many yanks think fischer was afraid of karpov, but if it was against the law to be an idiot then nobody would think that.

I agree.

@HungryHungry Exactly. I've said before he's like the MJ of chess. Untouchable.

5 new pages of posts. Good grief!

Suppose Fischer had been born after Kasparov, anybody like to to answer now ? hehehehe

I need to know who was best in primetime of Fischer and Kasparov!

I demand immediate answer. Now! First to answer is truth. All others are liars if they write other answer than first answer.

Take a random sampling on Chess.com of 100 players. When all 100 players have voted and added their best current rating points to their preferred candidate's total rating points, you will have a good sample of the opinion of chess.com players. The one who gets the most and the most combined rating points would be the winner. Otherwise it would be a split decision. Only One Person knows the answer to who is the best (or should I say Three Persons) but Chess.com doesn't like theology in open forums. This is an endless question with an endless debate because the answer is not known by mere mortals.

Capablanca!

When Magnus was asked who was the best player, he replied, "Bobby Fischer". He later qualified this by saying that one had to consider Kasparov because of the length of time that he was the most highly rated player. However, the Chess world was split during this time, so that there must be a question about the quality of players that he was meeting. During the 1980's there was little difference between Kasparov and Karpov (who was older). When you take into account the pressures on Fischer to challenge the Russians, and his early life experiences, then it is understandable why he did not continue.

He actually did, and he defeated them: See http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1242850 or the article "When Bobby Fischer took on a computer" (https://www.csmonitor.com/1988/0622/lchs22.html)

hi amigos!!pkey are you!!!

He should be made an honorary diamond member, as there are no funds where he is.

His posts would be interesting.

They would be if he was a freebie as well, I guess.

He would shut some of the trolls up, or else would prove he was a better troll than any of them.

he refused to play the guy he eventually beat for world champ unless all his conditions were met, and some he added on the spot at the tourny.  He beat him convincingly.  His refusal to play speaks to how his brain was wired, and not whether he could have beaten Karpov or Kasparov.  As someone already said, given the same advantages Kasparov enjoyed, and transported forward in time when he was the same age as Kasparov, it is Fischer who would have been world champion not Kasparov.

Fischer was afraid of no man.

Fischer topped out at 2820 FIDE when the top gms were in the 2600's. That was after he blitzed Larsen and some other player (no draws) in the prelimary matches and then beat Spassky for the WC. That spread was like unreal.

Then he wanted to retain the title on the next championship match if drawn meaning that Karpov would have to win 10-8. Tremendous advantage in favor of Fischer, so don't know if Fischer was scared of Karpov or what. Fischer had great imagination, played on the edge. Best of all-time arguably Fischer if considering peak, but Kasparov dominant career.. Fischer basically quit playing, not only refused to play Karpov but anyone. Don't think he was scared of any particular player altho Karpov was quite dominant at the time. The guy might have felt he was at the top of the mountain and moving in any direction meant down.

Where do people get their info?

Take a look at Fischer's FIDE ratings.

Check it out!

List of FIDE chess world number ones at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_FIDE_chess_world_number_ones

Per Wikipedia: "A total of seven chess players have been the chess world number one on the official FIDE rating list since it was first published in July 1971.^[1]

The first world number one, in July 1971, was Bobby Fischer. In January 1976 Anatoly Karpov became the highest-rated player on the FIDE list, FIDE having dropped Fischer (whose rating was higher than Karpov's) from the list due to inactivity. In January 1984, the third world number one was Garry Kasparov. Anatoly Karpov briefly held the world number one ranking in July 1985, and the fourth world number one, Vladimir Kramnik, briefly held the ranking in January 1996. Other than these two brief periods, Kasparov dominated for some 22 years from 1984 until his retirement from professional chess on 10 March 2005. In January 1990, he surpassed Fischer's peak of 2785 and became the first player ever to achieve a 2800 rating. In July 1999, he reached his peak rating, 2851. This was the highest FIDE rating in history until January 2013, when it was surpassed by Magnus Carlsen.

On Kasparov's retirement, the world number one ranking passed to Veselin Topalov, since Kasparov was removed from the rating list in April 2006 due to inactivity. In April 2007, Viswanathan Anand became the sixth player to top the rankings.^[2] Kramnik briefly returned to the number one ranking in January 2008, but was again joint number one by rating, being placed first in the list due to having played more games in the rating period in question. For most of the period April 2007 to November 2009, the top ranking was held by either Anand or Topalov. The seventh and current world number one is Magnus Carlsen, who first achieved this ranking in the January 2010 list, and has been world number one since July 2011 after having lost and reclaimed the position from Anand during 2010 and 2011."

If they played over the board then obviously Kasparov would win because he had access to the whole body of knowledge of all the players before him - including Fischer. This rule obviously applies to every successive generation in any sport but perhaps more so in chess where every move is noted and analysed later.

However if we look at basic talent then it becomes more interesting ie/ if Fischer had access to the same resources as Kasparov did ie/ computers, databases etc then who would be better ? remember Fischer was pretty obsessive and used to lap up info from books (including one's written in Russian) so his ability to absorb information was a little bit impressive. Imagine if he had access to massive computer databases ?

I'd argue that Fischer would stand very well against anyone ever.