Weakest World Champion ?
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The point is they had other jobs besides chess.
Oct 17, 2007
0
#23
No, professionals or semi-professional. In Capa's instance, fully professional since his post as sort of a goodwill ambassador for Cuba was little more than an ill-disguised paycheck for playing chess. Botvinnik, while a very capable engineer and inventor, was fully subsidized by the Soviet government as a chess player. Lasker, a mathematician, demanded, and received, almost unheard of amounts of money to play chess. Enough so, that he retired comfortably. But when he was forced fled the Nazis and lost his assets, he returned to playing chess - for the money.
Lasker, like Fischer after him, also demanded "appearance fees" and usually got them. Also, keep in mind Botvinnik never won a World Championship match, he either kept the title by drawing the match or by losing it and winning the rematch. He got the title in the first place by winning a tournament when he should have played a match with Euwe after the death of Alekhine. Botvinnik fans like to point out that Botvinnik is the only player to win the title 3 times, but to do this he had to keep losing it did he not? 
Reb wrote: Lasker, like Fischer after him, also demanded "appearance fees" and usually got them. Also, keep in mind Botvinnik never won a World Championship match, he either kept the title by drawing the match or by losing it and winning the rematch. He got the title in the first place by winning a tournament when he should have played a match with Euwe after the death of Alekhine. Botvinnik fans like to point out that Botvinnik is the only player to win the title 3 times, but to do this he had to keep losing it did he not?
That's a bit unfair to say about Botvinnik. I recently read Tals book about their match in 1960. He says as a beginner he dreamed to have a match with Botvinnik and years later :) he had it. You can feel the respect and "love" Tal felt for Botvinnik. There is no single russian GM who would agree with you. :) Botvinnik is the arch-father of russian chess. He produced generation of grandmasters AND world champions. They love him not only because he was strong(est) player but he also was great tutor. He had chess school Kasparov and Karpov learnt there. Winning world title at age of 50+ against totaly blessed 25 years old Tal .. :) that is remarkable achievement by itself.
For me the "weakest" (if it could be sayd so for a world champion) is
Rustam Kasimdzhanov
he has problems keeping his elo over 2600 ;).. no need to add anything else.
Lubo, I would agree with you about Rustam and perhaps we should also mention Khalifman as well. Its my fault that I wasnt more clear that I meant the world champions that did not win the title through fide knock out tournies. If they are included then I think most would agree the weakest would be either Rustam or Khalifman. Where Botvinnik is concerned I am not Russian so dont share their bias for him. I believe Botvinnik used his position (political connections) to his advantage where chess is concerned. The match with Bronstein is a good example and the way the great Keres was treated.
It's true about botvinnik...a lot of shady dealings behind closed doors.
Nevertheless the man was a great player and he gave a lot to chess so I can't be too critical of him.
Politics and chess :( are tightly connected. I don't like it but it's the way it is.
Since times of Andersen and Morphy to become a world champion you have to win against the reigning world champion. Draw means loss for the pretender.
I don't know about the circumstances. Probably there is some politics involved.
I think Botvinnik could not be considered as the "weakest" champion. He had deep understanding of chess. He could be considered as the strongest pre-computer era champion. Anyway, for me he is simply too strong to be the weakest.
I know a GM that was himself a candidate who once said that Botvinnik had a poor tournament record when compared to other world champions. I havent checked his record and done the comparisons. Maybe I should though. I stand by Euwe as my choice for weakest, not including champions who won after the match system was abandoned. Now, the fact that Botvinnik didnt want to meet Euwe in a match is rather telling, isnt it?
I really don't know much about the circumstances.
Since Botvinnik didn't wanted to play match against Euwe we could agree that he is the weakest. :)
Probably I've read too much of his analyses and I got into his web. Yes, :) I am his fan.
Even the weakest World Champion is still far stronger player than I, which makes me unqualified to submit an answer.
Though I would like to know what the World Champions themselves had to say on the matter?
Oct 18, 2007
0
#32
I can think of a lot of feelings Russian chess players may have felt for Botvinnik. I imagine chief among these would have been respect. But I have difficulty imagining Love being a common one. Botvinnik had poor relations with many prominent Soviet players, among whom we can list Bronstein, Petrosian, Levenfish, Smyslov and later Karpov, although over the years he reconciled with some of them. I think Botvinnik must have been a hard man to like, let alone love, but he did command respect. Tal was one of those people who seem to have the capacity to love almost anyone, including Botvinnik, and in turn, is loved by everyone.
Definitely not Spassky.
Aug 21, 2012
0
#34
The FIDE champions that FIDE made when Kasparov split and made the Classical WC, which Krammnik and Kasparov held.
If the criteria for weakest is based on number of time defending championships. Using only undisputed champions, the bottom 4 would be Carlson, Smyslov, Tal, and Euwe. Carlson is taken out of the list because he only became world champion, and Tal because of health. That leaves only Smyslov and Euwe.
This thread must be immortal...raised from the dead TWICE! 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TtXTDt1Isic
Jackass.
Reb wrote:
There is always much discussion over who was the strongest of the world chess champions and each of us has our own favorites. I would like to ask who do you think was the weakest champion? I will first cast my own vote for Max Euwe.
victortrash wrote:
If the criteria for weakest is based on number of time defending championships. Using only undisputed champions, the bottom 4 would be Carlson, Smyslov, Tal, and Euwe. Carlson is taken out of the list because he only became world champion, and Tal because of health. That leaves only Smyslov and Euwe.
Dat CPR on the thread though.
In the modern FIDE era, not including those ridiculous tournament champs, it's easily Anand.
batgirl wrote:
I read the postings by NM Reb and MattHelfst and was pondering the two separate ideas contained within conjunctively. Something clicked in my head such a when a piece to a puzzle fall into place.
Whoever was World Champion at the time was, by definition, objectively the strongest player in the world at that time (whether that's actually true or not is more subjective and can only be demonstrated with inconclusive and circumstantial evidence). Comparing WCs against each other is practically impossible. For example, Max Euwe - if he were the weakest WC, then where does that put Alekhine whom he beat? Alekhine came back and beat Euwe, of course, but at the time when Euwe won the WC, he was better than Alekhine, for whatever reason... or we could say, quite accurately, that Alekhine was weaker than Euwe. If we were to take different data and collate it (manipulate it, perhaps) we might find that Tal or Smyslov would show up rather poorly. But the idea that stuck in my head was that by pure objective strength, the weakest WC was undoubtedly Wilhelm Steinitz, by mere virtue of the fact that he was the first. People like to claim that older masters were disadvantaged due to the developmental stages of chess theory and the older the master, the more disadvantaged. To some degree this must be true, but I'm not convinced it's the conclusive difference.
There are, indeed, more younger players reaching master level today than in any other time period. This coincides with the computer age. Is that necessarily a cause/effect? In days of old, Morphy, Capablanca, Reshevsky (to name a few of the most recognizable) were also of master strength at young ages without computers. I would submit that the size of the pool of players, as well as the amount of leisure time available to devote oneself to studying chess and the exposure to high level games speaks volumes. Singling out computers as a main cause denies both natural talent and industry to some degree. Bigger databases don't make better players and computers tend to be as much a crutch as a tool. I'm not in the least convinced of the computers' direct role in chess improvement.
If we've learned nothing else through the scientific study of chess players, it's been demonstrated that the main difference between masters and amateurs is pattern recognition. Several studies have shown this and I don't know of anything or anyone who has been able to disprove this. So, if this is an acceptable concept, then it all falls into place. The difference between being a good, better or best player, at least in part, must include pattern recognition. But pattern recognition alone isn't enough, of course, as one must understand what those patterns mean and how to proceed.
Masters of old had very little opportunity to amass a personal database of recognizable patterns, first because of the relative paucity of high level games and second, because such patterns had never been introduced. Many of the patterns we take for granted today were discovered on the fly by these great masters. Now, this begs the question of what constitutes greater strength: remembering patterns or creating such patterns. In this light, Steinitz might have been the strongest WC. It also brings into question the often-considered-unimpeachable value of the advancement of chess theory. This isn't to say that such advancement isn't important, but rather that it's importance may be over-stated.
Computers, it seems to me, are given too much credit. Programs, algorithms and databases are indeed super-strong today but that doesn't mean people using them are by association also strong. Indirectly, I think computers have helped in that players who use them as tools to learn can amass a greater number of patterns in a shorter period of time and players already at the highest levels can more easily keep abreast of the latest innovations and fine-tune their own game. But, the logical conclusion of thinking that players today owe their success to computers would be that without computers, they wouldn't be successful. I can't buy that.
All of that and you never answered the question
"they played for money"
Then they weren't amateurs.
Gamblers?