3 ms·

Fischer is clearly the goat in my view. But it’s not so obvious to me that Kasparov and Carlsen are better than say Vishy or Morphy or Botvinnik or Capablanca…

jstx1 4y ago
For Anand it's really obvious that both Carlsen and Kasparov are better given that they've beaten him in World Championship matches (Kasparov once, Magnus twice), have positive head-to-head scores against him and have better other achievements like peak rating or time spent at number 1. There's no metric on which Anand comes out on top in comparison to Carlsen and Kasparov.
- AmericanChopper 4y ago
  There’s also not really any metric where any of them are better than Fischer. Neither Carlsen nor Kasparov challenged Vishy’s title during the peak of his career. He’s also such a phenomenal player, that if he’d been the one to abdicate the FIDE title instead of Kasparov, you’d easily be able to make the same kind of “top 3” comments about him.
  - jstx1 4y ago
    > There’s also not really any metric where any of them are better than Fischer. Off the top of my head - World Championships matches won, time spent as number 1, peak Elo. > Neither Carlsen nor Kasparov challenged Vishy’s title during the peak of his career. When was the peak? He was WC between 2007 and 2013, he wasn't even the top ranked player for most of that time and then he lost the WC to Magnus (then lost the rematch too).
    - mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago
      Elo inflates over time, and so can't be easily compared like this. More interesting to me is how dominant a player was at their peak, and for that Fischer wins by a mile for modern times, with Kasparov behind him. And historically, Morphy, Lasker and Capablanca come to mind. And Tal could wipe the floor with anyone when his poor health didn't get in the way.
    - AmericanChopper 4y ago
      > Off the top of my head - World Championships matches won, time spent as number 1, peak Elo. I meant to say that the other way around sorry. A lot of Fischer’s stats aren’t very impressive at all. He’s won less championships than say Kramnik or Petrosian, but not many people would argue that either of those two were greater players than Fischer.
prionassembly 4y ago
On one view, Morphy et al. picked low-hanging fruit, no longer available to Kasparov. On the other, Morphy and Capablanca etc. laid the foundations on which Carlsen and Kasparov walk.
jmyeet 4y ago
I find these conversations amusing because it really is the nerd (I mean that as a nerd myself; not perjoratively) version of arguing about whether LeBron is better than Jordan (in their respective primes) or whether the GOAT is Brady, Woods or LeBron. It's just funny that this same argument structure repeats in radically different fields with (often) very different people. Personally I've never gotten too invested in any of these arguments because they're ultimately unknowable but, more importantly, they're kind of pointless. You can't separate someone from the time they existed in. I was only ever at best average at Chess but even I could recognize that the grats of 100-200 years ago would get wiped out by the modern greats but obviously we know more now, we have better tools now and so on. And you can never really say how a historic great would do in the modern times with modern ideas, knowledge and tools because they're a product of their time.
- rofo1 4y ago
  I think most chess players are comparing them in the same circumstances, e.g on pure skill. So for example Fischer said Capablanca and Morphy, under the same circumstances, could beat anyone (if they were born in the same era, using the same tools, etc.)
- bitshiftfaced 4y ago
  I think you can get pretty close, though. We can now objectively evaluate middle and endgame strength (where you wouldn't gain as much from modern techniques) by using superhuman chess engines.
  - unholiness 4y ago
    But that doesn't actually separate the players from their time. Opening theory and endgame knowledge is developed with computers now, and humans use and learn from them. Move accuracy for thousands and thousands of GMs and IMs will easily be higher than Kasparov in peak form back in his heyday. But Kasparov came up with those moves, learning only from lesser minds.

jstx1 4y ago

For Anand it's really obvious that both Carlsen and Kasparov are better given that they've beaten him in World Championship matches (Kasparov once, Magnus twice), have positive head-to-head scores against him and have better other achievements like peak rating or time spent at number 1. There's no metric on which Anand comes out on top in comparison to Carlsen and Kasparov.

AmericanChopper 4y ago
There’s also not really any metric where any of them are better than Fischer. Neither Carlsen nor Kasparov challenged Vishy’s title during the peak of his career. He’s also such a phenomenal player, that if he’d been the one to abdicate the FIDE title instead of Kasparov, you’d easily be able to make the same kind of “top 3” comments about him.
- jstx1 4y ago
  > There’s also not really any metric where any of them are better than Fischer. Off the top of my head - World Championships matches won, time spent as number 1, peak Elo. > Neither Carlsen nor Kasparov challenged Vishy’s title during the peak of his career. When was the peak? He was WC between 2007 and 2013, he wasn't even the top ranked player for most of that time and then he lost the WC to Magnus (then lost the rematch too).
  - mtlmtlmtlmtl 4y ago
    Elo inflates over time, and so can't be easily compared like this. More interesting to me is how dominant a player was at their peak, and for that Fischer wins by a mile for modern times, with Kasparov behind him. And historically, Morphy, Lasker and Capablanca come to mind. And Tal could wipe the floor with anyone when his poor health didn't get in the way.
  - AmericanChopper 4y ago
    > Off the top of my head - World Championships matches won, time spent as number 1, peak Elo. I meant to say that the other way around sorry. A lot of Fischer’s stats aren’t very impressive at all. He’s won less championships than say Kramnik or Petrosian, but not many people would argue that either of those two were greater players than Fischer.

prionassembly 4y ago

On one view, Morphy et al. picked low-hanging fruit, no longer available to Kasparov. On the other, Morphy and Capablanca etc. laid the foundations on which Carlsen and Kasparov walk.

jmyeet 4y ago

I find these conversations amusing because it really is the nerd (I mean that as a nerd myself; not perjoratively) version of arguing about whether LeBron is better than Jordan (in their respective primes) or whether the GOAT is Brady, Woods or LeBron. It's just funny that this same argument structure repeats in radically different fields with (often) very different people. Personally I've never gotten too invested in any of these arguments because they're ultimately unknowable but, more importantly, they're kind of pointless. You can't separate someone from the time they existed in. I was only ever at best average at Chess but even I could recognize that the grats of 100-200 years ago would get wiped out by the modern greats but obviously we know more now, we have better tools now and so on. And you can never really say how a historic great would do in the modern times with modern ideas, knowledge and tools because they're a product of their time.

rofo1 4y ago
I think most chess players are comparing them in the same circumstances, e.g on pure skill. So for example Fischer said Capablanca and Morphy, under the same circumstances, could beat anyone (if they were born in the same era, using the same tools, etc.)
bitshiftfaced 4y ago
I think you can get pretty close, though. We can now objectively evaluate middle and endgame strength (where you wouldn't gain as much from modern techniques) by using superhuman chess engines.
- unholiness 4y ago
  But that doesn't actually separate the players from their time. Opening theory and endgame knowledge is developed with computers now, and humans use and learn from them. Move accuracy for thousands and thousands of GMs and IMs will easily be higher than Kasparov in peak form back in his heyday. But Kasparov came up with those moves, learning only from lesser minds.