Whose the Most Talented Player of all Time

pls read my comment, with MINIMAL STUDY! i know for the fact that Morphy, Capablanca etc do have chess books, but do they bother to SERIOUSLY study the game? I highly doubt it, they are the one who i belive who dont seriously studied the game yet are #1 in the world..

Amir Khan is also a chess genius, but will he become a world champion????

Smyslov is a true chess artist i feel his endgames are the best there is and we all know for the fact very difficult to become a true master of endgame and i belive Smyslov is a true endgame master even though he does study the game more seriously than the other on my list his natural talent for the game is comparable to a somewhat lesser degree Capablanca.

Pillsbury would had become World champion had he not died PERIOD

Tal is one of my idols and easily one of the most talented player ever maybe he should be on anyother list  but sadly i feel hi true potential is never realized because of his illness.

This is a very subjective question and in order to prove we must give objective answers.

It is an unanswerable question, because "talent"  is such a vague concept, and even means different things in different sub-cultures.

The trouble is that even if there is such a thing as "talent" there is no reliable way to identify it in advance in complex activities like chess. So we say of people that become strong, apparently with ease, that they are "talented" ... but that is circular reasoning.  All we are entitled to say is that they became strong.  Many other factors are at play - opportunity, encouragement, cultural acceptability, availabilty of good training partners and coaches, stumbling on good books early on (rather than those that will set your development back by years), getting good results by luck in your first tournaments, tenacity, will-to-win.  Maybe "talent" does not figure at all!

A more objective question is "Who was the strongest player of all time?"  yet even that is unanswerable for many reasons, not least that the best players of earlier eras cannot play against the best of today, and because chess strength is not a linear, transitive scale.  (If player A beats B consistently, and B beats C it DOES NOT FOLLOW that A will consistently beat C).

I  can say and belive talent is one factor to differentiate skill level in any endeavor, true talent alone wont make you a champion but with everything equal, the level of talent is the one who will differentiate strenght of players in any sport. What makes Carlsen, Lebron, Tiger Woods, Messi, etc.. best in what they do? Because they work harder than the other? Highly unlikely. They stand out becase they are more talented than the other in what they do.

and on your question how we can define talent in chess? I define chess talent as the ability to: Crush opponent with ease, Analyze and evaluate simple and complex position better than anyone in the world, can calculate moves and positions with extreme accuracy, doesnt easily succumb to pressure, higher level of understanding of the game, and to some extent super memory and the will to win. Some players possesed some of those trait, very few possesed ll of them. Maybe i missed something else but all of those are what needed to be called super talented. 

Between Morphy, Fischer, Capablanca, and Carlsen it's a tough call.  Probably Carlsen as his ELO is the highest though he stands on the shoulders of giants and lives in the computer age.  Still, he's the objectively best human player of all time.  Morphy was best relative to his peers, but defensive technique and Steinitz's principles weren't established in those days.  Hard to utilize prophylaxis when Nimzovich didn't yet demonstrate its importance and the prevailing thinking of the day was all about attack and counterattack. 

>> Amir Khan is also a chess genius, but will he become a world champion????

Hi diablo9, are you talking about Indian Actor Amir Khan?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aamir_Khan

MIKHAIL TALented

Chigorin belongs on that list somewhere.

Capablanca.

Don't forget Reshevsky.