are the current lot of 2700+ super GMs the strongest players of chess ever?

Since chess is an evolving game, the ideas of 19th century would be easily thrashed today...similarly innovative ideas from the 20th century would no longer work against the 2700s who would know them all...

Can't these 2700+ players, some 50 of them, be considered as those who know the most about chess, more than anyone who has attempted it in history? I mean at the current levels of knowledge, they should easily beat alekhine, capablanca, botvinnik, Petrosian or Fischer, at the levels of knowledge for those past champions...

Can't argue about karpov or kasparov since they currently keep themselves updated...but again, any 2700+ should have a good enough chance against them most of the times...am talking at their respective levels of knowledge and playing form..

On the same lines, what about 2600s for that matter? There are only about 200 of them on earth as well...

not a fair comparison.    

you should grant Alekhine, Capablanca, Fischer etc.  time to "catch up" with all the advances in theory.    Then put your idea to test and see what happens.   I imagine you want all players in their primes.

In a way that already did happen with Fischer.    He left the chess world following his 1972 world championship match with Spassky for 20 years.   When he was enticed to come back to a 1992 match with Spassky, he requested a computer with chess software to check out what he missed.   Then when he came back in 1992, because of his age and lack of tournament competition,  did experience fatigue and lack of concentration some games, but produced some gems, ie; game 1.

You are naive saying 2700+ players of today would "easily" beat the former giants of the game.     The giants of the past could play less critical lines for White and not be blown out of the water, ie; King's Indian Reversed.

A book I read in my youth said " in any age, in any place, Franklin would have been great " is a testament to the innovative mind of Benjamin Franklin had he lived in different time periods.   So I believe it is with our past Chess Champions.

Rating inflation.

Yes. Today's 2700s would be 2600s 30 years ago.

Check Wikipedia!

You can see Fischer had a peak rating of 2785. Whereas quite a few modern elite chess players have surpassed that. And in no way is Fischer weaker than Caruana, Grischuk, Topalov and Rajdabov.

Well what do u think would be the outcome if say, Aronian plays Fischer, or say Nakamura plays Botvinnik or say, Grischuk plays Smyslov? Is there a reason to believe that the former champs would win? I bet they would be foxed by the complexity of the current players' game...I would say even Anand could beat Fischer..needless to say Carlsen would easily overpower Kasparov...

Even the weaker lot amongst the super GMs, say, Michael Adams, Anish giri, or Andreikin could be the winners if they took on Petrosian, Tal or Spassky...

Any modern mathematician or doctor knows more or much more than the past ones, actually any good college student has more kmowledge than the past scientists, but what if they would not have the chance to study what past scientist discovered?

Maybe it can be the same for chess players, isn't it? What about Carlsen at Karpov time, with the same knowledge? Or if Kasparov was born 30 years later? Who can know? For sure, I can not.

they do not change the rules of chess every 100 years, the just come up wiht new ideas. the way of thinking about a move is still the same. i think that the bobby fischer of 1971/1972 would even be a little bit stronger than mangus carlsen.

Yes they are stronger.  For comparison Bobby Fischer was 2785 and there are six active players in the world today who top that. From the list below we can logically conclude that the third strongest Russian of all time is Grischuk, with the first of course being Garry Kasparov.  Kramnik, who was a world champion for comparison is 2769 but that isn't his peak, which is 2811 (making him the second strongest Russian ever, only one point stronger than Grischuk)    

As it has been pointed out already.  You would have to allow time for the "older" GM's to get acclimated to modern theory.

In terms of engine-like accuracy modern top players are about as accurate as they ever were (from Alekhine-Capablanca onwards) despite the extensive use of powerful engines for training purposes.

In fact, as far as a top GM playing other top GM's whose moves match a 3000+ Elo rated engine, Fischer in 1971-72 beats everyone else hands down.  It ain't even close.

Interesting debate, similar to http://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/paul-morphys-ratinggt2638 a few years back.  In that topic chess legend WGM Natalia Pogonina (who no doubt has analysed chess games from all eras to a much greater extent than us) notes " By modern standards, Morphy is a conservative master (with no opening & endgame knowledge), but rather good practical skills. My guess is that it corresponds to something in the IM - weak GM range. Not a 2600+ GM for sure"  (Pogonina 2010). As such it can be assumed that players from other eras are weaker especially due to lack of opening and endgame knowledge, which plays a very important factor in 2700+ chess.  

That's meaningless.  Google FIDE ratings inflation.

I guess there is a difference between making strong engine moves and winning a game, starting from beginning to end...I would still say Fischer of 1972 would lose any game played today against David navara, leave alone grischuk or carlsen...I heard from kasparov that Fischer was making outdated opening and middlegame moves way back in 1992 during the rematch..and this is 2014, the game has evolved a lot...

There has to be a difference between analysing a position or teaching chess and actually playing one from start to end..for example, IM Silman is a great teacher and has numerous articles written by him...he is surely a great analyzer, but if he goes to a tournament with players in the range of 2400 to 2600, how many would he win?

Even with outdated openings Fischer proved to be the better of the 2. Spassky kept playing chess and Fischer did not and still won the 1992 encounter right? What this tells me is that his understanding of the game was simply beyond any new modern theory which Spassky was fully aware of and yet lost 10 to 5 wins .