Morphy ?
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Who is the best chess player of ALL TIME?
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Jan 2, 2015
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#24
For non-Americans, Kasparov, Karpov, Alekhine, Lasker, Carlsen etc are/were strong players.
But yeah, gotta be Fischer by default.
Maddolis wrote:
For non-Americans, Kasparov, Karpov, Alekhine, Lasker, Carlsen etc are/were strong players.
But yeah, gotta be Fischer by default.
Sure Fischer is a good shout. Definitely up there.
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Jan 2, 2015
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#26
Fischer was good. But Kasparov and Carlsen, having more years of theory and games to study, are obviously better.
Plus by playing games, Fischer kinda shot himself in the foot because Carlsen and Kasparov both are able to analyze Fischer games.
Kasparov > Carlsen. Carlsen made one of the biggest blunders ever in this world championship match.
TheGreatOogieBoogie wrote:
The standard of playing strength has gone way up so a Fischer like domination of one's fellow super GM is unlikely to be repeated due to today's super GMs having better defense, technique, and calculation. The ability to convert a small advantage into a win is critical even at club level. As for the opening even beginners are well prepared and memorize their pet lines 20 moves deep, contrast with many of Alekhine's games from his best game collection where he openly admits to making opening "mistakes" (usually just inaccuracies) relatively early.
And how exactly did we get the knowledge of which opening lines are solid and which are not?
We have to be very careful not to judge that the masters who came before us are now beneath us simply because we are standing on their shoulders.
Of course, this is the problem when you try to evaluate past masters outside of the historical context in which they were raised. If you cannot avoid that, then simply proclaim that the contemporary current champion is always the greatest chess player of all time. End of discussion.
But if you want to have an actual discussion, you have to divorce yourself from the notion that Carlsen, et al are superior simply because they had the 21st century luxuries of chess engines and studying the games of Fischer and Alekhine.
Also, domination of Super GMs still happens:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinquefield_Cup#Sinquefield_Cup_2014
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearl_Spring_chess_tournament#2009
Magnus Carlsen is of course the strongest player of all time.
No need to doubt that. (But I have written some words about Kasparov in the end of my comment.)
Magnus is only 24 years old. He has been the worlds #1 the last five years, + 2000 Elo since he was 19 years old, already World Champion twice, and he has also a big improving potential. (Especially in opening theory.)
His opponents are much stronger than the opponents in the past, and they know the opening theory in quite another way than before. The top players nowadays are also great defenders. It's just more difficult to defeat the strongest opponents now.
We cannot know what the former chess heroes could have achieved if they had the knowledge of today. They certainly would have played better. But we know that they didn't have so many amazing opponents, opponents whom Carlsen is facing.
But in the end: We'll never know who really was the best chess player of all times, simply because they never met.
I personally was "addicted" to chess when I was young because of Fischer.
But now my feelings regarding Fischer are of course very ambivalent.
Well, I go for Magnus, but it should have been extremely interesting to watch a 12 game match Magnus- Kasparov with both in their prime.
I don't rule out that Kasparov would have won. :-)
Conclusion: Magnus Carlsen and Kasparov are imo the two best players of all time. They have indeed different playing styles, but it only shows that you can be the best player in the world without adopting your mentor's style.
Jan 2, 2015
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#30
Fischer was the best in the world by the time he was 18, when he won the Stockholm Interzonal. And he remained the best player in the world through the first Spassky match 10 years later.
casual_chess_yo wrote:
Carlsen made one of the biggest blunders ever in this world championship match.
He still won.
"Kasparov > Carlsen. Carlsen made one of the biggest blunders ever in this world championship match"
One of the biggest blunders ever? Not even the GM who was commenting saw anything wrong with the move until someone looked at an engine, and Anand didn't see anything wrong with it either.
"Fischer was the best in the world by the time he was 18"
Not by the time he was 12?
"There is no such thing as all time best"
All time best in the meaning objective playing strength I think exists, and has to be Kasparov or Carlsen (I'd guess the latter). All time greatest is another thing, and not related to objective playing strength.
"The issue with Carlsen is that his only real claim to greatness right now is his rating"
His only claim to greatness is his rating? :-) I'd say that Carlsen's claim to greatness lies in his already at 23 having won the World Championship twice, having been the best player in the world for several years, scoring great results against other top players (like 8-1 against Anand the last four years) and winning much more top tournaments than anyone since Kasparov, winning the World Championships in all time controls, etc. Some of these things have together resulted in his getting a very high rating, consistently with 40-70 points distance to #2. I think it will take a while before someone repeats all those things.
Jan 3, 2015
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#36
Probably isn't really a best player of all time, but I'm a huge fan of Alexander Grischuck.
Nezhmedtinov anyone?
fabelhaft wrote:
"The issue with Carlsen is that his only real claim to greatness right now is his rating"
His only claim to greatness is his rating? :-) I'd say that Carlsen's claim to greatness lies in his already at 23 having won the World Championship twice, having been the best player in the world for several years, scoring great results against other top players (like 8-1 against Anand the last four years) and winning much more top tournaments than anyone since Kasparov, winning the World Championships in all time controls, etc. Some of these things have together resulted in his getting a very high rating, consistently with 40-70 points distance to #2. I think it will take a while before someone repeats all those things.
Kasparov became world champion at 22. Karpov at 24. Anything before that and the WC was too regimented by politics.
Carlsen going 8-1 against a single player is not particularly impressive when that player is 20+ years old than him. Anand is still a great player, but he is obviously past his prime.
Carlsen's differential in rating between other players is not very unusual at all. Kasparov and Fischer both exceeded this.
This is my point. Carlsen is a great player, but all of the great things he has done so far have been done by other masters who came before him, and did these things for a longer period of time.
It is simply far too early to call Magnus Carlsen the greater player of all time.
"It is simply far too early to call Magnus Carlsen the greater player of all time"
He certainly is far from being the greatest player of all time after just turning 24, but I think he is the best player of all time with Kasparov as close second, and that his claims to greatness shouldn't be brushed away with Kasparov becoming World Champion a year before him or Fischer having a bigger distance to #2 on one rating list before retiring. No one has been the greatest ever counting only achievements to 23 years of age, and neither is Carlsen.
John Smith is the best player of ALL TIME.
He will be born in 3412.