WHO IS THE GREATEST CHESS PLAYER OF ALL TIME? Defend your answer...

jambyvedar wrote:

chessman1504 wrote:

I would say Kasparov. Kasparov was...

1. World champion for 15 years.

2. The first to break the 2800 barrier.

3. The youngest classical world champion ever.

4. Won 10 super-GM tournaments in a row(!)

5. Didn't lose an event from December 1981 to February 1991.

6. Had the world number 1 rating for 255 months, by far the longest of all time.

7. Did all of this with an aggressive slightly risky style, giving his games a satisfying artistic effect (well, for me anyway :]).

8. Was more than capable of producing positional masterpieces of the highest order (see:http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1067175)

9. Was a deep analyst and researcher of the game; many opening lines bare his name, in particular.

10. Had perhaps the most interesting perspective on the world champions before him (well, he may share this distinction with Vladimir Kramnik :)).

Those are my ten reasons supporting Kasparov :)

Good answer. I also choose Kasparov

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Couldn't have put it better myself. +1

definetly fischer, even when he was old his games looked awesome

I wonder who TetsuoShima thinks is the best?

I think Fischer. He definetly had the prettiest style, the seemingly simplicity its just remarkable. Fischer prettiest chess style ever.

Ok now you are right i stop now. But for me no1 comes even close to Fischer. Not Kasparov and not Karpov. 

Yes Kasparov was a great player and researcher but He could only accomplish this with the assistance of a super computer that in the end beat him! So, I could NOT possibly grant him the ALL time greatest player with such a powerful hadicap on his favor; while EVERYTHING Fischer did HE created it! while lots of the brilliancies of Kasparov were prepare lines well into the 30's moves analyzed with super computer; to me that is simply cheating!

Do you realise that, by this logic, you are saying that there can never be another 'Greatest of all time' player. Forget Carlsen, Karjakin, Annand....none of these guys can ever be the best of all time because computers exist? Hell, a hundred years could pass and nobody will ever be as good as Fischer because they have access to computers?

Maybe you do, and are fine with that. Doesn't mean it isn't a crazy statement though.

All sport evolves. People get stronger, faster, better diet, better quality of life.....better everything.

Also worth mentioning, I don't know how 'super' you think computers were during his dominance through the 80's and early 90's. Deep blue didn't beat him until 1997. That means he had 12 years (since becoming World Champion) prior to there being a computer stronger than him. Even then, they think IBM cheated.

Does nothing he did in those 12 years count for anything?

Also, do you think Fischer created everything he did? He didn't read any books by others and learn from those?

No but one would assume that Fischer was stronger player then when he could solve with his mind for what Kasparov needed computers and top seconds. Sure Kasparov  play was still amazing, but considering that Fischer was way better at blitz according to Short. And his accuracy was probably better than Kasparovs (im just guessing and it may be subjective). We definetly must come to the conclusion that Fischer was better then Kasparov.

Not to mention the imagination it took for Fischer to come up with all the stuff by himself. I would  say Fischer was the greates player.

Jesus Christ. Great, you have a bit of a thing for Fischer, we get it. You don't actually answer any questions posed to you though. You simply take what someone else has said and pass it off as fact.

Kasparov and computers for example. You're acting like he was born in the Carlsen generation, where engines are stronger than men. He was born in 1963 and started playing when he was about 7. What all powerful chess engines are you claiming he used to learn chess to anywhere near GM level? They simply didn't exist.

Another poster said it, you thought it sounded good because it makes it sound like he had an advantage over Fischer, so now you pass it off as fact.

Even as he grew older, into the 80's right up to winning the World Championship....which super chess engines existed? It took until 1996 for them to create a computer that could beat him in a single game and by then he had already been GM strength for about 18 years before that happened.

To say he used computers to get to where he is is just ludacris.

'For a time in the 1970s and 1980s it was unclear whether any chess program would ever be able to defeat the expertise of top humans. In 1968, International Master David Levy made a famous bet that no chess computer would be able to beat him within ten years. He won his bet in 1978 by beating Chess 4.7 (the strongest computer at the time), but acknowledged then that it would not be long before he would be surpassed. In 1989, Levy was defeated by the computer Deep Thought in an exhibition match.'

'Deep Thought, however, was still considerably below World Championship Level, as the then reigning world champion Garry Kasparov demonstrated in two sterling wins in 1989.'

So even by 1989 there was no machine at his level.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, that's fine. You are entitled to think Fischer is better if you want.

Just don't make up fictional advantages to try and prove your point.

well do you really want to tell me that Kasparov had no seconds. But yes you are right i formulated it quite badly but i guess thats why i said computer and seconds. I dont think Kasparov played for soviet team and didnt get not help, if you read his story, russians president (i forogot the name of the highest title) even evacuated Kasparovs entire family and friends because he asked him too. You really think that this man didnt get the best help the soviet union could ever give him? 

That's not what you said. You saw that someone else said he used computers to get where he was, then repeated it like it was true. I am asking you which computers he used to get to GM level?

ok yes now i see. Well anyway Kasparov was great anyway no doubt, but i still think Fischer was better.

Korchnoi: Fischer is the strongest player in chess history.

Jan Timann: I believe Fischer is the much more superior player then Karpov but Karpov had proved more.

You are wrong about that, in fact the Russian government WOULDN'T evacuate his family, and their lives were in jeopardy because of the war Russia was engaging in.  Kasparov himself had to go back to Baku and bring all his family and their friends out of the area.  

He tends to not let fact get in the way of a good story.

Carlsen.  He does hold hte record for highest FIDE rating, and he is an excellent player.  I saw something on 60 Minutes where, as a teenager, he played a 5-minute game with Kasparov and got a draw.  Think about how much he could improve.

 im pretty sure he said because of the war he went to president and ask if he were allowed to evacuate his family. I think in soviet russia you were not even allowed to just settle somewere else without allowance from highest anyway( i think they have zones and work allowance and all that stuff, at least i think Solschenyzin said it in Archipel Gulag or maybe it was someone else, i think it was a counter measure against revolutioneers and saboteurs and criminals). So even if he went alone without permission he wouldnt have been allowed to bring them to russia as far as i know.

But anyway my memory is not the best and i still could got it all wrong but thats how i believe it was.

http://bit.ly/Z2OQqt

why would i want to google that i saw kasparovs my story and several other documentaries