Originally posted by Restless SoulGood question... I wonder that too! I doubt they were up to todays standards... they were probably just happy to have created something mentally stimulating... I bet they were some of the best in their time however.
what about the people that invented chess? I wonder if they were any good
Originally posted by david haworthFischer isgreat but was a fluke.
fischer
Kasarov is great but he is "an idiot-savant" (Fischer).
However, Alekhine truly gets my respect.
Also much credit to Botvinnik for his scientific aproach to the game. He completely revolutionize the game.
Ah!
...and Mikhail Tal. A great natural talent but imposible to understand his logic. He thought in an original way.
Morphy was great too but I think he was'nt best.
Capablanca is not as good as Alekhine.
It is imposible to say but Botvinnik (Three world-titles between 1948-1963) must be the best with his precision and pure logic.
fischer was an amazing player love him or hate him, hes arrogant every chess player is arrogant at heart. or at least the top players. fischer just expressed it rather than kept it inside. he has done a lot for opening theory along with a contribution to chess. after he started playing over 1500 clubs started up around the us and before that there were only like 150 or so. also when he made a mistake in an opening he would say what the better move was and if anyone tried it against him he'd beat them. so when he said that he refuted the kings gambit its a possibility. does it really matter who was the best ever? have you taken into accountability from who has improved the play of chess. philidor maybe have been 2100 to our standards but his analysis of the game has upped the bar a lot. fischer and kasparov are in a world of our own. they both posess the power to beat each other and they don't like book lines up to a certain point. karpov was a great player also but only went for the best possible book move with the tiniest plus. not a risky player. i would put fischer and kasparov as the best together they make chess exciting going for a win not a crappy draw.
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Originally posted by GinoJPersonally, I think Alekhine was overrated. He seemed to know it too, which is why he refused to play Capablanca after taking the championship.
Fischer isgreat but was a fluke.
Kasarov is great but he is "an idiot-savant" (Fischer).
However, Alekhine truly gets my respect.
Also much credit to Botvinnik for his scientific aproach to the game. He completely revolutionize the game.
Ah!
...and Mikhail Tal. A great natural talent but imposible to understand his logic. He thought in an o ...[text shortened]... ik (Three world-titles between 1948-1963) must be the best with his precision and pure logic.
Originally posted by demonseedI believe the book you are referring to is "Warriors of the Mind" by Raymond Keene and Nathan Divinsky, (1989)
There has been a book (I cannot remember the name) published that tries to compare the world champions trying to establish a unifed rating system by which they can be measured.
The results were as follows:
1. Kasparov
2. Karpov
3. Fischer
But I doubt everyone will agree to this!!
Incidentally, the Wikipedia writeup on this topic is quite good, so if anybody feels like doing more reading, the link is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparing_top_chess_players_throughout_history
Has anybody mentioned Steinitz yet? He ushered in the age of "modern chess", and led the romanticists out of the wilderness.
He should have been named on this thread a BUNCH of times.
Staunton too. He was a leading player in the 1840's, and some of his ideas anticipated the hypermodern school of the 1920's.
World Champions have built on the knowledge base of their predecessors and have, therefore, obtained a superior understanding. Some WC’s have dominated their contemporaries. Alekhine once said of the players of his generation, “I dominate them all.” But, he wasn’t so sure when it came to the emerging Botvinnik. Frank Marshall, though never a WC, had difficulty understanding the hypermoderns. Fischer crushed everybody. Euwe & Petrosian, on the other hand, hardly dominated. My point is each successive generation has gotten a better understanding of the game. For example, Alekhine criticized 1…g6 because he thought it was bad. When Boleslavsky started playing his Sicilian variation …e5 was thought to be bad because by old school thinking it created a backward P and left a hole at d5. GM’s today consider …e5 quite playable. Therefore I submit the greatest of all time, although he’s probably nobody’s favorite player, is Kramnik. I know Fischer said they rigged the games, but he did defeat Kasparov.
Originally posted by Sam The ShamStaunton was a great player, but ducked a match with Morphy. Such cowardice, as with Fischer's fear of Karpov, serves as automatic disqualification from the list of greatest ever.
Has anybody mentioned Steinitz yet? He ushered in the age of "modern chess", and led the romanticists out of the wilderness.
He should have been named on this thread a BUNCH of times.
Staunton too. He was a leading player in the 1840's, and some of his ideas anticipated the hypermodern school of the 1920's.
Had Pillsbury lived longer, he would have shortened Lasker's reign at the top.
Hence:
1. Kasparov
2. Korchnoi
3. Lasker
4. Pillsbury
5. Lucena
Originally posted by AlboMalapropFoozerYou are quite right, I remembered that Keene was one of the writers but it has been a few years since I have looked at it.
I believe the book you are referring to is "Warriors of the Mind" by Raymond Keene and Nathan Divinsky, (1989)
Incidentally, the Wikipedia writeup on this topic is quite good, so if anybody feels like doing more reading, the link is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparing_top_chess_players_throughout_history
Originally posted by Wulebgrmm I'm not so sure Bobby was scared of Karpov:
Staunton was a great player, but ducked a match with Morphy. Such cowardice, as with Fischer's fear of Karpov, serves as automatic disqualification from the list of greatest ever.
Had Pillsbury lived longer, he would have shortened Lasker's reign at the top.
Hence:
1. Kasparov
2. Korchnoi
3. Lasker
4. Pillsbury
5. Lucena
maybe he only lost his head, after the "Reykyavik War" against Spasskij... since the childhood, Fischer used to behave like a primadonna, a kind of naughty boy, coz he suffered from Ashberger syndrome... so I've always considered his sudden disappearance from the pro-tournaments as an act of insanity, a kind of rebellion...
but one thing is sure, he wasn't such a great sportsman: on that side, at least, Boris was much better than him