Who is the Best Chess Player of All Time? First a Distinction Must Be Made.

Any discussion of objective strength of chess players should begin by realising that many of the best players today have spent eight hours each day since before they were ten years old studying chess. Lasker was a mathematician and philosopher who started playing chess at an age when Karjakin was already GM level. He didn't have the last 130 years of opening and endgame theory, all top games from those years in computer databases, engines to help analyse them, didn't have any coaches and didn't go to chess school. It isn't his "fault" that his great talent couldn't be enough to be as strong as the best players today, that have all these advantages, and that's also why all comparisons should be of comparative and not objective strength.

I think Tal probably had the greatest calculating ability in the history of chess.  I've seen so many Tal games that just left me speechless.  Things like trading a queen for a rook within the first 15 moves that, 30 moves later, eventually led to an unstoppable passed pawn that the opponent's lone queen could do nothing about...or giving up his queen because he saw some bizarre bishop, pawn and knight checkmate 10 moves down the line that nobody in the world would see...and things of that nature are just mind boggling (I wish I can find the games I'm talking about, everytime I search for Tal queen sacrifices, I get so many results that I can never find the specific game I'm looking for!)

His problem is probably consistency.  He also had a lot of subpar play against guys like Petrosian, etc.  It could be because of his health, it could be his high risk high reward style of play, or a myriad of factors.  I think when he was at his best and playing his best chess, probably him and Fischer are the greatest chess minds (and subsequently, chess players, of all time.)

On his best day, I don't think anybody in the world of chess (except Fischer on his best day) could hang with him.  I just wish he had more of those "best days."  Of course, that's just my opinion, I understand the arguments against him.

It's drifting further and further away form the core discussion. Now give me some proves how many hours should one study to be the best in the world. 24/7?

It's all about talent. And talent is uncountable.

...while talent is somewhat difficult to isolate and prove, the accomplishments and comparison of any player's contemporaries is perhaps the best evidence of talent....most wcc's will likely be the most talented, comparing them with their peers and then , peer groups of each era is the key....

Bold claim with little to back it up.  

Tal and Fischer inspires me. But I don't know why suddenly I play positional games. But I stil l have it. And it shows in this game. I just didn't go for an easy win. I wanted it to be a good one.

Black was clearly winning after Qa4. But could black finish it nicely with some combination? The answer is here. Just playing it bold and brave. And never look back.

This has nothing to do with whether Naka or Polgar could defeat Alekhine, this is just a list of WC champions and their period of dominance. Nakamura isnt on this list is he?

I agree with the OP, in general the best players of today would smoke the best players of 100 years ago. The best players of today come from a larger pool of players, start earlier, have access to better training methods and knowledge and computers. Carlsen could learn from Alekhine and Capablance, but those two never had an opportunity to learn from Carlsen.

I would definetly be a better player if I was born 10 years ago instead of 50, because when I was a young lad it was almost impossible for me to get a good game of chess going depsite an intense interest in it. There were no computers, no tactics problems (that I had access to) and my first live tounrnament didint occur until I was about 16, even though I had been interested in chess for 7-8 years by then.

Paul Morphy no question about it, the greatness of a Player is measured by how far ahead he was compare to the players of his time and in this department Paul is King!!

Ppl should understand, it's not when you were born that makes the difference. Why sunddenly blame it on the time you were born? Were you born in the wrong time? Then create time machine. So you can go back and see if you could beat Alekhine.

Anybody who say if Alekhine was born in 21st century, those 3 would have beaten them. Ask them personally if they have the capability of beating Alekhine.

It's ridiculous because a person's ability to calculate, board vision and creativity doesn't change based on what year they were born.  Memorizing openings and patterns (and lines that build off of the openings they already know) is the easy part for these guys.  It's not hard to believe that people this talented at chess would be able to navigate through the first 20 moves and get the game out of the book quick enough to where it became a pure tactical one on one battle, where it's just one's brain vs another's.

It's also comical how somebody mentioned "training" as an advantage of today when a guy like Alekhine, and then later even moreseo guys like Karpov, Spassky, etc. trained through the Soviet Chess machine which was like the "marines" of chess.  These guys were, basically, forced to put more hours into study of chess than most human beings can handle.

in my opinion,bobby fischer he competed against the soviet chess machine and beat it and he did almost single handedly and with style. no one will ever repeat this in my mind.

Though the machine isn't the same, look at how many top 100 GM's of the former Soviet territories there still are. While Carlsen certainly hasn't been alone, Norway hasn't exactly been a chess power through the modern chess era either and yet, he has crushed everyone else pretty much the same as Fischer. I'll admit he had a bad candidates tourney to get to the WCC, but when you win still, after not playing your best, while others play awefully well, it is a testament to your ability. 

I think you and I are on different path. You consider chess is memorization of opening, and I consider chess is how you react to a move on chessboard.

But you also contradict yourself saying a person's ability to calculate, board vision and creativity.

I don't know what you consider chess is. But my point is this.

Even Thomas Alva Edison was born in 2000 BC or 2000 AD, he is still Edison. Even Alekhine was in 2000 BC or 2000 AD, he is still Alekhine, and those 3 wouldn't able to beat him.

But I think it's very ridiculous to blame it on what year a person was born. It's like saying why Alekhine, why not me?

Alekhine may be accused of many things, but hardly of being part of some "Soviet Chess Machine". He was 25 at the time of the revolution and left Russia for good soon after that.

I personally think that akiva rubinstein was good. he started to play at the age of 16 and became one of the top chess player in the world, think what would happen if he started to play at the age of 6 or 7.

Except for that tigran petrosian was the best

People think Alekhine will be born in 2080 where chess is already solved. The fact Alekhine was born in 1892, more than 100 years ago. And he is dead now.

But I have no problem, ppl can think whatever they want to.

Sorry I'm just now getting back on all this.

I think I see the core of our disagreement. You see chess as pretty much all talent. So I would ask you a question: Would Alekhine have been a better chess player had he been born in 1992 rather than 1892? Surely you dont believe that his play would have DRAMATICALLY improved with access to computers, stronger players, the internet and improved chess theory? You seem to think that study has very little to do with it.

I laugh seeing your questions. Maybe you already know the answers, so I don't have to answer them. You already have the answers, and they won't change whatever my answers are.

Blame on everything you want to blame no matter how ridiculous it is. But Alekhine will remain Alekhine in history of chess.