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After Morphy, the other American player, Fischer, is #2 in my opinion. What was it, 21 wins in a row or something like that against some of the finest players in the world? Not only that, Fischer did it by himself, just like Morphy. No other player except maybe Capablanca and Alekhine come close to him. It would have been very interesting if Fischer had played Karpov. I won't even try to guess who the winner would have been but the contrast in styles would have made for incredible chess.
So if you could bring all of the greatest players of all time together in their prime, give them 5 years to acclimate to each others styles and then let them play it out, who would come out on top? Oh and take computers out of the picture to level the playing field.
I like the suggestion of Morphy in the sense that he totally dominated, arguably even more than Fischer did. But did Morphy have anywhere near the competition that Fischer did? Morphy played the best individuals, Fischer played the Soviet machine that conspired against him.
Was that a bite or a scratch? I now have Parmenides, who knew Levesque, who knew van Gogh, who knew both Zugzwang and Thomas Hearns, the two cats given to me by Bryon Nickoloff in 1995.
I like the suggestion of Morphy in the sense that he totally dominated, arguably even more than Fischer did. But did Morphy have anywhere near the competition that Fischer did? Morphy played the best individuals, Fischer played the Soviet machine that conspired against him.
I'm with you. Morphy was just the first with the idea.
Kasparov himself, in his My Great Predecessors opus, said that according to the degree of dominance over his contemporaries, during his "time", however brief it was, Fischer was the man. It is my understanding that his rating actually went down as a result of his match over Spassky.
My top three, according to degree of dominance over his contemporaries, during his peak time, in the "Modern Era"....
1. Fischer
2. Capablanca
3. Tal or Carlsen
Last edited by Fred Henderson; Thursday, 4th May, 2023, 06:38 PM.
I get the sense that so many metrics only go to as far back as Fischer because it was hard to gage prior to that time. Perhaps chess finally got the notoriety it needed since Fischer, on the world stage.
My interest for "elite chess" began around the time (just before) Kasparov retired. Someone made a comment that perhaps Anand and Topalov would not have been on that list if Kasparov had not retired. Maybe. But Kasparov was in his early 40s and he's 6 years older than Anand and 12 years older than Kramnik and Topalov. So perhaps Kasparov would have held the top spot, but perhaps not.
Some comments on the Anand-Kramnik-Topalov dynamic...
With all due respect to Topalov, who was a top 10 player for a very long time, including before and after his brief 1-2 years at the very top, I would not put him on the same league as Anand and Kramnik. Topalov's "contributions" to chess seem to be more around the use of engines. Some people even believe(d) he was involved in foul play. Either way, Topalov's novelties and use of computers surpassed those of his peers for a brief period of time. But I see it more of a ... "these lines are unsound / not backed by computer engines, but they're impossible to navigate through in real time for a human" approach. Many of his novelties were refuted in the post-mortem. So perhaps Topalov opened the door to a new method of preparation.
But I would not put him in the same league as Anand or Kramnik. Anand and Kramnik were at the very top (under Kasparov, beside Topalov and then under Carlsen) for an incredibly long time, some 25 years. During their time at the top, their contributions to the game were immense. In every sense of top level chess. Contributions that allowed other top players / up-and-coming juniors to draw from and use to improve their own game.
Some people appreciate Kramnik's contributions more. But if Kramnik had his way, chess would a lot more stale / limited. Small edge with white, neutralize with black - this was his approach for many years. It was also sad to see Kramnik after winning his match against Kasparov. Kramnik stalled on everything he could in order to hold on to his title, claiming that anything else was illegitimate.
Anand did reach the top spot undisputed, and won what, 6 titles? Hard to argue with success.
Either way, these two are absolute giants of the game, very different players but both leaders in their own right. Perhaps more importantly, they were able to evolve and adapt. Both Anand and Kramnik were completely different in their 40s than they were in their 20s. There may very well have been 3-5 variants of Kramnik and Anand as each of them evolved to keep up with times. And that's what it took to stay at / near the top for so long. Especially when chess went through the computer engines revolution. And they even kept up with the Carlsen revolution (to a degree, in that they remained in the top 10 for a while, when Carlsen was dictating the tempo of the new generation).
I get the sense that so many metrics only go to as far back as Fischer because it was hard to gage prior to that time. Perhaps chess finally got the notoriety it needed since Fischer, on the world stage.
Really? I would have thought that with proper statistical analysis or whatever, that chess metrics would be able to make use of historical data.
Yes there have been some "chess metrics" done across eras. Some work by Jeff Sonas among others, which was interesting. But two examples on "going back to Fischer": Both on highest players of all time (ratings), as well as "youngest GMs ever", the list normally goes as far down / back as Fischer, irrespective of how this list keeps growing. And that's fine.
The Fischer era really put chess on the world stage, or it included the western world, if you will. Prior to that, chess was a lot more "niche" than after Fischer.
Another aspect as to perhaps why we go as back as Fischer would be... most people who were adults and remember pre-Fischer days would have to be born at the same time or prior to Fischer. Making them ~80 or older. And many of these developed an interest in chess because of Fischer, even if say, starting with the teenage Fischer (post mid-1950s).
In addition, and again because of the exposure the Fischer era gave to chess, chess became a lot more popular and probably better documented.
Of course people like Morphy, Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, etc... laid the entire foundation for what chess is today. But nobody still alive has ever met them. It sounds like dinosaurs talking about even older dinosaurs. Which is what I think of people today talking about Fischer and it's probably what the young generation today thinks of me when I talk about Kasparov and even Kramnik.
It's also difficult to compare the older eras (Lasker, Capablanca, etc...) for simple reasons. How much real competition existed back then? How many games / tournaments were played? How do you develop anything-metrics with such little data?
And if we go further back to 19th century with Morphy, Chigorin, Staunton, Blackburne, etc etc... how many games "didn't make it" ?
When you go on youtube today and search for... DYI - do it yourself - videos, and someone shows us how to cook an amazing recipe, or replace the deck on the backyard, or whatever... how many people omit all the failures and publish only the success stories? People like to have their successes published. I imagine there's a lot of data missing from the dinosaurs' era of chess, making any chess-metrics likely flawed.
It's also difficult to compare the older eras (Lasker, Capablanca, etc...) for simple reasons. How much real competition existed back then? How many games / tournaments were played? How do you develop anything-metrics with such little data?
<snip>
Yes, forget "the old days". My modern begins with Capablance. Lot's of data about him and all that followed. You are right about the metrics that have been done. Sonas effort doesn't impress much. I don't imagine Kasparov used it in My Great Predecessors. But I repeat that I am talking about "degree of dominance over their contemporaries as the measure of "greatness", and we have all the data we need in the 20th century. Just look at their records. It's just that no-one who understands statistics has bothered to make a science out of it. More trouble than it's worth I guess.
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