I don't know if he was the very best but David Bronstein would have won the World Championship match against Botvinnik had he not been nobbled by the KGB and told to lose. Bronstein was a genius but inconsistant, Keres was very strong and consistant,but for longevity and strength you might give it to Korchnoi. The greatest? I would say Tal for his brilliant play over a long period of time when he had a severe health problem!
WHAT!!!!!
I have to agree with those above who nominated Morphy and Tarrasch but I would also add Frank Marshall and Harry Nelson Pillsbury (Two of the greatest U.S. players, but never world champions) to that list along with Viktor Korchnoi, who narrowly lost to Anatoly Karpov for the chance to play Fischer for the title.I found this interesting tale of that match.
"Korchnoi trailed 3-0 late in the match, but won games 17 and 21 to make it very close right to the end. Karpov eventually won this epic battle, played in late 1974 in Moscow, by a 12.5–11.5 score. By default, Karpov became the Twelfth World Champion in April 1975, when Fischer refused to defend his title because of disputed match conditions.
During the match between Karpov and Korchnoi, an amusing incident occurred. In the 21st game, Korchnoi played a strong opening novelty and, after a terrible blunder by Karpov, had achieved an overwhelming position. During this game, Korchnoi got up from the board, walked over to the arbiter and asked whether he could legally castle king-side in the current position, in which a bishop was attacking his rook on h1. The arbiter, Salo Flohr informed him that he could. Korchnoi did so, and Karpov soon resigned."
It was clear, though, that the Soviets wanted Karpov to win and would allow Korchnoi no assistance at all, but he came within one game of turning the tables on Karpov and FIDE would have had to name him champion instead of Karpov if Fischer still refused to play.
WHAT!!!!!
Austraillian Chess Champion.
Pillsbury. Maroczy. Nimzowitsch. James Mason! (Great Irish/American 1870s-1890s GM -- He had the talent and a + score against most or all of the _top_ players he faced... but then he'd lose to scrubs because of his fondness for strong drink. -- He manages to be rated (by chessmetrics) the #1 player in the world early in his career (1878 I believe) and he just slowly steadily slips from there. Here's Mason embarassing Chigorin
Keres
Bronstein
Reshevsky
Rubinshein
Nimschovich
Larsen
Portish
Kamsky
Which is first, Keres? You must have forgot Korchnoi
I am not forgot the Korchnoi!
I just did not include him to list of "greatest" !
He is fighter and big-big chess player!
But , as a person, he is not so great!..
Meemo wrote: Rather dubiously, I referenced www.chessmetrics.com for an objective view. In the site's list of "Most dominant players between 1840 and 2005" there are only two titled GMs in the top 20 who were not World Champions: #17 Géza Maróczy # 19 Akiba Rubinstein By comparison, Korchnoi is # 35 and Keres # 42 That said, someone called Serafino Dubois (anyone?) makes the list at #18 which pretty much rubbishes this entire approach. Any votes for Leko? Ivanchuk? cheater_1? I think for sheer world class raw talent (although I don't think he was ever titled) my vote would go to Mir Sultan Khan.
Chessmetrics mentions a great player _you_ haven't heard of and that rubbishes the entire affair? Because why? I don't quite follow...
Dubois was one of the greatest players in Europe.
Also, according to Wiki, Dubois, "was not a keen fan of the French and commented 'This is the most monotonous and annoying play you can imagine.' " Anyone who feels that way about the French defense is a friend of mine.
I think chessmetrics is surprisingly good. I'm not sure which list you were looking at -- I couldn't find the "most dominant player" list ..(not saying you got it wrong, it's probably easy to find I just missed it... there are a lot of lists at chesmetrics depending on whether you are looking at a 1 year span, or 5 or 10 ... etc.) I couldn't find Dubois on any list at #18...
As for rubbishing the entire list with Dubois... that's just silly... if they listed Louis Eichborn (sp?) as the number 1, that would be a problem (Eichborn is a guy who played many games with Anderssen and even won a few... he only saved the games he won, and we only really know of his chess from these games he won against Anderssen and a few others... so if we take just the historical record he gets a fantastic best-player-in-the-world-ever rating since we only know him as the guy with a like 30-0 record vs. Anderssen -- something not even Morphy managed.) Dubois was a real player.
"I think chessmetrics is surprisingly good"
After considering and compare Chessmetrics' highest rating scores for these four players:
Adolf Anderssen: 2744
Paul Morphy: 2743
Lionel Kieseritzky: 2734
Howard Staunton: 2706
My evaluation would have to be that Chessmetrics can be surprisingly bad.
Karpov?
anand, i think.
there are of course better players, but they are world champion, so...