Who is or was the greatest chessplayer?

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Date: 06 Aug 2007 11:20:43
From:
Subject: Who is or was the greatest chessplayer?

Hi,

I am trying to settle an argument about who is or was the greatest
chessplayer. Chessmetrics.com states several possibilities...

1. Most Dominant Player: Emanuel Lasker

2. Highest-Rated Player: Bobby Fischer

3. Best Individual Event: Anatoly Karpov

See link for more details -
http://db.chessmetrics.com/CM2/Sumy.asp?Params=1840AASSSSS3S038178000000111000000000008910100

So which one do most people think is the the best indicator of overall
strength, or is there something else that should be considered? Thanks
for any opinions on this.

k

Date: 09 Aug 2007 23:48:15
From: help bot
Subject: Re: Who is or was the greatest chessplayer?

On Aug 9, 9:31 am, "Chess One" <[email protected] > wrote:

> >> Critics of this hyped methodology are not
> >> necessarily critics of Crafty per se; on the
> >> contrary, many would bet money on Crafty
> >> to win a set match against such titans as
> >> GM Bogolyubov, GM Tal, GM Anand, etc.
>
> > I won't bet on it.
>
> To further interrogate this subject, I have been in correspondence with
> Albert Alberts about his recent MAMS - Man Assisted Machine Chess, indeed,
> about his new volume on same subject - and I am about to introduce him to
> the Rybka folks in Moscow.
>
> What seems evident to me is that Alberts has struck on an important point in
> his book, that these generalisations about the strength of the machine are
> rather suspect, since once or twice per game human intercession puts it onto
> a winning path, after which the chess engine is then competent to cruise
> home.
>
> But without these intercessions the engine makes duffer-moves strategically.

A perfect example occurred in the just-completed
odds match between Rybka and GM Benjamin, in
the game where as Black Rybka offered the c-pawn
as odds, and after 1.e4 replied: ...Qa5 -- a duffer's
delight! The Queen thence controls or rather can
move to the entire fifth rank, yet no halfway intelligent
creature on earth would consider that important, as
every "threat" can easily be parried, so the Queen is
just a target here (as it is in the book line: 1.e4 e5
2.Qh5).

> In essence, Mr. Alberts proposes a positional and strategic approach, while
> simultaneously unbalancing the position initiative :: material as a means to
> defeat computer, but the same is true for defeating anyone - which I think
> Tal proved beyond a doubt, and Fischer was no pawn-counter, not caring
> overmuch if he gave up one or two buttons.

The real gambiteers were GMs like Spassky, Keres
and Tal, the first of which once famously trapped GM
Fischer's Queen after a somewhat greedy pawn snatch.

> I hope it will be a fruitful correspondance.

A dance popular in Andean South America, I
presume. Ah, to wander the mountains of Chile
and Argentina and see all the big kitty cats and
the mountain camels.

> The other aspects of computer versus human play are well rehearsed, though
> not much explored, since it is mostly talk of 'what if' rather than what
> happens. In other words; pure specualtion posing as some sort of datum.
>
> In short, much has to do with time - and the reason that computers do so
> well is the speed of their look-ups, since a human given sufficient time
> could look up the same or other material, and the refutation of the idea
> that computers can really evaluate grandmaster play, is because the computer
> needs to play moves from those look-ups, because it can't find the worth of
> those moves by its own calculus.

But this only relates to the openings, where
indeed, computers just look up their rote moves
with blinding speed. Yet the idea seems to be
that computers can "rate" the accuracy of moves
throughout entire games, and here their judgment
can be called into question so long as they are
not a class or more above their "students" in
every field. We eagerly accept that for positions
resulting in a "hit" in some endgame tablebase,
these programs can rate moves objectively, and
also for simple tactics.

But the concept of ranking world champions
based solely on their alleged accuracy of play is
disturbing, especially when the rankings are done
by a program rated lower than myself and IM Innes
added together. [2450 (per Shakespeare) + 375 (per
Skip Repa's guesstimate) = 2825]

> But that isn't even chess, even if the human player is allowed infinite
> time. Its Advanced chess.
>
> Advocates for the computer side have NO data on what would happen without
> the book, yet make claims typically to the effect that the book is only
> worth 50 or so points, but have not actually tested that hypothesis against
> enough humans to warrant calling it a fact.

In the odds match between GM Benjamin and Rybka,
the play seemed to be of a rather low quality, and I'm
thinking maybe the programmers tried to trick the
program to "help" its results, but the result was just the
opposite: mediocre play. I mention this because either
they both had no precise book (as a random pawn was
missing), or else their prepared lines, mimicking a book,
were piss-poor in some cases.

On the whole, the early games (which is as far as I
have gotten) looked a bit "Mickey Mouse"; something
is rotten in Finland.

> Tal, mentioned above, won many positions since in the time allowed, people
> could rarely refute his play OTB. What Mr. Bot understands of time-pressures
> [mentioned below] versus complexity of position is not here revealed - and
> certainly 'bad' moves which are unsolvable in the time allowed is a sort of
> grudging if minimalist appreciation of Tal's art, that is, something
> demonstrated, not proposed without evidence.

Some would argue that GM Tal's great success can
be attributed to the idea that it is easier to attack than
to defend (against every possible attack). For instance,
a move which (just barely) defends against the most
sound attack may lead to weaknesses which can be
exploited in an unsound attack. Furthermore, coming
up with aggressive, threatening moves may require
less clock time than finding all those defenses. The
time handicap of being a harried defender can become
overwhelming.

-- help bot

Date: 09 Aug 2007 23:07:05
From: help bot
Subject: Re: Who is or was the greatest chessplayer?

On Aug 9, 7:24 am, raylopez99 <[email protected] > wrote:

> > > in machinery manufacture, it's well known that a machine can
> > > build an even more precise machine part than the machine itself is
> > > capable of manufacturing on average. In this way ever more precise
> > > machines can be made
>
> > In what way? having humans carefully examine
> > the parts and using only what humans determine
> > are the "best" ones, discarding the others? Do
> > you see a problem here?
>
> No, by simply (via machine) selecting the parts that are "above
> average" and discarding the rest.

Wow. I would think that rather than waste all that
average and below average material, just put more
effort into the design of the machine in the first place.

> > > though the underlying machines are relatively
> > > imprecise.
>
> > Very wasteful, if you ask me.
>
> Yes, but order (second law of thermodynamics) requires that energy be
> wasted. Otherwise water would flow uphill.

News flash: human-created "laws" do not dictate
how Nature works. Instead, the way Nature works
is to be understood by man. This is why I snicker
at those who say a bumble bee "cannot fly"; too
dumb for words.

> > > Another koan: Crafty individually would lose to any of the
> > > grandmasters it rates
>
> > Um, no. Today, Crafty running on top-notch
> > hardware would easily hold its own against a
> > random assortment of grandmasters, from any
> > time period throughout history.
>
> I'm talking the world champions

If you go back far enough, even the world champions
are weak enough for Crafty to compete against. I don't
want to name names, but just run some old time games
and see how many blunders pop up. In fact, I still spot
blunders in the games of the modern champions (with
or without computer help). It's the time pressure and
stress.

> and running on hardware of the "off
> the shelf" kind, just like the research paper in the original thread.

So am I. As you probably know, somehow when
their reputation is at stake all the best programmers
manage to get hold of a quad or dual processor,
far better than the average John Doe's. Just how
good is Crafty today? Pretty darn good, even if she
can't stand up to Rybka, Shredder, or ZapChess.

> > > yet it is still capable of rating them.
>
> > Ducking the question: how *accurately* can
> > it rank them? Is that sufficient, given how closely
> > some of these grandmasters must be to one
> > another?
>
> Good question--I don't know, but clearly there were (if you read the
> thread) clear "tiers" of players (three groups) where this issue
> didn't arise because the first tier was clearly superior to the second
> tier.

So now you want to talk about separating the
world champions into "tiers", not accurately
ranking them against one another. I see. That's
a bit of a sideways sachet.

> > > It's the nature of chess: chess is a game of blunders, and lines that lead
> > > to blunder far outweight 'brilliant Mikhail Tal sacrifices', which
> > > detractors of Crafty seem to think exist in chess at every move.
>
> > Critics of this hyped methodology are not
> > necessarily critics of Crafty per se; on the
> > contrary, many would bet money on Crafty
> > to win a set match against such titans as
> > GM Bogolyubov, GM Tal, GM Anand, etc.
>
> I won't bet on it.

But then you are not one of the critics.

> > This peculiar need to demonize the critics
> > shows the weakness of your position; you
> > are unable to "deal" in a more rational manner,
> > and thus you resort to ad hominem attack
> > mode. Perhaps you should be replaced with
> > a more competent advocate? ;>D
>
> A ss whole.

My point, exactly. A true advocate would never
foul the air by venting his personal frustrations
like that over being inadequate to the task of
supporting his theories. Heck, a real advocate
would not even find himself in such a situation as
this, since he would naturally have better support
for his theories than you. (My question is this:
who hired this imbecile? Wasn't IM Innes or Rob
Mitchell available for even less?)

-- help bot

Date: 09 Aug 2007 05:24:44
From: raylopez99
Subject: Re: Who is or was the greatest chessplayer?

On Aug 8, 7:10 pm, help bot <[email protected] > wrote:
> > Reread the thread, and pay attention to my responses.
>
> > Koan for
> > thought: in machinery manufacture, it's well known that a machine can
> > build an even more precise machine part than the machine itself is
> > capable of manufacturing on average. In this way ever more precise
> > machines can be made
>
> In what way? having humans carefully examine
> the parts and using only what humans determine
> are the "best" ones, discarding the others? Do
> you see a problem here?

No, by simply (via machine) selecting the parts that are "above
average" and discarding the rest.

>
> > though the underlying machines are relatively
> > imprecise.
>
> Very wasteful, if you ask me.

Yes, but order (second law of thermodynamics) requires that energy be
wasted. Otherwise water would flow uphill.

>
> > Another koan: Crafty individually would lose to any of the
> > grandmasters it rates
>
> Um, no. Today, Crafty running on top-notch
> hardware would easily hold its own against a
> random assortment of grandmasters, from any
> time period throughout history.

I'm talking the world champions, and running on hardware of the "off
the shelf" kind, just like the research paper in the original thread.

>
> > yet it is still capable of rating them.
>
> Ducking the question: how *accurately* can
> it rank them? Is that sufficient, given how closely
> some of these grandmasters must be to one
> another?

Good question--I don't know, but clearly there were (if you read the
thread) clear "tiers" of players (three groups) where this issue
didn't arise because the first tier was clearly superior to the second
tier.

>
> > It's the nature of chess: chess is a game of blunders, and lines that lead
> > to blunder far outweight 'brilliant Mikhail Tal sacrifices', which
> > detractors of Crafty seem to think exist in chess at every move.
>
> Critics of this hyped methodology are not
> necessarily critics of Crafty per se; on the
> contrary, many would bet money on Crafty
> to win a set match against such titans as
> GM Bogolyubov, GM Tal, GM Anand, etc.

I won't bet on it.

>
> This peculiar need to demonize the critics
> shows the weakness of your position; you
> are unable to "deal" in a more rational manner,
> and thus you resort to ad hominem attack
> mode. Perhaps you should be replaced with
> a more competent advocate? ;>D

A ss whole.

>
> > BTW, how often in tournament play do "Tal" sacrifices come up? Rather
> > rare, and when they do come up that's why we delight in seeing them.
>
> In the first match between GMs Botvinnik and
> Tal, they came up often enough to decide the
> match in favor of the player who fairly consistently
> got the worst of things in the opening. But this
> discussion completely ignores the power and
> influence of the chess clock, which in itself has
> decided countless games in favor of bad moves
> or bad positions.
>

Clock washes out, bot. You know that.

RL

Date: 09 Aug 2007 14:31:47
From: Chess One
Subject: Re: Who is or was the greatest chessplayer?

"raylopez99" <[email protected] > wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

>> > It's the nature of chess: chess is a game of blunders, and lines that
>> > lead
>> > to blunder far outweight 'brilliant Mikhail Tal sacrifices', which
>> > detractors of Crafty seem to think exist in chess at every move.
>>
>> Critics of this hyped methodology are not
>> necessarily critics of Crafty per se; on the
>> contrary, many would bet money on Crafty
>> to win a set match against such titans as
>> GM Bogolyubov, GM Tal, GM Anand, etc.
>
> I won't bet on it.

To further interrogate this subject, I have been in correspondence with
Albert Alberts about his recent MAMS - Man Assisted Machine Chess, indeed,
about his new volume on same subject - and I am about to introduce him to
the Rybka folks in Moscow.

What seems evident to me is that Alberts has struck on an important point in
his book, that these generalisations about the strength of the machine are
rather suspect, since once or twice per game human intercession puts it onto
a winning path, after which the chess engine is then competent to cruise
home.

But without these intercessions the engine makes duffer-moves strategically.

In essence, Mr. Alberts proposes a positional and strategic approach, while
simultaneously unbalancing the position initiative :: material as a means to
defeat computer, but the same is true for defeating anyone - which I think
Tal proved beyond a doubt, and Fischer was no pawn-counter, not caring
overmuch if he gave up one or two buttons.

I hope it will be a fruitful correspondance.

---
The other aspects of computer versus human play are well rehearsed, though
not much explored, since it is mostly talk of 'what if' rather than what
happens. In other words; pure specualtion posing as some sort of datum.

In short, much has to do with time - and the reason that computers do so
well is the speed of their look-ups, since a human given sufficient time
could look up the same or other material, and the refutation of the idea
that computers can really evaluate grandmaster play, is because the computer
needs to play moves from those look-ups, because it can't find the worth of
those moves by its own calculus.

But that isn't even chess, even if the human player is allowed infinite
time. Its Advanced chess.

Advocates for the computer side have NO data on what would happen without
the book, yet make claims typically to the effect that the book is only
worth 50 or so points, but have not actually tested that hypothesis against
enough humans to warrant calling it a fact.

Tal, mentioned above, won many positions since in the time allowed, people
could rarely refute his play OTB. What Mr. Bot understands of time-pressures
[mentioned below] versus complexity of position is not here revealed - and
certainly 'bad' moves which are unsolvable in the time allowed is a sort of
grudging if minimalist appreciation of Tal's art, that is, something
demonstrated, not proposed without evidence.

Phil Innes

>>
>> This peculiar need to demonize the critics
>> shows the weakness of your position; you
>> are unable to "deal" in a more rational manner,
>> and thus you resort to ad hominem attack
>> mode. Perhaps you should be replaced with
>> a more competent advocate? ;>D
>
> A ss whole.
>
>>
>> > BTW, how often in tournament play do "Tal" sacrifices come up? Rather
>> > rare, and when they do come up that's why we delight in seeing them.
>>
>> In the first match between GMs Botvinnik and
>> Tal, they came up often enough to decide the
>> match in favor of the player who fairly consistently
>> got the worst of things in the opening. But this
>> discussion completely ignores the power and
>> influence of the chess clock, which in itself has
>> decided countless games in favor of bad moves
>> or bad positions.
>>
>
> Clock washes out, bot. You know that.
>
> RL
>
>

Date: 08 Aug 2007 19:10:50
From: help bot
Subject: Re: Who is or was the greatest chessplayer?

> Reread the thread, and pay attention to my responses.

And the many objections to those responses,
which basically reject the rejections as obtuse,
which in turn comes off as a very obtuse approach
to responding to such reasonable objections.

> Koan for
> thought: in machinery manufacture, it's well known that a machine can
> build an even more precise machine part than the machine itself is
> capable of manufacturing on average. In this way ever more precise
> machines can be made

In what way? having humans carefully examine
the parts and using only what humans determine
are the "best" ones, discarding the others? Do
you see a problem here?

> though the underlying machines are relatively
> imprecise.

Very wasteful, if you ask me.

> Another koan: Crafty individually would lose to any of the
> grandmasters it rates

Um, no. Today, Crafty running on top-notch
hardware would easily hold its own against a
random assortment of grandmasters, from any
time period throughout history.

> yet it is still capable of rating them.

Ducking the question: how *accurately* can
it rank them? Is that sufficient, given how closely
some of these grandmasters must be to one
another?

> It's the nature of chess: chess is a game of blunders, and lines that lead
> to blunder far outweight 'brilliant Mikhail Tal sacrifices', which
> detractors of Crafty seem to think exist in chess at every move.

Critics of this hyped methodology are not
necessarily critics of Crafty per se; on the
contrary, many would bet money on Crafty
to win a set match against such titans as
GM Bogolyubov, GM Tal, GM Anand, etc.

This peculiar need to demonize the critics
shows the weakness of your position; you
are unable to "deal" in a more rational manner,
and thus you resort to ad hominem attack
mode. Perhaps you should be replaced with
a more competent advocate? ; >D

> BTW, how often in tournament play do "Tal" sacrifices come up? Rather
> rare, and when they do come up that's why we delight in seeing them.

In the first match between GMs Botvinnik and
Tal, they came up often enough to decide the
match in favor of the player who fairly consistently
got the worst of things in the opening. But this
discussion completely ignores the power and
influence of the chess clock, which in itself has
decided countless games in favor of bad moves
or bad positions.

-- help bot

Date: 08 Aug 2007 01:57:37
From: raylopez99
Subject: Re: Who is or was the greatest chessplayer?

On Aug 6, 2:42 pm, [email protected] wrote:
> On 6 Aug, 21:55, raylopez99 <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > 240 messages later, this was definitively answered in this thread:http://tinyurl.com/2vr6jh
>
> > I'll save you some reading: it's Capa, Kramnik, Karpov, Kasparov, *in
> > that order* (cuz 'puters don't lie!)

> a quote from the article:
>
> "One may argue that Crafty is weaker than at least some of the
> fourteen World Champions who were taken into consideration. "
>
> so if Crafty makes a "bad" move then it would be evaluated as a "plus"
> for the player that did the same move?

You did not read the thread then. In particular my replies to this
assertion, which was constantly being raised.

Reread the thread, and pay attention to my responses. Koan for
thought: in machinery manufacture, it's well known that a machine can
build an even more precise machine part than the machine itself is
capable of manufacturing on average. In this way ever more precise
machines can be made, though the underlying machines are relatively
imprecise.

Another koan: Crafty individually would lose to any of the
grandmasters it rates, yet it is still capable of rating them. It's
the nature of chess: chess is a game of blunders, and lines that lead
to blunder far outweight 'brilliant Mikhail Tal sacrifices', which
detractors of Crafty seem to think exist in chess at every move.

BTW, how often in tournament play do "Tal" sacrifices come up? Rather
rare, and when they do come up that's why we delight in seeing them.

RL

Date: 07 Aug 2007 20:36:01
From: help bot
Subject: Re: Who is or was the greatest chessplayer?

On Aug 7, 12:12 pm, [email protected] wrote:

> These are valid points but I wasnt looking for people who contributed
> most to the game, what I was really looking for is who most people
> think played the strongest overall chess.

You are going to settle a dispute by taking a sort of
poll of what ordinary players here think? That's not a
good idea, for several reasons.

First and foremost, these forums are dominated by
posters from just one country: the USA, so there is
a powerful, built-in bias which you will find leads to
an overwhelming tilt in favor of the most recent
*American* world champion (Bobby Fischer).

Secondly, there are an awful lot of people here who
aren't good enough to do anything but regurgitate
opinions they have read in the media -- again, this
favors Bobby Fischer, and in case it is not perfectly
obvious, the media don't know squat about chess
so if they got it right, it was by dumb luck.

Third, even if it were the case that, say, GM Jose
Capablanca happened to be the strongest chess player
ever by a wide gin, do you think for one second that
the passing of time has no effect on the "voters"? It's
a fact that the most recent successes, all other things
being equal, are going to weigh most heavily in the
minds of "voters", never mind who was really strongest.

In sum, I think a poll is only going to determine one
thing: how many of the "voters" here are biased by the
various factors I mentioned above. What you really
need is a computerized rating system which properly
accounts for changes over the passage of time, and
which inputs every known "serious" game. The main
trouble here is that every such system I have seen
allowed the programmer to tweak things any which
way he wanted, so his personal favorites did the best.

As far as I know, no one has made an effort to do
this *blindly*, and let the chips fall where they may.
You really need an outsider, a person who knows
nothing about chess and who is utterly indifferent as
to the computer's rankings.

-- help bot

Date: 07 Aug 2007 20:35:30
From: help bot
Subject: Re: Who is or was the greatest chessplayer?

On Aug 7, 12:54 pm, SBD <[email protected] > wrote:
> On Aug 7, 12:12 pm, [email protected] wrote:
>
> > Its my fault for using the word greatest, I agree a whole book could
> > be written on this.
>
> No, you clearly asked for the best player and gave examples of
> playing, not of other contributions to chess. To throw analysts etc.
> into the mix was just a way of saying, "hey I have an opinion that has
> nothing to do with your question, which I can't answer anyway".....

It seems Mr. SBD feels wounded over something
(I know not what), and is now stalking me, so to
speak, much like Skippy Repa once did. Well, I
knew of course that "all great men have their
detractors", but nobody ever warned that something
like this could ever happen to *me*. : >D

The latest version is that the fellow wants to know
who we chess players think is the *strongest* ever.

Of course, while computer programmers may opt
out by referring such questions to the rating lists,
there is a Catch 22 here, in that our ratings systems
don't work properly for comparisons over long periods
of time. On top of this, the size of the ratings pool
has changed dramatically over time as well.

Soon, perhaps, chess computers will be so strong
that a system could be devised which objectively
rates the accuracy of their play, but this ignores the
psychological factor altogether. It also fails to take
into account any inferior move played deliberately,
with full knowledge of its status, so as to improve
winning chances or even drawing chances.

Personally, I think players like GM Tal would be
shortchanged here, while "boring" players like say
GM Kramnik would be relatively over-rated for his
tendency to just wait for mistakes.

-- help bot

Date: 07 Aug 2007 20:35:26
From: help bot
Subject: Re: Who is or was the greatest chessplayer?

Date: 07 Aug 2007 10:54:54
From: SBD
Subject: Re: Who is or was the greatest chessplayer?

On Aug 7, 12:12 pm, [email protected] wrote:

> Its my fault for using the word greatest, I agree a whole book could
> be written on this.

No, you clearly asked for the best player and gave examples of
playing, not of other contributions to chess. To throw analysts etc.
into the mix was just a way of saying, "hey I have an opinion that has
nothing to do with your question, which I can't answer anyway".....

Date: 07 Aug 2007 10:12:04
From:
Subject: Re: Who is or was the greatest chessplayer?

>
> There is a lot more to being great than just being the
> highest-rated or most dominant player, and it is quite
> obvious that a single performance falls well short of
> greatness, by itself.
>
> One idea is this: how much did a given chess player
> contribute to the theory of chess? Or to popularizing
> the game? Or even to improving the game's prestige,
> as opposed to lowering it by his own antics? One way
> for a player to make his k other than by winning
> tournaments or matches, is to write about chess; in
> this arena, even such players as GMs Evans, Keres,
> Tal, Nimzowitch, Timman, etc., have surpassed some
> of those listed in your post.
>
> Add to this the fact that the names listed as chosen
> by Chessmetrics don't really hold water, and you are left
> with the realization that "greatness" is not something
> easily quantifiable. It is a judgment, in which various
> factors are weighed against one another, by a judge who
> is biased and therefore unable to do more than pretend
> his own objectivity.
>
> Probably, a good chess book could be made out of
> a carefully considered examination of each of the
> candidates and their overall contributions to chess.
>
> -- help bot

help bot,
These are valid points but I wasnt looking for people who contributed
most to the game, what I was really looking for is who most people
think played the strongest overall chess.

Its my fault for using the word greatest, I agree a whole book could
be written on this.

Date: 06 Aug 2007 17:35:17
From: help bot
Subject: Re: Who is or was the greatest chessplayer?

On Aug 6, 1:20 pm, [email protected] wrote:

> I am trying to settle an argument about who is or was the greatest
> chessplayer. Chessmetrics.com states several possibilities...
>
> 1. Most Dominant Player: Emanuel Lasker
>
> 2. Highest-Rated Player: Bobby Fischer
>
> 3. Best Individual Event: Anatoly Karpov
>
> See link for more details -http://db.chessmetrics.com/CM2/Sumy.asp?Params=1840AASSSSS3S038178...
>
> So which one do most people think is the the best indicator of overall
> strength, or is there something else that should be considered?

There is a lot more to being great than just being the
highest-rated or most dominant player, and it is quite
obvious that a single performance falls well short of
greatness, by itself.

One idea is this: how much did a given chess player
contribute to the theory of chess? Or to popularizing
the game? Or even to improving the game's prestige,
as opposed to lowering it by his own antics? One way
for a player to make his k other than by winning
tournaments or matches, is to write about chess; in
this arena, even such players as GMs Evans, Keres,
Tal, Nimzowitch, Timman, etc., have surpassed some
of those listed in your post.

Add to this the fact that the names listed as chosen
by Chessmetrics don't really hold water, and you are left
with the realization that "greatness" is not something
easily quantifiable. It is a judgment, in which various
factors are weighed against one another, by a judge who
is biased and therefore unable to do more than pretend
his own objectivity.

Probably, a good chess book could be made out of
a carefully considered examination of each of the
candidates and their overall contributions to chess.

-- help bot

Date: 06 Aug 2007 14:42:37
From:
Subject: Re: Who is or was the greatest chessplayer?

On 6 Aug, 21:55, raylopez99 <[email protected] > wrote:
> 240 messages later, this was definitively answered in this thread:http://tinyurl.com/2vr6jh
>
> I'll save you some reading: it's Capa, Kramnik, Karpov, Kasparov, *in
> that order* (cuz 'puters don't lie!)
>
> RL

I read that article but your list be more correct as
Crafty,Capa,Kramnik, Karpov, Kasparov.

a quote from the article:

"One may argue that Crafty is weaker than at least some of the
fourteen World Champions who were taken into consideration. "

so if Crafty makes a "bad" move then it would be evaluated as a "plus"
for the player that did the same move?

Date: 06 Aug 2007 13:55:37
From: raylopez99
Subject: Re: Who is or was the greatest chessplayer?

240 messages later, this was definitively answered in this thread:
http://tinyurl.com/2vr6jh

I'll save you some reading: it's Capa, Kramnik, Karpov, Kasparov, *in
that order* (cuz 'puters don't lie!)

RL

[email protected] wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I am trying to settle an argument about who is or was the greatest
> chessplayer. Chessmetrics.com states several possibilities...
>
> 1. Most Dominant Player: Emanuel Lasker
>
> 2. Highest-Rated Player: Bobby Fischer
>
> 3. Best Individual Event: Anatoly Karpov
>
> See link for more details -
> http://db.chessmetrics.com/CM2/Sumy.asp?Params=1840AASSSSS3S038178000000111000000000008910100
>
> So which one do most people think is the the best indicator of overall
> strength, or is there something else that should be considered? Thanks
> for any opinions on this.
>
> k

Date: 06 Aug 2007 20:33:05
From: j.d.walker
Subject: Re: Who is or was the greatest chessplayer?

On Aug 6, 11:20 am, [email protected] wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I am trying to settle an argument about who is or was the greatest
> chessplayer. Chessmetrics.com states several possibilities...
>
> 1. Most Dominant Player: Emanuel Lasker
>
> 2. Highest-Rated Player: Bobby Fischer
>
> 3. Best Individual Event: Anatoly Karpov
>
> See link for more details -http://db.chessmetrics.com/CM2/Sumy.asp?Params=1840AASSSSS3S038178...
>
> So which one do most people think is the the best indicator of overall
> strength, or is there something else that should be considered? Thanks
> for any opinions on this.
>
> k

Hello k,

I have been reflecting on a similar idea. However, I would like to
add to the criteria. Which of these people was also of the highest,
most admirable character. I am not a chess historian or biographer,
but my initial list of people that were of world championship caliber
and were people of high character looked like this: Lasker, Euwe,
Keres, Smyslov, Spassky, Anand. There are most likely changes that
should be made to this list.

Lasker was clearly a respectable and likable fellow. He was a
philosopher, a friend of Albert Einstein's, a mathematician. Given
Lasker's success at dominating his contemporaries for many years, I
think of him as "Greatest" at this point. But, I would like to see
more discussion if anyone else wants to chip in.

Cheers,

John Douglas Walker