To all you Fischer fools - Fischer sucked compared to Carlsen and Kasparov.
Fischer had a frivolous misconception of the Winawer (Fischer - Uhlmann, Buenos Aires 1960).
Fischer hung his bishop in an elementary tactic a 1600 player ought to know (Spassky - Fischer, WC Round 1 1972)
I can fetch many others. Kasparov and Carlsen have him crushed.
#60
Larsen also thought Fischer had a frivolous misconception about the Winawer.
Here is how he fared:
https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1044346
The bishop taking the pawn 29...Bxh2 in the 1st 1972 match game was not even losing.
39...e5 would have held the draw.
Magnus carlsen
#45
It is not subjective, it is just objective calculation of ratings backwards in time based on the real results of all historical games. No estimates are involved, only exact calculations.
Well, it’s still certainly very debatable in many parts. Morphy behind Polgar doesn’t make sense if it is about strength compared to contemporaries. He was clear #1 while Polgar at best reached 8th on the rating list. It makes sense if it is about objective playing strength. Short behind Blackburne doesn’t make sense if it is about objective playing strength. Ivanchuk equal with Steinitz doesn’t make sense if it is about strength compared to contemporaries. Steinitz won lots of title matches while Ivanchuk never was close to reach one. And it doesn’t make sense if it is about objective playing strength since Ivanchuk played much better chess. I like Chessmetrics and it is interesting to look at, but has to be taken with many pinches of salt.
+1
So Now Magnus Carlsen Has Reached An Amazing Rating Of 2901 FIDE Rating. Sick Dude!
Carlsen recently won a very strong Wijk aan Zee convincingly with no loss, and now lost all the rating he won there in a single draw against a 2400ish IM.
That's not surprising. Like any competition it's so difficult to stay on top. I'll bet even Fischer, when he was on top, drew someone 500 points lower. Even the very best make big mistakes.
#53
The elo system was introduced around 1970. Hence all ratings were calculated forward.
Karpov got his rating from playing Korchnoi and others, Kasparov got his rating from playing Karpov and others, Anand got his rating from playing Kasparov and others, Carlsen got his rating from playing Anand and others.
Chessmetrics does the same but backwards.
Alekhine got his rating from playing Botvinnik and others, Capablanca got his rating from playing Alekhine and others, Lasker got his rating from playing Capablanca and others, Steinitz got his rating from playing Lasker and others.
Unfortunately this system can only produce unreliable and inaccurate ratings for players from far in the past. Kenneth Harkness of the US Chess Federation came up with the first rating system in 1950, then Arpad Elo improved on it and the USCF adopted it in 1960, but FIDE didn't come on board until 1970. Thus Botvinnik, who played his last games in 1970 when he was 59, obviously didn't have an Elo rating anywhere close to what he would have had in the 1940s when he was clearly the best player in the world. The same applies to Smyslov, Reshevsky and the rest of that generation.
The system tries to compensate by examining these players' results with younger players such as Spassky, Tal, Petrosian and others who played into the Elo-rated era. Of course, those ratings from years later in the younger players' careers can't be taken as exactly accurate for their earlier play. And their results in earlier games vs the even-older players were accomplished by men in their prime against older men past their peak, so there must be some degree of inaccuracy involved.
As we go further into the past the same unreliability only grows. Botvinnik was just nearing his top strength when he was playing an old sick alcoholic Alekhine. Trying to get accurate ratings there seems laughable. Every generation we go back just multiplies the % of error inherent in trying to approximate ratings. Finally, nobody Morphy played still competed in the Steinitz-Chigorin-Tarrasch-Lasker days so any rating given Morphy can only be a wild guess.
As for post-1970 ratings, there is a small bit of "creeping inflation" in the ratings pool. Every rating system has "floors" to combat sandbagging at low-to-mid levels. I was rated 2100 USCF at my best, but a 25-year hiatus and old age keeps my present play not much above my 1700 floor. Other players in the clubs I play in have the same problem. One 77-year old has had been rated 1800 for the past few years, and another former very strong player is now fixed at 2200. Players beating one of us get more rating points than they truly deserve. Stronger players that beat them are similarly "gifted" a couple of points here and there that they pass on to masters that beat them, who give an extra rating point to the GMs that beat them. By the time this reaches the top levels the effect is minimal, but it adds up over time.
The goat like Tom Brady!