of opinion, unless you think engines can measure such a thing. in which case it is actually Capablanca, as engines have deemed in the past.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_top_chess_players_throughout_history#Moves_played_compared_with_computer_choices

How is Fischer overrated, he's arguably the best ever.

Anything is arguable up to a point.  Fischer beat a series of strong candidates and then Spassky.  That just isn't enough credentials to be the best.  Mythology aside, it's not even obvious he would have been better than young Karpov, let alone mature Karpov or later Kasparov.  Yeah, he was great.  World Champion.  But best ever is an accolade he didn't earn.  And as someone already said, it's Capa that the engines fault the least often.

Karpov underrated. For (nearly) all intents and purposes he was Kasparov's equal in match play.

Players like Korchnoi, Bronstein, and Keres are perhaps underrated, simply because they weren't world champions, so some players may overlook them.

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At least among non masters, I think players like Morphy, Capablanca, and Tal are hugely overrated. They're drooled over like chess gods simply because they had a clear style.

Also among the riff-raff, Fischer's attacking play is overrated. Fischer wasn't a relentless attacker. He liked rational and technical positions. Like endgames. He was one of the best endgame players ever.

Definitely feel that had the first world war not intervened, Akiba Rubenstein would have possibly become World Champion. He made some great advances for us in opening theory, like the Rubenstein attack in the orthodox, and other contributions in theory and endgame. Very talented player and well ahead of his time.

Yes (to your whole comment, minus characterizing people as snobs, which is unnecessary), but why focus on Fischer?  The same could be said of everyone before Kasparov, and even Kasparov was already world champion before engines became a serious factor.

ELO is built from games that were really played, therefore there isn't such thing as over or under rated players.

OP is not referencing ELO ratings but rather the more generic ratings of common perception.  Possibly this is a language issue since the term "overrated" is used in English in all manner of things such as football teams, movie actors, universities, or almost anthing else you can think of.  As for ELO, it's true it can't be "wrong" provided you are considering the same pool of players and same period of time.  It can give suspect conclusions in other circumstances.

Most underrated of all time?

Max Euwe.

My personal opinion is that, had Fischer not retired, he would have lost his title in 1987 to Kasparov.

Many World Champions are overrated largely to the unseen factor in human games- psychology. Knowng you're playing against the currently officially best player in the world can be intimidating. I've seen games played by Junior Champions playing World Champions and they can make some horrible blunders that an amateur would laugh at.

Underrated- Staunton, because in some ways his games are quite modern.

Tal overrated, just because he had a distinct style?  I don't think so!

Please learn something about Tal before saying things like that.

Tal had a phenomenal memory and visualizing ability... he could recall literally THOUSANDS of his and historical games from memory, set them up and play them from any move, and verbally annotate them on the fly.  After one 32 player sumul, he astonished one of his opponents by re-playing not only his game against that opponent, but the other 31 games as well!  He did multiple player blindfold expos, often with 8 or more players.

Kasparov (among others) claimed that Tal had an uncanny ability to look at a board position and "feel" the right move, without calculation.   During one stretch of tournament play, top level Russian players started meeting with each other to discuss the "Tal Problem" - which consisted of the best way to deal with the fact that you had been paired with Tal in a tournament game!  Tal TO THIS DAY still holds the first AND second place records for the longest unbroken winning streaks in tournament history.  Definitely not the achievements of an "overrated" player.

One other thing... Tal is widely criticized for his "unsound" sacrifices, even though they created such complication over the board that his opponents typically could not calculate the correct response.  I ask you this:  WHAT MORE proof do you need that the move is actually a SOUND move than the fact it results in a won game?  Aftermath computer analysis be damned... computers can tear pretty much any game apart and point out "flaws".  What counts is the actual over the board win, and Tal won more than his share with "unsound" moves.   I rest my case.

Tal was unique... and well deserving of the praise that has been heaped upon him by fanboys such as myself!

Which is funny, because during his heydey, people cited his claims of being the best as sparking the need for an official world title.  I don't think anyone put him in league with Morphy, who he ducked.

1st and 2nd longest undefeated streaks, not winning streaks.

i think that tal is extremely underrated, people say he is the best attacking player, but i think that in his prime he could have beaten most WC's from fischer to carlsen