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"...Garry Kasparov, Fischer's only rival for the title of best-ever player..." That's not quite right. Both Kasparov and Fischer are definitely among the best
by johan_larson 11y ago
"...Garry Kasparov, Fischer's only rival for the title of best-ever player..."
That's not quite right. Both Kasparov and Fischer are definitely among the best players ever, but the list of contenders for the top spot is definitely longer than that. One might easily include Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, Botvinnik, Tal, and a couple of others.
It's not really possible to say who the best player of all time is; some of the plausible candidates never played each other in their primes. One can estimate of course based on intervening games, but I'm not ready to put a lot of confidence in a model that has to judge how the Lasker of 1910 would fare against the Fischer of 1972, extrapolating over a span of more than sixty years.
- spodek 11y agoBest human player. Isn't Deep Blue the best player? Or some computer since?
- papercrane 11y agoI think Komodo is currently the strongest chess engine, although the open source engine Stockfish is pretty close.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- airza 11y agoI mean, relatively speaking these players were strong for their time but the science of chess analysis makes it difficult to imagine a situation in which history's best players would stand a chance against their modern counterparts. We have so much more public information about what lines of play are promising and others which are... not so much.
- Lordarminius 11y agoWell you are entitled to your opinion but it is very likely you are wrong. The consensus among very many strong chess players,and historians is that the mantle of 'greatest player ever' is a toss-up between GK and RJF. This is based on many factors: peak rating,percentage wins/losses, fighting spirit and aversion to draws, quality of the opposition, quality of play, raw talent, statistical analysis of elo ratings, their contribution to theory and other factors. The phrase is not a whim of the reporter.
- johan_larson 11y agoI am saying what I am saying for good reason. Back when I was active in chess (a decade or so ago), I read all kinds of articles and books about the great heroes of the game. There was general agreement in the chess community about who the dozen or so greatest players were, but no particular agreement on who was the very best. In a typical discussion, the cults of Fischer and Kasparov would always make themselves heard, but there were also advocates of Lasker and Capablanca, and some oddball who would insist on Morphy. But perhaps things have changed. Got a pointer to a solid writeup on the issue?
- Lordarminius 11y agoI saw a good one once I think on ChessBase. I'll search for it.