Who of these do you think is the most naturally gifted i.e talented chess player of all time?

@quietheathen1st #17

Yes, I think Khan is a bit more naturally talented than Morphy. He was nowhere near as dominant, but you're looking at someone who started late, didn't have much formal coaching, and could barely speak any of the western languages that chess was based on. 

Capablanca did not place as much value in opening theory as his peers who were theoreticians/experts that studied it intensely because he did not overrate its importance (his words). His repertoire was fairly narrow (ex. he played the QGC for almost the entirety of his 1927 match against Alekhine which is a reason why Alekhine defeated him) and he was always more known for his natural positional intuition. 

Cecil de Vere - Wikipedia

Cecil de Vere - chess.com bio

> "Anybody endowed with an average share of intelligence may acquire proficiency in the game. Excellence, however, is the result of hard work. We have had no genius since Morphy, except, perhaps, De Vere. Steinitz, Zukertort, Blackburne, we admire as great players; but we should consider the score of years of their assiduous study and what their lives have been devoted to the game"

 - The Chess Masters of To-day by Leopold Hoffer (from Chess Notes)

I don't remember any of the guys you mentioned beating famous grandmasters at the age of 10. They were not child prodigies to the extent Reshevsky was. Moreover, most of the guys you mentioned were part of the Soviet school with the best coaches and a rich chess culture/funding so I'm skeptical that their natural talent was equal to Reshevsky's. 

As to why Reshevsky never became a true world champion contender, my only conjecture is that it's because he left the game when he was 13 to 20 years old. That age range is a important period of development for a prodigy, and so I believe abandoning chess during this period set him back. He also never dedicated himself full-time to the game even as an adult unlike the Soviet masters; instead focusing more on his education and accounting job.

@thebully99

Cool. im a big Khan fan tbh. he is another big loss tbh. 

true true. he did like being stubborn, huh lmao

thanks for the cecil stuff

i mean, there are way more players today than back then, u know? specially at the top lvl too. but i did mention strong ones at a young age- caruana at the age of ten could beat some weaker grandmasters. this is honestly some of the most impressive feats for young chess players i have ever seen. only things that compare are what 14 y/o magnus did, and capa's game against the cuban champ. im a reshvesky fan as well, so dont get me wrong, but aside from very good at the game, did he ever do anything on this lvl?

that is a good point, albeit, iirc, hikaru nakamura had a similar sort of story. he said that he wasnt progressing, so his parents made him stop playing, and then maybe less than a year later, when he came back, he much stronger than before, and completely dominated his age range. plus, he is not the only great player to not play all the time while doing other stuff on the side. morphy didnt play nearly as much as steinitz did. capa did not study nearly as much as alekhine did. but since they were prodigies, we can clearly say that it didnt affect them as much as it wouldve affected someone else. the same applies to reshevsky.

Reshevsky didn't reach his full potential because he didn't study as assiduously as others, especially in the opening. This caused his long struggle against time pressure. Frank Brady said it in his book ¨Endgame¨ when Bobby and Reshevsky had their bout to see who was the strongest American player. I cant remember the quote exactly as I dont have the book with me anymore, but it was something to the effect of this,¨Reshevsky usually had to take up large amounts of time in order to find the best move, contrary to Bobby who had already studied the nuances and played quicker. This lead to Reshevsky always being in time trouble.¨ As for Sultan Khan, he certainly got some great, brilliant wins over top players he did receive coaching from the best players in India before coming to Britain. His main game that he was the best at was Chaturanga, the Indian (and first) version of chess. This both hindered and helped his chess playing because on one hand he played these hypermodern openings really good, but he also had a bad tendency to leave his King in the middle of the board (As you usually do in Chaturanga). Morphy really was a most gifted chess player, that no one can deny and thatś really all I have to say about that. Fischer is harder to talk about because itś hard to know where the talent began and the IMMENSE time and effort he put into the game began. This is not to throw shade on him, he is definitely one of the greatest players of all time, but its not as easy to see whether it mainly stemmed from his natural talent or his obsession that drove him to study the game immensely.I really, truly, honestly believe Capablanca to be the most naturally gifted player to ever (so far) walk this Earth. He hardly ever studied (except endgames) and he could go for large amounts of time without playing chess and then come back and play great (albeit, a bit rustily in the beginning). Even in his old, sick days he could grasp the idea of a position almost instantaneously. He has the simplest style of play of any chess great, so much so that he makes it look easy!(But looks can be deceiving) To have become world champion with as little work as he did,(not saying he didn put a lot of work into it, but compared to his contemporaries ie. Alekhine, Rubenstein, Nimzowistch, Nimzo and Rubenstein worked harder than Capa and even they couldnt get a title shot! This is also because of WW1, but even after they couldnt keep up) I don think Capa lost the championship do to him only playing d4 openings, itś because his hypertension due to high blood pressure was really starting to set in, even as early as 1927(When their match took place). This doesn't discredit Alekhine though, even a sick Capa is a hard Capa to beat, especially in the 20s and especially with so much at stake. Even so, thatś why I think Capablanca is the most naturally talented chessplayer of all time. Any critiques or anything Ive gotten wrong are much appreciated.

I'd say capa and morphy. When you look for a gifted player yiu usually serach for a brilliant player that didn't study anything.

Morphy: Chess wasn't developed at his time and he came out of nowhere crushing amateurs blindfoldedly and european champions.

Capa: Chess wasn't fully developed at his time too and his endgames were all 99% precision

morphy crushed players who were honestly not worth much by capa's standards, so the only actual important feats he has are beating anderssen imo.

as for capa, not only did he not have 99% precision, he also actually played in a style that made this easy for him. he quite literally made positions simpler so that he wouldnt have to think much and fail. its what people like petrosian and karpov do.

Emanuel Lasker: he would go years without playing, then come back and dominate.

Capa and Morphy would maybe top most lists, even if these discussions tend to get biased in favour of the older players. Fischer and Kasparov probably worked harder than their contemporaries but one can still be quite talented to begin with. 

Maybe Karjakin is no less talented than Morphy but he also had tougher opposition. Carlsen has engines but so does his contemporaries, and Kasparov considered Carlsen to be too lazy. And then there is someone like Lasker, who was mainly interested in Maths and Philosophy and played chess a little on the side now and then. And still he was well into his 60s when he for the first time finished behind Capa in a tournament and lost a game to Alekhine. 

True, but Capa beat the best player in Cuba when he was 13 without any theory or anything, just staright chess. He also won his first international competition (San Sebastian) without any prior preparation. He only had a single loss (against Rubenstein). I dont favor the old or newer generations, Im just presenting what I know and why I think hes the most naturally talented player. 

this is 100% an impressive af feat, but i would like to add- the player very likely underestimated him, and he actually gave him odds of some sort, if memory serves me right. as for lack of theory, capa famously used almost solely 1 single opening iirc, so honestly, he was probablity adept at playing it by that point, so theory would only into the equation if his opponent prepared, used a completly unknown line, or used a trap. none of those things was the case here.

albeit, if i may add, caruana did a similar thing by the age of 10, i believe, against a GM. the same things that applied to capablanca likely also apply here, but i still wanted to mention it.

i mean, fischer was indeed a huge talent, but he was the most try hard of all players ever hahaha he is no more and no less what any super talented player would have become if they literally gave their all to chess. no offense to fischer. he was a world class champ by the age of 19 already, so he was clearly much stronger by the age of 29 (when he played spassky in 1972), but as we all know, he prepared HEAVILY for all the matches leading up to that. larsen did not do that, neither did tamainov, iirc. his preparation, studying, and focus are what made him such a strong player. not just talent, like capablanca. honestly, capablanca's talent is above that of fischer, in my honest opinion, without a doubt. the same can be said for lasker, tbh. maybe even tarrasch can be placed above fischer. bot tal and spassky come above fischer as well, imo.

Capa did not give them odds it was a tournament, and by the first round he won people realized that he was good. Also, just because he played one opening doesnt hold any relevancy. He faced many traps and unknown lines and often refuted, or simply outplayed his opponent. One famous example was when Capa played Marshall on the white side of the Ruy Lopez and Marshall played d5, the Marshall attack. Hed been saving it for Capa for 8 years, and Capa still beat him. Even though he did mainly play d4 for most of his life, he showed proficiency in other openings as well, so great was his grasp on the game of chess. And while Im sure whoever Caruana beat when he was 10 was impressive, but Im certain it wasnt similar to the feat that Capa pulled. Besides, Capa did it with only his natural talent, Caruana was already like 1800 or something and pretty well versed in theory. And, lets say for the sake of argument that Caruana did beat the then US top player (I dont know whod that be) it still wouldnt matter because Caruana had already been studying theory, so its hard to tell just how much would be his natural talent. However, Capa did without any training and weekend visits to his local chess club.

what? bro, i said that the cuban champ capa played agaisnt gave him odds. what i said still goes since i literally explained its relevancy lol as for caruana whatever else u said, he was 10 years old, not 13, so he was younger, and the guy he played against was far more versed in theory than capa, caruana, or the cuban champ BY FAR. so its just as impressive.

ALEKHINE!

Lol sorry I thought you meant that Capa got odds at the tourney. Him and the Cuban champ actually did play a real match (when he was 13) and he won. And no, its still irrelevant because the whole topic is about which player had the most natural talent. Capas display is much more convincing of his innate genius than Caruanas because he didnt know any theory and he still managed to beat his veteran adversary. As impressive as Caruanas feat may have been, Capas is just more relevant to the topic.

No one would disagree about Capa being at the very least one of the most talented, but accomplishing similar things are just not possible nowadays. No young player can win a top event without really studying the game, which in itself doesn't mean the best players today are less talented.

Capa won a 12-game match against Corzo 6.5-5.5 and finished fourth in the Cuban Championship the next year, when he was 14 years old. He lost five games in the latter event and then didn't really play any serious chess until he was in his 20s.

Imagine Carlsen or Firouzja playing one single classical tournament before they were in their 20s! Back in the old days talent was enough but not today. I read somewhere that Karjakin had studied chess for like a dozen hours a day since he was a rather small kid, and then like many other prodigies today had coaches, books, engines, Internet resources and played tournaments constantly. Difficult to say exactly how talented he was to begin with, but to compete with the best today is difficult without very hard work for many years.

Capablanca