Where to rank Carlsen?

It's time to revise those greatest ever lists today. Even if Carlsen has been World Champion for no more than a a few hours people always tend to rank the World Champions first on the lists of the greatest players ever, and the question is where to put Carlsen on them.

This year Carlsen has won Wijk with a huge margin (+7 score), the tournament with the highest rating average ever (Sinquefield Cup) with a full point over only six rounds, Candidates, and then title match with the highest percentage (65%) in more than a hundred years. Carlsen will win his fifth Chess Oscar in a row, and that so clearly that one wonders if any other player will get a single vote or if there even will be a vote. Every single Elo performance of his has been #1 level on the rating list for years, and at the moment he has 70 points down to #2.

So the question is, can one already rank him as top ten based on these last five years? Among the 16 World Champions some were never close to be in the position Carlsen has had in world chess these last years. Euwe was a great player but it's difficult to compare his best years with Carlsen's. Kramnik was great too but never had even a single point down to #2, and just like Anand he never came close to have years like Carlsen's latest. The same goes for Petrosian and some other World Champions.

Players like Steinitz, Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, Botvinnik, Fischer, Karpov and Kasparov are hard to place below Carlsen at this early stage of his career, and maybe Tal too, but behind them he is already a candidate for tenth spot in spite of only being 22 years old. Maybe Anand and Kramnik should still be placed ahead of Carlsen based on their mass of results over the last 20-25 years, but it's not certain. So, after today my list looks like this:

1.Kasparov

2.Lasker

3.Karpov

4.Fischer

5.Steinitz

6.Alekhine

7.Capablanca

8.Botvinnik

9.Tal

10.Carlsen

Works for me

Wheres Morphy?

Morphy is difficult to rank. I think he played three real matches during a period of a year or so and won easily to then disappear from serious chess. As with Philidor there is not much to go by other than that both were much stronger than any other player of their time. If Morphy had played more he would have been difficult to avoid on any top ten list, and maybe he should be up there already as it is.

Where's Spassky? He could beat the best players during his peak (60s). The players include Keres, Korchnoi, Geller, Tal, Fischer, Petrosian.

Lasker #2, five spots ahead of the Capablanca he spent half his life running from to artificially prolong his reign, and then got summarily trounced by?

Speaking of the 19th century I've looked at some endgames from that period and it was a shame that such excellent endgame technique was invisible due to some weird rule about accepting sacrifices and attacking at all costs.  There was a queen and two pawns vs. queen endgame where Morphy played the Evans agaisnt Anderssen... and lost. 

Anderssen isn't noted for his endgame technique (it was solid and he found many only moves but he's not Rubinstein) yet he didn't allow the likes of Morphy even the chance at perpetual.  He advanced his pawns at the proper moment and covered necessary squares. 

I'd rank Carlsen at number one due to his very tough competition (Even Botvinnik and maybe even Fischer would lose to Grischuk, Nakamura, and Aronian), achieving the title at 22 (though before then I counted him as the true world champion due to his rating being much greater than the number 2, who was still higher than the "official"  champion and simply by being recognized by all as the best... which is the definition of champion anyway), and his spectacular endgame technique and being able to find wins when even most GMs would see a draw.  

They haven't endgames knowledge and tecnique like the following players. Players who understood the importance of the endgame were Lasker, Capablanca, Rubinstein, Alekhine, ecc...

Of course endgame knoweldge like anything else advances, but if you studied Morphy-Rivierre's rook endgame where Rivierre won you can't help but be amazed at it.  Philidor has a queen and pawns composition that's a really hard win for white, but it's a composition so not indicative of OTB play.  It involves marching the king up the board with some queen maneuvering in between king moves exhausting black's checks. 

Nowhere until his career is over.

Steinitz better than Capablanca and Alekhine?? Shirley you must be joking.

Where to rank Carlsen? No where yet. He JUST won the WCC. Once a decade or so has passed, then will be the time to rank his place in history.

I don't have the time to wait ten years, dude. Ranking Carlsen right behind Kasparov, Fischer, Capa and Alekhine.

He was ranked number 1 and recognized as the best for quite some time now, don't just go by official world championship. 

Relative to peers: Morphy. Anderssen, who might be a FIDE master or even an IM by today's standards, was a distant second during his time.

Overall: Carlsen. 

Lasker and Capablanca played many events together, also long after Lasker's peak. S:t Petersburg 1914 - Lasker finished ahead, New York 1924 - Lasker finished ahead, Moscow 1925 - Lasker finished ahead, Moscow 1935 - Lasker finished ahead. First when he was close to 70 did Lasker for the first time finish behind Capa in a tournament (and lose a game to Alekhine). I think he only had one bad event in all his career, and that was the match against Capa, that he didn't want to play, didn't prepare for, eventually played to get money, and withdrew from. Then he was well into his 50s.

Capablanca was a great player, but lost the title immediately, and also as World Champion he was 1.5 point behind the 56 year old Lasker in the very strong New York 1924. But Lasker was at his best decades earlier. For a 30 year period starting with S:t Petersburg 1895 he finished first in every tournament he played with one exception, when he was second. So great as Capablanca was, I rank Lasker well ahead of him.

Steinitz won every match he played for 32 years, won 25 games in a row against top opposition 1873-1882, scored 7-0 with no draws in a match against then #2 Blackburne, and stayed World Champion until he was almost 60 and faced one of the greatest players ever that was 32 years younger. He always gave title matches to the strongest opponents, defended often, and is strangely underestimated.

So why a never defending Fischer above him?

It isn't more difficult to assess his past achievements today than any other day in the future, even if that assessment of course will change with time. He is winning the Chess Oscar for best player of the year for the fifth year in a row, and few players can be said to arguably have been best in the world five consecutive years. Carlsen has several years in a row only scored #1 Elo performances in every event he has played, and leads with 69 points on the latest rating list after just winning the clearest win percentage wise in a title match in over a hundred years. I'd say it's fair to already assess him ahead of some World Champions that no one would suggest were best in the world five years in a row, and never performed results like those Carlsen has repeated time and again the last years. So I think it's fair to place him around tenth already.

Because the results Fischer scored 1970-72 were scored in a time when the opposition was more difficult. It isn't just a question of counting number of title matches, Fischer was a phenomenon of a sort that is rarely seen in modern chess. That he quit so early makes it difficult to rank him top three, but outside top five just wouldn't be right. The difference between him and all others was incredible for a couple of years.