Oh jeez best player EVER can never be known, only the best player that is currently on top. You could argue until the end of time and never make any valid conclusions.
People that completely dominated all others in their time with no real competition for a number of years include Philidor, Anderssen, Morphy, Steinitz, Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, Fischer, Karpov, Kasparov, blah blah blah. It gets tedious.
But it seems that Fischer, during the candidates matches before meeting Spassky, could could claim title to the Best There Ever Could Be. He went 6-0 against Taimonov (when Taimonov was at his absolute peak, top three in the world), 6-0 against Larsen, also at his peak, and +5=3-1 against Tigran Petrosyan, the previous world champion. (Fischer had the flu during his first game and played when very ill, losing ) This is a score of 17 wins, 3 draws, and one loss against the best three players the world had to offer before meeting the current champion. He went through them like a hot knife through warm butter. He then beat the world champion, Spassky, by a score of 7 wins,11 draws, three losses. (One of the losses was by default when Fischer didn't show for a game) Nobody on the way to the championship ever did that well.
I suppose Capablanca was pretty good too. He went 8 years in super strong tournaments against the best in the world without ever losing a game. Take your pick.
Irving Chernev in his book "The Golden Dozen" by OUP in 1976 [beautifully typeset!!] lists, in his opinion, the greatest players in ascending order saving his best for last:
Nimzowitsch, Rubinstein, Bronstein, Spassky, Smyslov, Tal, Petrosian, Botvinnik, Fischer, Lasker, Alekhine, and . . . Capablanca.
Originally posted by DudleyOkay, but Kasparov didn't win his first World Championship until 1985...
Irving Chernev in his book "The Golden Dozen" by OUP in 1976 [beautifully typeset!!] lists, in his opinion, the greatest players in ascending order saving his best for last:
Nimzowitsch, Rubinstein, Bronstein, Spassky, Smyslov, Tal, Petrosian, Botvinnik, Fischer, Lasker, Alekhine, and . . . Capablanca.
i believe K was the best ever human ... (by only a small margin)
however the computer world is now in its infancy ... and already easily as good as K could manage ... it will soon be vastly superior ... expect the play of the game to change a little ... many popular opening lines will become comletely unplayable by humans against computers.
kramnik's or topalov's analysis will be cast aside if the computers say so.
From a 'who was the strongest competitor at the highest level for the longest' viewpoint, Emanuel Lasker was the greatest. Kasparov is probably second or third, with other notables of this kind including Steinitz, Philidor, Karpov, and Botvinnik.
From a 'who was the farthest ahead of his or her best contemporaries' viewpoint, one certainly has to look to Morphy, Capablanca, and Fischer at their height. If Kasparov trails them by much it's only because he's been playing amazing talents like Karpov and Anand for so much of his career.
If it's 'who played the best chess ever played' then Kasparov is probably the right answer. Though again one might look to Fischer or Capablanca at their best for close comparisons.
Originally posted by GambitAcceptedright
...If it's 'who played the best chess ever played' then Kasparov is probably the right answer. Though again one might look to Fischer or Capablanca at their best for close comparisons.
my question was indeed "who played the best chess ever played"
Kasparov is in my opinion , the best player who played the best chess ever played;besides he learnt from the best chess players before him (Karpov,Fisher,Capablanca and so on) .
However,Fisher must have been very close to Kasparov at his highest level,since he was rated once at almost 3000 elo after a single tournament.
Besides,Kasparov has never been rated below 2800 elo since he first became world champion in 1985,that is + 20 years at +2800 elo ! That is unique in chess history : no chess player since elo rating was created ever reached this level !
Originally posted by HFRorbisKasp. was the best player and still is the best during recent times.
he is one of the strongest players but he's not as strong as Kasparov.
Kasparov is for sure the best player of the last 25 years.
However, you can't say he is the best player all time. He learnt so much from all the players before him and he had access to chess stuff other players before him didn't have.
There is so much chess knowledge availabe now compared to say 100, 200 years ago. Thus you can't compare people and say Kasp is the best because he has the highest elo.
What if Morphy and Kasp were born 40 years ago and both had the same access to chess knowledge. Who would be better? That's a fair comparsion.