Who do you think was the greatest chess player in the world?

Question

Who do you think was the greatest chess player in the world?

Answer 1

Aaron Nimzowitsch did more for theory than anyone else. Even though he never competed for the world title, he was estimated to be over 2700 by a computer program designed to rate the players posthumously. Today, people play many of the openings he developed, as well as many of the middle-game principles he expounded in his books. Check out "Aaron Nimzowitsch, A Reappraisal," by Raymond Keene.

Answer 2

me!

no seriously. fischer was a crazed genius.

Answer 3

Fischer holds the highest peak rating, but Kasparov has the highest rating over a duration of time (something like 12 years over 2800). So I would have to go with Kasparov.

I based my answer on this.

Bobby Fischer's rapid rise to the chess throne in the early 1970's is well-known. Along the way he demolished several top-ten opponents in match play.

For an eight-month period, from the end of the Larsen match until a few months before the Spassky match, Fischer had a higher Chessmetrics rating than anyone else in history. The ratings are calculated each month, and include any completed games from ongoing events. Thus there was a new rating list as of October 1st, 1971, between the first and second games of the Fischer-Petrosian match. As of that rating list, Fischer had won nineteen straight games, and was awarded the highest Chessmetrics rating of all time (2895). Obviously, any comparison between eras is uncertain and depends heavily on how you adjust the rating lists against each other. But based upon my method, the second-best peak rating of all time was held by Garry Kasparov with a 2886 rating on the March 1993 Chessmetrics list, right after his +7 score in Linares 1993 (one of the two strongest tournaments of all time).

Answer 4

I would say Pillsbury.

Once he was playing whist (it may have been bridge) and playing a chess game without sight of the board (essentially blindfolded).

His opponent made a move and in the process disturbed a pawn's position, promoting it to the third rank.  (I believe it was a rook's pawn.)

Later, during the play, Pillsbury moved a bishop to the 5th rank, diagonally adjacent to the displaced pawn, upon which his opponent announced "Pawn takes Bishop."  Pillsbury objected immediately and said there was no pawn in that position and proceeded to call out all the moves of the game from the beginning, even though he had been playing cards the entire time.

"Yet another half-baked kerbside nugatory opinion for today!"

Answer 5

#1 is Fischer

Answer 6

Emmanuel Lasker.  He could play the way his opponent hated.:)

Unfortunately he was sane.:)

Answer 7

Kasparov (and by the way, Kasparov has the all-time peak rating--a whopping 2851; Fischer's highest was I believe 2780).

Answer 8

a player from india if i am not mistaken his name is Vishwanathan Anand he is the number 1 now