Capablanca shoyld be higher on the list as positional player
Who's The Best Positional Player In Chess?
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Vladimir Topalov
Capa is the best positional player, and all respect capa but everyone holds their breath at the mention of Tal the magician.
Hahaa I forgot the emoticon 
Oct 19, 2010
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#46
Viktor Kramnik, Vladimir Topalov and who can forget Boris Fischer! He was pretty good at positional play as well.
Oct 19, 2010
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#47
Fezzik wrote:
Toppy's chess was remarkably similar to Rybka's (higher agreement of moves), but Anand showed a much deeper understanding of the positions.
sources please?
I vote: A. Karpov
Oct 19, 2010
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#49
Fezzik wrote:
Chessbase.com for one, but I'd have to dig up the exact article. You could also run Rybka on the games for yourself. (And no, I'm not accusing Topalov of cheating.)
No, not about cheating, I would just be very surprised if Topalov's overall top 3 match up rate with Rybka 4 for the whole match would be higher than Anand.
philidor_position wrote:
Fezzik wrote:
Chessbase.com for one, but I'd have to dig up the exact article. You could also run Rybka on the games for yourself. (And no, I'm not accusing Topalov of cheating.)
No, not about cheating, I would just be very surprised if Topalov's overall top 3 match up rate with Rybka 4 for the whole match would be higher than Anand.
I don't remember if they used Rybka 4 (or 3) but overall I remember seeing Topo's match up was slightly higher... no idea where I saw it though. But in the critical positions or number of blunders, Topa had the worse of it. It only takes 1 or 2 moves to lose a game, after that the best defense may be more or less easy to see (lots of 1# and 2 matches) but you're still losing 
Fezzik wrote:
In defense of Tal.
Tal was a brilliant positional player! Everyone remembers his magical attacks, but they were well grounded in the position. One of his colleagues (Spassky?) said that Tal's strategy was simple: develop the pieces toward the center, then sac them somewhere.
Of course there was much more to Tal's game. A decade after winning and losing the world title, Tal was the #1 player in the world. He set the record for consecutive games unbeaten, and he did so in a very positional style.
Tal used his tactical attacking abilities to justify his positional judgements. Tactics are not the opposite of positional play. Tactics come organically from sound positional play.
That was right Tal deserved a right title as champion and one of the best positional player.
Tigran Petrosian
Anatoly Karpov
Ulf Andersson
No one mentioned Fischer.
Aug 24, 2014
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#54
Surely Smyslov deserves a mention. He was a creator of new opening systems and had great endgame accuracy.
Aug 24, 2014
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#55
Rubenstein. He had a decent opening, a strong and logical middlegame, and an endgame that was as good as Lasker's, considered the best endgame player of all time.
Aug 24, 2014
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#56
Agree. Rubinstein often had Capa's knack for simple but devastatingly accurate chess.
Maybe_Player wrote:
Rubenstein. He had a decent opening, a strong and logical middlegame, and an endgame that was as good as Lasker's, considered the best endgame player of all time.
Aug 24, 2014
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#58
harryz wrote:
Karpov
His endgame wasn't that strong. But his middlegame was pretty good. But he was more like a tactical player rather than a positional player.
Aug 24, 2014
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#59
harryz wrote:
Maybe_Player wrote:
harryz wrote:
Karpov
His endgame wasn't that strong. But his middlegame was pretty good. But he was more like a tactical player rather than a positional player.
Positional play is mostly based on middlegame, no?
Nope.
Mostly based on endgame.
Above all Botvinnik was fighter.