who is the best chess player of all time?

Fischer also said  "Genius. It's a word. What does it really mean? If I win I'm a genius. If I don't, I'm not."  

So, genius=wins games.

And greatest genius= greatest at winning. 

But enough- we can't be certain what he meant. Forget it! Vulcan mind meld!

Its too bad Pillsbury died at a fairly young age. His tournament victory at Hastings was one of the biggest shockers in all of chess history. It would have been great if he had had a world championship match but such is life. A Fischer-Karpov match also would had been nice.......I always prefer the topic of who is your favorite rather than who is the "best". There are so many different ways to evaluate world champions that is impossible to come to a clear answer.

Pillsbury definitely had talent. We'll never know how good he could have been. He really did have the good excuse that he partied too much.

Tarrasch is the strongest chess player who ever lived. 

fischer undoubtedly

Garry Kasparov has PROVEN his dominance over the years so he gets my vote

Me.

oviosly magnus

it's obviously the guy who mated his opponents the quickest.

the quickest mate possible is the fools mate, so there you have your answer; it must be fool. scholar ain't a bad player neither.

Well, here's the raw data - taken from Wikipedia. It's going to have to be one of these 10 or 11 players. No one else has enought titles or a long enough reign as champion to be considered the best. You could hardly say someone who was champion once, for 3 or 4 years was better than someone who was champion 5 or 6 times for 15 or 20 years. So although we might never know for sure who is the best up to this point in time, we can be very confident it's one of the people on this list:

Let's see... the world champion for 27 years avoided his toughest opponents for much of that time, and when a tough opponent with enough money to meet his requirements came along, he lost 4-0 with 10 draws.

That's how we can say that someone who held the title for 6 years was better than someone who held the title for 27 years. 

Btw, Wiki's graph doesn't do justice to Kasparov's reign. Kasparov was, without dispute, the best player on the planet from 1985-2000. Kasparov's reign as the world match-play champion was 15 years. Karpov's reign was 10 years (1975-1985), not 16 as Wiki claims. Karpov's match against Timman was for third place, not the world championship!

For me, one measure of greatness in a world champion is how well he defended his title. Karpov had two or three successful title defenses (depending on how 1984 is judged). Capa and Fischer had 0, Kramnik had two, Kasparov had five!

Emanuel Lasker was perhaps the greatest champion ever despite Smyslov fan's opinion of him.27 years is 27 years..

You do realize that he didnt defend his title for 20 of those 27 years ?   

To be fair The Great War happened so his planned match with Rubinstein never happened.  I think Rubinstein would have won personally, his astounding grasp of rook endgames and great technique would have been too much.  Lasker was also even enough with Tarrasch and Schlechter. 

Emanuel Lasker was in number one for at least 20 years,maybe more.(1894-1915).He is considered as one of the most dominant champions ever as well as one of the strongest players ever.And frankly,I don't think Lasker needs any defending,the general perception is that Lasker belongs in the top three of greatest players ever.Now you or smyslov fan may not agree but most people and chess historians regard Lasker as one of" la creme de la creme".

Capablanca. Dur.

hi Boogie,I suggest you get your facts right first and then you can distort them at will.FYI,Tarrasch,whom you present as the equal of Lasker,was one of his best clients.I don't know the exact lifetime score between them but I guarantee you you don't want to know either.