Who was the all time best

Almost immediately after the liberation of Paris, Alekhine publicly stated that "he had to write two chess articles for the Pariser Zeitung before the Germans granted him his exit visa ... Articles which Alekhine claims were purely scientific were rewritten by the Germans, published and made to treat chess from a racial viewpoint." He wrote at least two further disavowals, in an open letter to the organizer of the 1946 London tournament (W. Hatton-Ward) and in his posthumous book ¡Legado!. These three denials are phrased differently.^[113]

Wiki

113. ^ ^{a b c d e} "Was Alekhine a Nazi?". Retrieved 2008-05-20.2Fwww.chesshistory.com%2Fwinter%2Fextra%2Falekhine.html&rfr_id=info:sid/en.wikipedia.org:Alexander_Alekhine">  Winter cites many original documents including:

• Alekhine Nazi Articles, a privately printed booklet edited by Ken Whyld, that contains an English translation of the Pariser Zeitung articles;
• Alekhine's disavowal of these articles in News Review, November 23, 1944, also reported in British Chess Magazine December 1944 and Chess January 1945;
• Alekhine's posthumous book ¡Legado!;
• interviews in the September 3, 1941 editions of El Alcázar and Informaciones, which report Alekhine as making anti-Semitic statements about chess.

 

So if we believe Wiki referencing Winter referencing his sources, then Alekhine admitted to writing the letters but under coercion +/- Nazi scumbag editing.  If he wrote them under coercion or they were tampered with (much like religionists do with history and science), then my and others' accusations of Alekhine being a Nazi scumbag are false.   I hope he was not a Nazi scumbag.   

Regardless, Alekhine is easily among the 2nd greatest players of all time.  Still a chicken$#!+ for ducking Capa yet hypocritically accepting rematches with Bugoljubow (greatest name ever in chess history) and Euwe.  

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Excuse me but lets be logical here , chess players ARE logical are they not ? I do NOT believe and NEVER will believe that any " Nazi scumbag " would ever marry a jewish woman !  Am I the only one who sees something terribly wrong with this picture ?! We all DO know that Alekhine was in occupied territory and his wife was jewish so it is VERY possible any such articles he wrote to appease the nazis may have been under duress, is it not ? I  believe he would have done anything to survive under such circumstances as would MOST of us here ! Lets also keep in mind what happened to Alekhine and his family under the communists in Russia ( many of whom were jewish btw ) . His brother was killed, his family lost everything to the communist thieves and he himself was jailed for a time and was lucky to get out of Russia alive. The Nazis hated communists and wanted to kill them all ( jewish or not didnt matter ) so I can see Alekhine even having some sympathy for the Nazis in this aspect given his own personal history with the communists. Why was he black listed and Keres not ?  This is something I truly don't understand. Alekhine was a huge self-centered opportunist by all accounts and I dont doubt for a minute that he would write such articles under duress and in order to be able to play in tournaments so he could feed himself and his wife. I for one don't believe everything I read and its always a mistake , imo, to believe people who hate someone when gathering "evidence" against someone. We all need to think for ourselves sometime. 

yes Webhead, everybody sais Bobby Fischer

Reb,

Your position that "chess players are logical" is false...and can be easily proven by a cursory view of postings on this cite...because someone plays chess, that does not automatically make them anything...including intelligent and logical.

Also, your position that a Nazi would never marry a jew...while it seems logical, it may not be entirely correct...sometimes we do the opposite of what we really are to hide the truth from the public...we all know the examples of homosexuals who marry women to hide from the public their true personas, ala the famous movie star Rock Hudson, or even I suspect Michael Jackson...and even the ongoing rumours of Tom Cruz.

I hold no opinion on this arguement currently, since it is the first time I am hearing it, and need to do some research....

If someone is accused of something and he admits it---its a case closed slamdunk. We can move on to the next chess mystery. But here we are still debating on whether he actually wrote those articles. Its been 70 years and we're still debating. why---because he always denied it. Everytime someone brought it up he denied it. It was never decided in a court of law. It was never decided in a FIDE hearing. The case is still open and as Edward Winters says---It's still debatable.

And even if it did go to an official hearing and it was decided he did write those articles---I do believe Reb could get him off.  In one of his matches with Euwe for the championship Alekhine had a jewish second---Salo Landau.

I've got to tell you this story about Euwe. Euwe wrote to Alekhine sometime during the war asking Alekhine to help free some chess players from Nazi concentration camps. This was a kind thing for Euwe to do but Alekhine was unable to do anything for those guys. One of those guys was Landau his second in the championship match. They perished and Euwe was livid and remained so for many years. Think about it---Did Botvinnik ever get anyone out of prison---did Karpov or Kasparov. Did Fischer ever get anyone out of prison (lo). Did Euwe ?  Can you imagine Alekhine calling up the commandant of Auschwitz and saying ---I want you to release some Jewish prisoners immediately! Alekhine would have been shot! Alekhine was so low on the totem pole he was bumming cigarettes. 

 Euwe led the charge against his invitation to the victory tournament in London after the war. He was adamant that Alekhine should not be invited, and Alekhine's invitation was retracted.  I think Euwe and many masters wanted to strip Alekhine of his championship.

And so it goes...

My view is that you can only compare players to their contemporaries and therefore using this criteria I would nominate Paul Morphy, Mikhail Tal, Bobby Fischer, Anatoly Karpov and Garry Kasparov as contenders to this title.

Each in their own way was way ahead of their contemporaries.

Karpov between 1975-1985, Kasparov between 1990-2005, Fischer between 1970-1972, Tal between 1958-1961 and Morphy between 1858-1870 each showed resulted that were far in excess of their contemporaries.

Anything is possible and there are "logical" reasons to believe Alekhine wrote his letters under duress, but there is evidence that he was anti-semitic prior to Nazis.  Hopefully Alekhine wasn't a Nazi scumbag, but I am not going to believe it simply because he denied it immediately after the Nazi's lost or because he was married to a Jew or is the 2nd greatest player ever or because he was "mentally ill" or whatever other bull$#!+ excuses people make for their flawed heroes.  No one is questioning his chess brilliance.  Anyone can argue one view or the other and make others sound stupid. But then again, anyone can make the Blackmar-Diebert gambit theoretically "sound" against me.  Let the historians decide Alekhine's allegiance.   

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 " Let the historians decide Alekhine's allegiance."   They've been debating for 70 years---you think they'll come to a decision before the world ends? 

Look at Alekhine's death. How many different versions of his death are there? Here are a few---he was shot, he was hanged, he choked, stroke, heart attack...

Was the photo staged? was he killed somewhere else and then move back to his hotel room. We've never solved the 1910 Lasker-schlechter match. Back to Alekhine---did he really dodge Capablanca---was he afraid of a rematch? Why was Staunton such an ass to Morphy and was that the beginning of Morphy's psychosis?

Did Keres throw all those games to Botvinnik in 48' championship tournament? Did Kasparov really let go of the knight? Was there a man on the grassy knoll? Did Fischer really say Chess is better than sex? Did the spectators really shower Marshall with gold pieces at Breslau 1912? Are there any idiot savants in chess-who?

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 Fezzik, your naivete concerning chess history never ceases to amaze me. Batgirl didnt present doodly squat. Alekhine denied all that stuff.

Euwe was heavily biased against Alekhine for various reasons. Read "The Complete Book of Chess" by Horowitz. The chapter on Alekhine gives some of the reasons Euwe was biased. One of the reasons I've already stated. Euwe thought Alekhine had a lot more influence with the Nazis than he really did. He could not help prisoners in concentration camps---he could not set them free. I dont think he had any influence.

Here is a quote from a letter to Hatton Ward,  who was on the committee of the London victory tournament. "Dr. Euwe was so convinced of my influence with the Nazis that he wrote me two letters asking me to take steps to alleviate the lot of poor Landau and my friend Dr. Oskam...but in germany and the occupied countries we were under constant surveillance and threat of the concentration camp from the Gestapo. I can understand Dr. Euwe's reaction, its very natural. But, like so many others, he is sadly mistaken." 

"The charge of collaboration is generally directed to those who fell in with the Vichy Government. But I never had anything to do with that government or its officials. I played in Germany and the occupied countries because that was not only our means of subsistence but also the price of my wife's liberty. Going back in memory to the situation I found myself four years ago, I maintain today that I should act in the exact same way."

 Fezzik, you say ---"The fact that Alekhin didn't publicly denounce the articles during the war shows to me that he at least accepted them."

Fezzik are you for real? If the Nazis had their boots on the back of your and batgirl's neck---you guys are going to act differently?  What if they had your loved ones as hostages? Fezzik this is not the comic books! If you got bold with the Nazis---you got dead!

You know what Fezzik---I'll bet during the war the comics did have super heroes like Batman, Superman and Captain Marvel kicking the crap out of Nazis.

How does this sound---Batgirl and Fezzikman to the rescue! 

Who cares if Alekhine was anti-semetic or not, that doesn't stop us from loving Bobby Fischer!

Hahahaha!

Well, then I guess the Nuremburg trials were unfair because those gestapos were under threat of execution if they did not follow Nazi orders. It's all relative anyway. It sounds like Mr. Alekhine did not deny that he wrote the letters but that he was forced to write them in some way or another. He denounced them after the war but it still leaves that stain of doubt, of a weasel who sides with winners (most of us would do that, though). Those letters of his in France won't be released until 1917, so there will be more pieces to this puzzle then. And of course, new historical documents find ways to present themselves all the time, like the dead sea scrolls or that Australian lady who showed that Pat Sullivan may have in fact created Felix the cat as opposed to Otto Mesmer. History is mostly consensus based on available evidence. Mr. raul and Reb, I may not agree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it, unless of course I am in Nazi-occupied territory with a Jewish wife. I am surprised Webhead has not made any comments about Fischer in this thread. I see a thoroughly documented Batgirl article all about this and the current available historical evidence and arguments up to this point....

I have seen several forums where Bobby Fischer is referred to as a jew-hater or in some an "anti-semite." I don't know much about Bobby so I went t wikipedia etc. Here is one of many links on the internet that say Fischer was a jew: http://www.jinfo.org/Chess_Players.html.  Can a Jew be a Jew Hater or a so called "anti-semite"?  Are those who say these things accusing him of being some-kind of race traitor?  I have heard this kind of allegation made against Clarence Thomas by black guys  that do not like his jurisprudence on the supreme court. I happen to be a Clarence Thomas fan.  I am afraid I would be pilloried if I said I like Bobby Fischer as the greatest Chess player the world has ever known amazing. a miracle.

Kasparov

                  STOP   THE   HATE 

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I never knew Fischer had a liking for 8 year olds, this is even worse than his racism!

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This is the FIRST I have ever heard of this blatant lie, where do you get this from ? 

Reb, if you read the post I quoted, you will see that fyy0r claimed that Fischer wanted Kosteniuk in 1992. My post was sarcasm directed thowards the fact that Kosteniuk was 8 at the time, and that fyy0r obviously made that up.

It was sarcasm directed thowards fyy0r, it was not an attack against Fischer, if you had turned your hero worship down a notch you would have noticed that Reb. Althuogh I have heard claims that Americans have a hard time with sarcasm, so it might not be your fault.

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I see you like to insult Americans , many of whom are jewish. Does that make you anti-semitic ?  

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Women use sarcasm in lieu of humor.  Women often complain that men don't get it.  Comprende?