Who are the nicest chess players at the top?

Hello!

I don't know if this should be in off-topic, but I wondered: Who are the nicest chess players at the top levels? I have heard good things about Magnus Carlsen, Vladimir Kramnik, and Viswanathan Anand, but I'm not sure of the others. I have heard bad things about Nakamura in particular, but in interviews I've seen he comes off as a humble guy who loves chess. I also wanted to know the nicest players of all time. I have heard good things about Boris Spassky in particular, but I don't have a clue about the others. Thanks!

chessman1504

karpov he a nice person he as won awards all over the world. and everyone in chess repects him.

I've heard that Karpov is very likable and well respected. And Carlsen always seems to strive to be humble, I've never seen him brag or downtalk an opponent.

Who cares about being nice if you are the best at what you do. - Einstein

savage you dont no what your talking about karpov is a gentleman and a ture champ. why not get back on your kangeroo and go for a ride in the outback and eat some flys.

Even if he's a communist so what?  It doesn't make him a bad person. Not everyone can agree with everything and if the entire world were the same it'd be boring.  The entire world shouldn't be capitalist after all.  Equating capitalism with freedom doesn't even hold water since certain people will never be free to attend college, since it's mostly about how rich your parents are and not how smart you are, and no matter how responsible a poor person is saving up for one class might take a year given that even just one class is ludicrously expensive ($900 in many places).  In other words, the gatekeeper to the middle class, college, is doing its job keeping social mobility from happening and defending the class status quo. 

he wasnt a true champ because he hasnt beaten the reigning champion.

tetsuo:  he was champ for 10 years...  and had a 100+ undefeated streak

His tournament successes include over 160 first-place finishes

thank you. scorpionpackattack, and simonmcnamaramtl,

bent larsen and mikhail tal i have heard that they were extraordinarily pleasant people.

Nobody mentions Anand? Anand is the nicest WC. And one of the nicest grandmaster.

Read nice things about Anand

anand and karpov

i think they are all wolfs in skins of sheep

I think it's impossible to reach the top of any sport, game, profession, etc. without being a single minded self driven bastard.

Capitalism isn't even a true meritocracy though since there are people no matter how smart they are won't ever earn enough money to buy their freedom, especially in America.  Capitalism sounds good on the surface, work hard and get rich, right?  There's a problem, because not everyone can be at the top.  That's capitalism's biggest flaw, and for every billionaire 50,000 people need to produce wealth for him.  Most of those people are in China working for less than the value of their work product.

  Japanese executives only earn $100,000 USD, I think we should outsource executive jobs to Japan to save the companies a lot of money on executive pay.  It's only fair after all, if blue collar jobs can be outsourced then why not top jobs? 

I did a quick search and was able to find no references to Einstein saying that. Do you have a source?

Karpov is certainly not comparable to guys like Tal, as far as I recall Karpov was always a bit of a sour primadonna.

Edit: One example being when he claimed to have slept badly and wanted a game postponed, called the other players idiots when they refused, and Chessbase reported: "Many of the other ten participants of the All-Stars said they were annoyed because Karpov is notorious for such incidents". The other top players in the field were Polgar, Radjabov, Topalov, Anand and Karjakin.

http://en.chessbase.com/Home/TabId/211/PostId/4001332

Among current players I'd say Svidler must be one of the nicest, of players from the past for example Tal and Keres were universally liked throughout their careers.

Svidler seems like a great guy indeed.