who's the best player of all time?

I feel Paul Morphy is a serious contender for best chess player of all time, considering the times and what resources they had then.  Any thoughts? Comments? Who was/is the best? Past,present.

In terms of domination, I'm not sure, but I think Paul Morphy outdid Bobby Fischer.  Bobby fischer had a high level 20 win streak*, two 6-0 matches** against grandmasters.  To be fair, steinitz had a 25 win streak and a 7-0 tournament score once.  On the other hand, paul morphy was so dominating, he was beating grandmasters at pawn and move odds****.  Morphy scored 85% in all his games (even if you exclude the non-match/tourney games, its still 79%) while fischer scored 73% counting all his games.  Steinitz scored 67%.  

But still, the best player of all time IMO is garry kasparov.  His games are awesome, and simply he has gotten better results then anybody in chess in various lists I'm too lazy to referance (morphy may have had better results, but he was playing against the romantics.  Kasparov was playing against players like freaking karpov)

*Soltis, Andy (2002). Chess Lists Second Edition

**Wade & O'Connell 1973, pp. 412-16, From Portoroz to Petrosian; Wade & O'Connell 1972, p. 345.

***Chessgames.com

****Morphy's Games of Chess, by Paul Charles Morphy, Philip Walsingham Sergeant - 1957

Interesting analysis and numbers. I'm sure there's a lot to take into account when deciding such a question.  Styles, results, opponents' strength etc...and yes, freaking Karpov was an animal for competition.

you guys forget the father of chess and the machine of chess cablanca and lasker

paul morphy, tal, fischer, kasparov..... all are among the greats....!!

Thinking about the way Morphy played (sacrificing for open lines), wasn't this sort of an advantage? ;)

This site = CHESSMETRICS = is all about comparing the different players across eras. Look around, (click on the tabs for lists etc. there's A LOT of data on the site).

Surprisingly, Morphy makes the all-time list somewhere down around #83 or 84... much lower than most players subjectively evaluate Morphy... but the ranking is data-driven in an attempt to be objective. 

Although the page I link to mentions Lasker as the historically most dominant player of all time, ranking #1 (according to the data) the most number of months, the fellow who put together the chessmetrics site, Jeff Sonas, has written an excellent article about who he believes is the best of all time, and why... his choice: Garry Kasparov.

Well, I sincearly have no idea who could be the best of all times, but I'd like to mention Adolf Anderssen, who gave us the gift of The Immortal Game and the Evergreen Game.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2DHpW79w0Y