Who is the greatest blitz/speed chess player of all time?

Bronstein said once he guessed Botvinnik could be a great blitz player since his play was always very strong under serious time pressure (I assume he suspected Botvinnik probably practiced it in secret), but his elitism did lead him to condemn this form of the game.

Who knows, I forgot to mention Bronstein added Botvinnik often tried to force a mutual zeitnot to take advantage of this skill (I can't figure how this can be done though).

Concerning Fischer, I think he stated (as many others) too much blitz could harm your ability to make good plans. But he always took seriously every game, to the point to use novelties sometimes in blitz.

You can delay the pace of the game... and by pace I mean transitions.

Of course it's not possible in every position, but as an easy example, sometimes only one side has the pawn breaks, so it's up to them when to transition into the next phase of the game. If you delay the transitions you can sometimes get your opponent into time trouble. Or if they keep up, get into mutual time trouble.

Other times the transitions involve exchanges. Lets say you have good chances in a technical endgame due to pawn weaknesses. You can delay exchanges. The opponent definitely won't seek them because they must rely on active play to compensate. So you shuffle around pretending to threaten or build up etc before finally getting down to exchanging. This of course means your position is solid and the opponent can't build an attack while you postpone matters.

The exact opposite would be e.g. opposite side castling attack mania, where a single tempo loss can lose the game.

I think Botvinnik was taking precautions to avoid getting in time trouble and losing. By creating such situations where he puts himself under time pressure deliberately, he is teaching himself to play precisely even when he has very little time left. Maybe I should practice that as well, since I get in time trouble even in slow time controls every now and then and lose. :)

Thanks, 0110001101101000! (and thanks to you too, copy paste function).

Hehe, no problem :)

It's a relatively new idea to me, to be aware of this kind of pace. A stronger player told me I too often try to slow down the play when I face higher rated players. I build up and build up and sometimes miss opportunities to go for it (so to speak). I was advised to pay attention to times when I'm inclined to speed up or slow down the play.

Also, could it be said that the strongest blitz players are the most naturally talented players who have the best feel for chess? I think one's overall chess skills, especially speed chess skills are directly linked to his intuitive ability.

If I had to pick one it would be fischer but I think Kasparov was very very close to him. Also I think Nakamura has to be up there with Carlsen and Maxime Vachier lagrave.

I would say either capa or fischer. Capablanca was quite fond of speed chess, and played a lot of games later in his life. He was by far the strongest rapid player of his time. Rueben fine was a strong rapid/blitz player. We know he was beaten by fischer in several speed games. We also know that he once made a comment that whenever he played Capa, the former WC would "beat him mercilessly." I'm leaning towards capa, but who knows.

The modern top players play blitz all the time, there's lots of blitz on the Internet, blitz World Championship, bullet games, lots of tournaments with short time controls, etc. Fischer played two blitz tournaments in his life, and one was a weak club event. I think the advantages the modern players have from constantly playing lots of blitz plus the general improvement in opening theory etc gives Carlsen, Nakamura and Grischuk better chances than players from the past to play well in blitz.

Lasker1900 wrote:

The strongest blitz players in history are the current crop of blitz champions: Carlsen, Nakamura, MVL, Grischuk, et al. They are not more talented than Tal or Fischer, or Karpov or Capablanca, but each one of the contemporary players had played more high-level speed games before they were 14 years old than Capa or Karpov played in their whole lives. 

Thanks to the internet, the contemporary payers have had the opportunity to play dozens of blitz games against strong opponents every day of their lives. Naturally, they are better blitz players than any of their predecessors

So, in other words, the current top 10 players in speed chess are not more talented than their predecessors, but they're rather more experienced blitz players than the greats of the pasts. By this rationale, Fischer, Kasparov or Capablanca would qualify for the greatest speed chess player , given how less blitz games they got to play in their career compared to today's elite players. This is just my speculation.

Bobby Fischer of course.

A good one at least.

On the internet no doubt Hikaru.

Relative to classical playing strength Grischuk is a much greater blitz player than Carlsen, Capablanca, Fischer etc. The latter were all World Champions and in a class of their own for some time. Grischuk has never been anywhere close to become World Champion in classical chess, and is currently outside the top 15, but has won three blitz World Championships.

why are you pretty much obssesed with how good karpov was even though we all know he wasnt the best

players better than karpov:  kasparov, Fischer, Carlsen will soon be considered better.

And in blitz or bullet Nakamura could take him