in chess it can make sense. if you want to learn from the "best".
most grandmasters have many games recorded with explanation therefore you can go over the games with notation and learn a lot.
you can also look at a look of video which walk you through the games.
but if you do not use the information to any thing you might as well argue who is stronger batman or superman.
I think the real question here is:
Who's the best at asking who's the best?
Your nephew wouldn't by any chance be known as indianprince on chess.com ...?
in chess it can make sense. if you want to learn from the "best".
most grandmasters have many games recorded with explanation therefore you can go over the games with notation and learn a lot.
you can also look at a look of video which walk you through the games.
but if you do not use the information to any thing you might as well argue who is stronger batman or superman.
Actually the question makes no sense if you want to learn from the best.The reason is simple: you need to study many great players and not just one.If , let's say , the best of all times is Carlsen, what does that mean?You don't need to study Kasparov or Botvinnik or Capablanca?.
The question "who is the best" is actually a naive question.The answer , even if there is one, offers us nothing useful.
Maybe a very useful question could be "who's games are the most instructive?".The fact that noone(or very few) actually bothers to ask that question clearly indicates that chessplayers are not so clever as they think they are.
We don't try to learn or understand chess , we try to increase our win rate.That is why we study openings and we are so happy if we win with an opening trap that the opponent didn't know.You will find almost no club player that hasn't spend many hours studying Sicilian.At the same time you will find only a few(probably none) that has spend just a few hours studying Botvinik's games.But the truth is that studying Botvinik can be extremely beneficial.He might not be the greatest of all times but he certainly has played some of the most instructive games ever played.
I think the real question here is:
Who's the best at asking who's the best?
actually many forget there should be no questionmark since Who
is the best. Now we just need to find who. lol.
Easier to find Waldo than Who.
i taught my seven year old nephew a couple of years ago how to move the chess pieces. now, a couple of years later he plays in the chess club at his school. Nowadays he is obsessed with the question "Who is the best chess player of all time?' a reverential glow fills his eyes when he hears the name of capablanca or morphy. i explained to him that asking who the best chess player of all time is is rather like asking what the coolest breeze of all time was, or what the most beautiful sunset of all time was. or like asking "why are we here" or "what is the meaning of life?" at any rate i always find this tendency in human nature most instructive. we always want to know who is the best this or who is the best that. why is this?