Garry Kasparov turns 47 today. How would you rate him among the greatest World Champions ever?
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Kasparov is 3rd best behind Fischer and Capablanca.
Summary of Jeff Sonas’ Findings
Id rate him the best….the only champ that never ran a way from a fight…he was quite impressive in this way…….he’s not the type of chapm that hides behind papers are rules…….and we’ve seen plenty of them…..I have nothing bit respect for that man…..he always….always…stepped up to the plate…I feel very honored to have live in this time and witness this mans life.
Mike Magnan
As much as fischer was by leaps and bounds the greatest player up till his time,Kasparov has outshined even Fischer the Chess God.
Kasparov has undoubtedly demonstrated that he is the strongest player that ever lived.
Now that that’s settled. Who has the most talent is a more difficult question. Kasparov, Fischer, Karpov Capablanca and Morphy would all be in the running for that title.
kasparov is better whether we like it or not!!
Undisputed number 1!!
Kasimdzhanov is a stronger world champion 😀
Kasparov faced much stronger competition during his playing career than did Fischer, whom I consider the 2nd best ever. However, Fischer had opened a much larger gap on his competition in 1972.
I would place Kasparov second. Fischer in my view is the best chess player ever! Fischer didn’t go to chess school or need a team of people around him. He achieved what he did on his own!
I agree with Calvin’s first sentence. Kasparov is clearly the strongest player ever.
That is because he had the talent, the work ethic and the (chess) luck to live under the Soviet system.
Talent is a completely different question.
For example, years ago, I heard from someone (possibly Yasser) that the Russians considered Christiansen the best combination player since Pillsbury.
Those of you who are younger can’t imagine Larry’s staggering talent. His attacking chess was just amazing, in his prime.
But Larry didn’t grow up in Russia, so there was no chance he would be a top flight player (since he isn’t crazy, like Fischer).
What about Nezhmetidinov? (sp)
Talk about talent!!!
I really doubt Kasparov is the most talented player. I even doubt he is the best chess player, after the opening. But his total game is the best.
Also, his clutch play and low error rate seems a notch above every other champion.
Yasser also is a huge talent.
He definitely lacked in the work ethic area, though. True story.
A friend of mine worked at Inside Chess in the 90’s. One day Yasser told him “Man, I worked a lot this week. I put in 40 hours. I’ve never worked that many hours in my life!!” I kid you not.
Those of you who know Yasser will be unsurprised by this story.
Nothing against him—he is an amazing player and a very nice guy.
However, it’s clear he could have done even better if he had worked harder.
Fischer e Kasparov São Génios na História do xadrez! Como tantos outros que assim Passado A. Aleckine, Emanuel Lasker, Capablanca, etc Não HÁ Como Fazer comparações MEDIR OU SUAS Forças Entre os mesmos. É o Melhor Mesmo apreciarmos uma genialidades em Destes SUAS partidas fascinantes.
Felicitations to the Champ! I think if you analyze deeply the games of the World Champions and I have used Deep Fritz/Rybka/StockFisch and my own mind this is how I would rank them in order of chess strength:
Morphy 1857-1859
Fischer 1970-1972
Kasparov 1988-1991
Alekhine 1929-1932
Capablanca 1918-1923
Lasker 1896-1899
Kasparov became Kasparov because Fischer was Fischer. Fischer became Fischer because he was Fischer. Hope that clears things up. 🙂
Each generation of chess players knows more about chess than the previous generation: more books, more knowledge of openings, more great games to learn from. Modern players have the advantages of the internet and powerful chess programs. If all the world champions in chess history could be brought to life, each at the peak of his power, and put in a big competition, the grand winner probably would be a modern player, based on superior knowledge. Perhaps Kasparov. Perhaps Anand or Topalov or Magnus Carlsen.
But if it was chess960, the variation of the game invented by Bobby Fischer, with 960 starting positions, then the grand winner might be different. Perhaps Morphy or Capablanca, based on superior talent.
Kasparov must be ranked #2 behind Fischer.
Fischer opened up a much larger gap between himself and his top competition than Kasparov. Also, Fischer did it all by himself as much as possible – no teams of opening analysts, no computer databases, or computers analyzing opening novelties.
To be fair to Kasparov, he was a playing champion, unlike Fischer, and arguably played slightly better moves on the board than Fischer because of his strong teams of seconds and computer use.
I would rate him as one of the worst World Champions ever. I say this because firstly there is good evidence that he cheated in a game against your sister at Linares one year.Even though I have nerve damage in my right hand, I would be able to tell whether or not my hand left a piece or not (The fact that he was going to lose the exchange in this instance,indicates that Kasparov would compromise any morals or values he has for the sake of “winning” )According to the website, http://newsgroups.derkeiler.com/Archive/Rec/rec.games.chess.misc/2006-03/msg00440.html
“On March 11 I heard that Polgar had accused Kasparov of taking back a move in their game on March 1st, and that he had shouted ‘I didn’t do
it! I have honor!’).
I believe Judit in her claim concerning this incident.What possible reason could she have for lying about it? According to what I have read, she was in serious time trouble during the game, and she did not want to incur a time penalty which would have happened if her accusation regarding his knight, was turned down by the official. Apparently a camera crew was recording the game during his “behavior”,and that is what I am using as my source for suggesting that video does exist which shows he picked up the piece,let it touch the board and then once again picked up the same piece,to avoid the loss of an exchange.)’ Apparently “[the film] does, indeed, show that Kasparov’s hand left
the piece — at least for 1/25 of a second.’ The TV people had said the proof was on five frames (about 1/5th of a second).
Myers concludes:
“What’s most reprehensible is Kasparov’s attitude that there’s
nothing wrong with doing wrong if the umpire doesn’t see it — or if it lasts only 1/5 sec.!”
(source:http://newsgroups.derkeiler.com/Archive/Rec/rec.games.chess.misc/2006-03/msg00440.html)
Secondly, his conduct during his computer matches was appalling in the least. To try and suggest computer programmers who have no idea of how to play chess, were somehow engaging in cheating behavior, which allowed their program/computer to win a game, is simply ridiculous, and indicates Kasparov is a poor loser and has no idea about sportsmanship. In addition, his name is on his “My Great Predecessors”
series, yet these books are full of inaccuracies, and may not even have been written by him.
“Apparently analysis of games was directly copied from unattributed sources into these books chess historian Edward Winter said, “The absence of, even, a basic bibliography is shocking in a work which claims to be ‘Garry Kasparov’s long-awaited definitive history of the World Chess Championship’, and a lackadaisical attitude to basic academic standards and historical facts pervades the book.”
Critic Richard Forster, writing for the Chess History Center website, alleged that “a very great part of the analysis (certainly more than 95%) has been copied from earlier sources, mostly without proper acknowledgement.” (source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Great_Predecessors)
And the last point I would make is that his attitude towards women,girls and members of the female gender has been extremely inappropriate. Kasparov has been quoted as saying “All women are inferior to men.” (source:http://thinkexist.com/quotation/all-women-are-inferior-to-men/1194013.html)
This last statement is simply unacceptable and extremely embarrassing to members of my gender, especially to those of us Men who see Women as our equals , or even superior to us in certain behaviors and characteristics,attitudes, and beliefs!
You asked, “How would you rate him among the greatest World Champions ever.”
I would rate him as one of the worst World Champions ever. I say this because firstly there is good evidence that he cheated in a game against your sister at Linares one year.Even though I have nerve damage in my right hand, I would be able to tell whether or not my hand left a piece or not (The fact that he was going to lose the exchange in this instance,indicates that Kasparov would compromise any morals or values he has for the sake of “winning” )According to the website, http://newsgroups.derkeiler.com/Archive/Rec/rec.games.chess.misc/2006-03/msg00440.html
“On March 11 I heard that Polgar had accused Kasparov of taking back a move in their game on March 1st, and that he had shouted ‘I didn’t do
it! I have honor!’).
Secondly, his conduct during his computer matches was appalling in the least. To try and suggest computer programmers who have no idea of how to play chess, were somehow engaging in cheating behavior, which allowed their program/computer to win a game, is simply ridiculous, and indicates Kasparov is a poor loser and has no idea about sportsmanship. In addition, his name is on his “My Great Predecessors” series, yet these books are full of inaccuracies, and may not even have been written by him.
“Apparently analysis of games was directly copied from unattributed sources into these books chess historian Edward Winter said, “The absence of, even, a basic bibliography is shocking in a work which claims to be ‘Garry Kasparov’s long-awaited definitive history of the World Chess Championship’, and a lackadaisical attitude to basic academic standards and historical facts pervades the book.”
Critic Richard Forster, writing for the Chess History Center website, alleged that “a very great part of the analysis (certainly more than 95%) has been copied from earlier sources, mostly without proper acknowledgement.” (source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Great_Predecessors)
These facts about Kasparov exist and they cannot be denied or refuted (except perhaps the incident with your sister.
However, I believe Judit in her claim concerning this incident.What possible reason could she have for lying about it? According to what I have read, she was in serious time trouble during the game, and she did not want to incur a time penalty which would have happened if her accusation regarding his knight, was turned down by the official. Apparently a camera crew was recording the game during his “behavior”,and that is what I am using as my source for suggesting that video does exist which shows he picked up the piece,let it touch the board and then once again picked up the same piece,to avoid the loss of an exchange.)’ Apparently “[the film] does, indeed, show that Kasparov’s hand left
the piece — at least for 1/25 of a second.’ The TV people had said the proof was on five frames (about 1/5th of a second).
Myers concludes:
“What’s most reprehensible is Kasparov’s attitude that there’s
nothing wrong with doing wrong if the umpire doesn’t see it — or if it lasts only 1/5 sec.!”
(source:http://newsgroups.derkeiler.com/Archive/Rec/rec.games.chess.misc/2006-03/msg00440.html)
And the last point I would make is that his attitude towards women,girls and members of the female gender has been extremely inappropriate. Kasparov has been quoted as saying “All women are inferior to men.” (source:http://thinkexist.com/quotation/all-women-are-inferior-to-men/1194013.html)
This last statement is simply unacceptable and extremely embarrassing to members of my gender, especially to those of us Men who see Women as our equals , or even superior to us in certain behaviors and characteristics,attitudes, and beliefs!
Re chess960 being invented by Bobby Fischer.
I am one of those above who consider Fischer better than Kasparov. Regarding Fischer inventing chess960, he just had good PR. Back in about 1980, there was an article in Chess Life magazine about shuffle chess, which is chess960 or chess960 with one or two minor rule changes.
Of course, Kasparov was the greatest that ever played chess.
Kasparov by far to me is the strongest player that ever lived. I am not sure that he is the most talented chess player because Fischer to me is the greatest talent of chess that ever lived. If Fischer was surrounded with the support system and training system that the russians has, he could have possibly be both. To validate how strong Kasparov was, he has faced the strongest opponents that were thrown at him including machines! Happy Birthday Kasparov!
His achievements were staggering. Players like Kramnik, Anand, Ivanchuk and Carlsen are great but I doubt we will see that sort of domination again (Carlsen will probably prove me wrong).
Fischer,Fischer & Fischer. Kasparov cheats too!
Measuring the pure strength of play, I think computers will rate the modern players higher due to access to computers and internet.
I.e. Kasparov before Fisher, and probably Magnus Carlsen at second.
But measured against their contemporaries is quite another matter. Probably Fischer, Capablanca and Morphy as the top 3.
All time declarations assume the game has been constant during “all of the time”. Clearly chess hasn’t. There is no more adjournments which is an often underappreciated development. The very strong players in the past use to crush lesser players with the superb endgame analysis and win drawn endings and draw lost endings.
I’d suggest rather that we think of the eras:
1. Dawn of Modern Chess: Philidor
2. Romantic Era: Morphy
3. First Professionals: Lasker edging Steinitz
4. Second Generations of Professionals: Alekhine barely over Capablanca although an argument can be made for nearly equals.
5. Modern Professional Age (Pre Computer): Fischer over Botvinnik and Petrosian – all three showed how to “work” chess and approached in a heretofore very rare professional/academic approach with deep study and constant analysis.
6. Modern Professional Age (post computer): Kasparov – his use of deep home analysis AND his ability to play very sharply over the board AND his heavy schedule – huge numbers of games against top players, make him easily the tops in this era, followed by Karpov (still a bit under appreciated)
Just one person’s opinion
Is there any combination in chess history which compares in length, complexity and accuracy of play with Kasparov’s Pearl of Wijk aan Zee against Topalov?
When you discuss the best ever, don’t forget which are the best games.
One of my favorite games is a Steinitz-Lasker WC game. I don’t remember which match. The opening was boring and symmetrical. At about move 15 the position was balanced except for opposite colored bishops and opposite wing castling. Then Lasker uncorked .. g5!!
What a strategic concept, and I bet it was a new moment in the history of chess ideas too.