Who's Better?: Bobby Fischer, Garry Kasparov, or Magnus Carlsen

Definitely Kasparov

Ratings aren't necessarily the best identifier of the "best" because of rating inflation

Please, read the following article. There are many such articles by professional statisticians.

https://en.chessbase.com/post/the-elo-ratings-inflation-or-deflation

Does this disagree with what I said? It seems to say that after the changes FIDE made, cpl went up for higher rated players as the rating floor went down. aka: more people were rated highly, and played worse.

Did I misread the article?

As I said, there are many sources:
"We have shown multiple, separate, and novel pieces of evidence that the Elo system employed by FIDE has remained stable in relation to intrinsic skill level. We have shown that the population of master-level players closely fits a model that has an important scientific pedigree, under conditions of no inflation. We have shown that ratings as reflected in tournament categories have no overall inflationary trend relative to two measures of skill, the simple AE statistic on a large scale embracing (nearly) all tournaments with at least 2500 average rating since 1971, and the more-intensive IPR statistic for some tournaments."[Emphases added] (Regan 2011)https://cse.buffalo.edu/~regan/papers/pdf/RMH11b.pdf

Very interesting, thanks : )

I added the first part of the conclusion, with emphases added to make clear the point that Professor Regan made.

Fischer would out think them all. 

• Magnus Carlsen. Magnus is certainly the best player in our time, by currently holding the world championship title, and by achieving the highest classical rating of all time. At a young age he loved dynamic games, with a lot of sacrificed to be made. As he started to face higher opponents, his playing style, is often perceived as dull and boring (London). Nevertheless, he never fails to deliver a tactical blow and is one of the most flexible players out there.

• Garry Kasparov. Like Magnus, Garry became a Grandmaster at 13 years old. But unlike Magnus, his playing style is the complete opposite, and Kasparov is described as a "brilliant tactician and attacker" who would punish his opponents by launching aggressively dynamic attacks, and will not hold off if he sees a worthy sacrifice. If Magnus and Kasparov were to face off, it would be like fire and ice dueling.

• 
  Bobby Fischer. Became a Grandmaster at 15, but none of that detracts from his legacy. His games would always start with e4 ("best by test"). His would never doubt his opening skills, and would specialize in his openings he knew better than anybody else. He was the determined type of personality, one who fought not for a draw, but for a win. He is famous for winning games known to be drawn, because of his fiery determination and technical play. Pandolfini on Fischer, "a king of artful positioning. His opponents would see where he was going but were powerless to stop him."

The Soviets were powerless to stop Fischer.

It seemed the only person who could stop him, was Fischer himself.

Sadly, he suceeded.

Carlson is at or near his prime.  The other two -- no.

Carlsen*

I think Kasparov

Magnus without a doubt

A defensible position, but why him? This thread is for discussion after all

Out of these three, I like Fischer the best. Kasparov was all memory and Magnus is all theory (with a whole LOT of memory) but Fischer was all that along with originality. He solved problems himself rather than remembering how others solved them.

Carlsen is all theory?  Have you seen how he plays in tournaments? Against the best players in the world he tries out stuff like 1.f3 or 1.h4 as White and the Norwegian Rat as Black. He tries to get out of theory as quickly as possible.

Kasparov was fantastic in the opening, but he was far more than just the opening. Take a look at Kasparov-Topolov 1999 .

https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1011478

^^^Yeah that was a bit harsh on Magnus...I retract that. In fact, I can't remember which match he played where he showed me a new queen trap I'd never seen before. It didn't work completely but it was brilliant not withstanding.

I would say Magnus Carlsen. Since Magnus Carlsen's Rating went higher than Garry Kasparov's and Bobby Fischer's.