Rebuttal to ColinStapczynski's top 10: Alekhine should be ranked higher than Tal

There is a content by a chess.com staff member @ColinStapczynski, named "The 10 Best Chess Players Of All Time". There the top 10 are ranked as Follows:

• #10 Alexander Alekhine.
• #9 Mikhail Tal.
• #8 Emanuel Lasker.
• #7 Vladimir Kramnik.
• #6 Mikhail Botvinnik.
• #5 Anatoly Karpov
• #4 Jose Raul Capablanca
• #3 Bobby Fischer
• #2 Magnus Carlsen
• #1 Garry Kasparov.

My main objection here is towards Mikhail Tal being ranked 9th, ahead of likes of Alekhine, Spassky and Petrosian.

Of course they state it explicitly that their list should not be taken as a fact. Anyway, in this blog I will assert here that Alexander Alekhine should beranked above Mikhail Tal. Why you may ask? I will provide some arguements to support/establish my claim. Other day, I will argue for Spassky and Petrosian as well.

ALEKHINE vs TAL

Alekhine: World Chess Champion for 8 + 9 years, 17 years in total. During these 17 years, Alekhine was usually on top in the competitions he played in. In early 1930s, Alekhine demonstrated a dominantive superiority. Alekhine defended his title 2 times successfully and re-won it back once he lost it. Something Tal failed.

Here are the Notable tournaments won during the first phase of his reign:

• 1927 Kecskemet chess tournament, some notable competitors were: Nimzowitsch, Tartakower, Gruendfeld, Hans Kmoch. Won 12 points out of 16, 0.5 points clear first.
• would not be considered a strong tournament, Bradley Beach 1929. 8.5 out of 9.
• San Remo 1930. An elite tournament of a very strrong field, won it with 14 points out of possible 15. All of the leadig players of the time were a participant except the former world champions Capablanca and Lasker. 3.5 points clear first. That is a 93% success against the best of his time.
• Bled 1931. A very strrong field. Leading players of the time like Bogoljubov, Nimzowitsch, Spielman, Maroczy, Milan Vidmar and Tartakover took part in it. Won with 20.5 out of possible 26, 5.5 points more than the runner up.

Besides these 3, Alekhine won many tournaments but these 3 stand out among the rest.

Tal's reign as the world chess champion lasted only a year. Tal similarly won multiple tournaments of high level (USSR chess championship 57 and 58, Canada 1979 and Bled 1962 being either comparable or superior to  the 3 tournaments mentioned above for Alekhine).

The two were not contemporary, FIDE ratings and rankings did not exist back then. For comparison, we can take a look at the retroactive rankings by chessmetrics.

Here are the player profile of the two.

Starting with Alekhine:

and here is for Tal:

Career comparison from these two profiles:

• Alekhine spent 122 months as number 1 chess player in the world VS Tal spending 38 months.
  • Alekhine has clear superiority here. Alekhine spent 3 times longer time as world number #1 than Tal. 
• The highest rating Alekhine reached is 2860 VS Tal's 2799.
  • Alekhine has noticeable superiority here. The peak of Alekhine is 61 points higher than Tal's. A noticeable gap.
• Alekhine's best individual performance is 2865, achieved with 93% success against a  2626 rated opposition VS Tal's best individual performance being 2869, achieved with 71% success against 2716 rated opposition.
  • Tal has [noticeable] superiority here. Even though the ultimate gap may seem almost equal with the small margin, considering the difference between the opposition they scored their performance against, Tal has the edge here, Tal has the upper hand. Tal achieved this score against 2716 rated opposition, that is 90 points higher than the opposition Alekhine scored his best performance against. Also, Tal achieved it in a longer competition. The longer the more consistency it requires.
• Alekhine spent more time in top1, top2, top 3, top4, top5 or top10 than Tal had spent. Alekhine can be asserted to have higher consistency though Tal might have been affected by health problems as well.
  • Alekhine has clear superiority here.
• Chessmetrics gives 25 over-2700 tournament performances and 6 over-2800 performances for Alekhine VS Tal having 50 over-2700 tournament performances and 4 over-2800 tournament performances.
  • Tal has superiority here. One might argue Tal might have played in more number of tournaments and thus he has more number of over-2700 performances. I can counter it as follows: 1) Tal has twice more than Alekhine. 2) If we assume Tal played in more competitions, The number of competitions Tal played would not noticeably more than Alekhine.

OLYMPIADS:

As for olympiads, Tal has the superiority. Tal played in 3 more olympiads, Tal played 29 more games and despite all Tal has higher win percentage than Alekhine. Tal won more medals. Tal won 3 more gold medals than Alekhine and both of them have equal number of silver medals: 2. Tal achieved this completely higher results in more number of games, the longer it is the more consistency it requires.

One more thing that should be compared is, Alekhine's influence. Alekhine was a theoretician as well. Alekhine was far more influential to chess than Tal was. Alekhine pioneered an opening, he pioneered some endgame patterns. Alekhine developed and started many variations in several openings. Here are the ones I know of Alekhine:

1. Alekhine's defense/
2. Alekhine-Chattard attack in the French defense.
3. Alekhine gambit in the Budapest gambit.
4. Alekhine variation in the Vienna gambit.
5. Alekhine variation in Ruy Lopez.
6. Alekhine variation in French defense.
7. Multiple Alekhine variations in the Dutch defense.
8. Alekhine variation in the Queen's gambit.
9. Alekhine variation in the Sicilian defense.
10. Alekhine variation in the Catalan opening.

Does Tal have any? I do not recall, if Tal has, please share in the comments.

OVERALL:

First, I have to agrre The comparison of these two is NOT easy, though it might seem so at first glance. The arguements of mine for Alekhine should be ranked ahead of Tal are as follows:

1. Alekhine spent far more years as world champion than Tal. 17 years of Alekhine VS 1 year of Tal.
2. Alekhine defeated higher opposition when he became world champion. Alekhine became world champion by defeating Capablanca, who is ranked 4th in the same list, by 3 points. Tal became world champion by defeating the 6th ranked Botvinnik by 4 points.
   1. Alekhine defeated young, active and dynamic Capablanca whereas Tal defeated old and semi-professional/retired Botvinnik.
3. Alekhine had higher consistency and longevity. Alekhine spent more years in top1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or any lenght.
4. Alekhine was more dominant. Even though their number of tournament victories may not be that far, the dominance Alekhine showed in late 20s and early 30s is not matched by Tal. True, Tal was also dominant in late 50s but not as dominant as Alekhine displayed in early 1930s.
5. Alekhine's peak was higher. Alekhine's highest rating was 2860 whereas Tal's was 2799. 61 points gap is noticeable gap. 
6. Alekhine was more influential than Tal.

Considering all of these, it is clearly obvious that Alekhine should be ranked higher than Tal in all-time rankings. Tal also has his cases, like having superior Olympiad results, like arguably having more number of superior tournament performances but when all of them are weighted, Alekhine comes on top.

In my next writings, I will be arguing Petrosian should also preceed Tal. Then, a comparison between Spassky and Tal might follow.

What are your thoughts about it? Please share it.