The Keene-Divinsky list

[spacious_mind]

This is a little bit of topic, but hopefully not too much since this is also a General Discussion area.

Besides dedicated chess computers, DOS chess programs and DOS Computers and old Home Computers and chess programs, I also love chess books, especially Player game collections, World Championships, US Championships, Olympiads and tournament books.

Raymond Keene wrote a chess book which discusses who is the strongest player of all time which you can see here:

http://chess.eusa.ed.ac.uk/Chess/Trivia ... eList.html

Well since I knew I had books on most of these all-time greats, I then put this list together which might be of interest to you chess book collectors, naming the game collection books that are available. There are 5 all-time greats on Keene and Divinsky's List for which I don't have a book, two of which I will probably never get since they are out of print and really expensive but the other 3 are doable if buy a foreign language version.

I have missing.

26 - FURMAN
33 - FLOHR
43 - HORT
48 - VIDMAR -
64 - ZUKERTORT (NOT COUNTING THE 1886 STEINITZ-ZUCKERTORT WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP BOOK)

So here is a list of books based on the Keene-Divinsky All Time Great List.

KEENE-DIVINSKY ALL TIME GREAT LIST

1 - KASPAROV - GARRY KASPAROV ON GARRY KAPSAROV PART I: 1973-1985 - GARRY KASPAROV - EVERYMAN CHESS
1 - KASPAROV - KASPAROV AGAINST THE WORLD - GARRY KASPAROV WITH DANIEL KING - KASPAROV CHESS ONLINE
1 - KASPAROV - GARRY KASPAROV'S GREATES CHESS GAMES, VOLUME 1 - IGOR STOHL - GAMBIT PUBLICATIONS LTD
1 - KASPAROV - GARRY KASPAROV'S GREATES CHESS GAMES, VOLUME 2 - IGOR STOHL - GAMBIT PUBLICATIONS LTD
1 - KASPAROV - THE TEST OF TIME - GARRY KASPAROV - PERGAMON PRESS
2 - KARPOV - KARPOV'S COLLECTED GAMES: 1961-1974 - DAVID LEVY - RHM PRESS
2 - KARPOV - ANATOLY KARPOV'S BEST GAMES - ANATOLY KARPOV - B. T. BATSFORD LTD
3 - FISCHER - BOBBY FISCHER'S CHESS GAMES - ROBERT G. WADE & KEVIN J. O'CONNELL - DOUBLEDAY & COMPANY INC
3 - FISCHER - MY MEMORABLE 60 GAMES - BOBBY FISCHER - SIMON & SCHUSTER
3 - FISCHER - BOBBY FISHER – COMPLETE GAMES OF THE AMERICAN WORLD CHESS CHAMPION - LOU HAYS - HAYS PUBLISHING
3 - FISCHER - FISCHER VERSUS RUSSIANS - DMITRY PLISETSKY AND SERGEY VORONKOV - CHESS WORLD LTD
3 - FISCHER - FISCHER HIS APPROACH TO CHESS - ELIE AGUR - CADOGAN CHESS
4 - BOTVINNIK - BOTVINNIK ONE HUNDRED SELECTED GAMES - MIKHAIL BOTVINNIK - DOVER PUBLICATIONS INC
4 - BOTVINNIK - BOTVINNIK'S BEST GAMES VOLUME 1 – 1942-1956 - MIKHAIL BOTVINNIK - MORAVIAN CHESS
4 - BOTVINNIK - BOTVINNIK'S BEST GAMES VOLUME 2 – 1925-1941 - MIKHAIL BOTVINNIK - MORAVIAN CHESS
4 - BOTVINNIK - BOTVINNIK'S BEST GAMES VOLUME 3 – 1957-1970 - MIKHAIL BOTVINNIK - MORAVIAN CHESS
5 - CAPABLANCA - THE GAMES OF JOSE RAUL CAPABLANCA - ROGELIO CAPARROS - CHESS DIGEST
5 - CAPABLANCA - CAPABLANCA'S BEST CHESS ENDINGS 60 COMPLETE GAMES - IRBING CHERNEV - DOVER PUBLICATIONS INC
5 - CAPABLANCA - THE IMMORTAL GAMES OF CAPABLANCA - FRED REINFELD - HOROWITZ AND HARKNESS
6 - LASKER - EMANUEL LASKER – ALL GAMES VOUME 1: 1889 – 1903 - SERGEI SOLOVIOV - RUSSIAN CHESS HOUSE
6 - LASKER - EMANUEL LASKER – ALL GAMES VOUME 2: 1904 – 1940 - SERGEI SOLOVIOV - RUSSIAN CHESS HOUSE
6 - LASKER - EMANUEL LASKER – THE LIFE OF A CHESS MASTER - DR J. HANNAK - SIMON & SCHUSTER
6 - LASKER - LASKER'S GREATEST CHESS GAMES - FRED REINFELD - DOVER PUBLICATIONS INC
7 - KORCHNOI - KORCHNOI'S 400 BEST GAMES - VIKTOR KORCHNOI, R.G. WADE & L.S. BLACKSTOCK - ARCO PUBLISHING
8 - SPASSKY - THE BEST GAMES OF BORIS SPASSKY - ANDREW SOLTIS - DAVID MCKAY COMPANY
8 - SPASSKY - BORIS SPASSKY: MASTER OF INITIATIVE - ALEXANDER RAETSKY & MAXIM CHETVERIK - EVERYMAN CHESS
8 - SPASSKY - SPASSKY'S 100 BEST GAMES - BERNARD CAFFERTY - MACMILLAN PUBLISHING
9 - SMYSSLOV - SMYSLOV'S BEST GAMES VOLUME I – 1935-1957 - VASILY SMYSLOV - MORAVIAN CHESS
9 - SMYSSLOV - SMYSLOV'S BEST GAMES VOLUME II – 1958-1995 - VASILY SMYSLOV - MORAVIAN CHESS
9 - SMYSSLOV - MY BEST GAMES OF CHESS 1935-1957 - V. V. SMYSLOV - DOVER PUBLICATIONS INC
9 - SMYSSLOV - VASSILY SMYSLOV WORLD CHESS CHAMPION - ALEXANDER LIEPNIEKS & JACK L. SPENCE - VAIDAVA
10 - PETROSIAN - PETROSIAN'S BEST GAMES OF CHESS 1946-1963 - P. H. CLARKE - G. BELL & SONS LIMITED
10 - PETROSIAN - TIGRAN PETROSIAN HIS LIFE AND GAMES - VIK. L. VASILIEV - ISHI PRESS INTERNATIONAL
11 - MORPHY - PAUL MORPHY AND THE EVOLUTION OF CHESS THEORY - MACON SHIBUT - CAISSA EDITIONS
11 - MORPHY - MORPHY'S GAMES OF CHESS - PHILIP W. SERGEANT - DOVER PUBLICATIONS INC
12 - POLUGAEVSKY - GRANDMASTER PREPARATION - LEV POLUGAEVSKY - ISHI PRESS INTERNATIONAL
13 - GELLER - THE APPLICATION OF CHESS THEORY - YEFIM GELLER - EVERYMAN CHESS
14 - TAL - THE LIFE AND GAMES OF MIKHAIL TAL - MIKHAIL TAL - EVERYMAN CHESS
14 - TAL - COMPLETE GAMES OF MIKHAIL TAL 1960-1966 - HILARY THOMAS - ARCO PUBLISHING
14 - TAL - COMPLETE GAMES OF MIKHAIL TAL 1967-1973 - HILARY THOMAS - B. T. BATSFORD LTD
14 - TAL - SELECTED GAMES OF MIKHAIL TAL - J. HAJTUN - DOVER PUBLICATIONS INC
14 - TAL - ATTACK WITH MIKHAIL TAL - MIKHAIL TAL & IAKOV DAMSKY - EVERYMAN CHESS
15 - STEIN - LEONID STEIN MASTER OF RISK STRATEGY - EDUARD GUFELD & EFIM LAZAREV - THINKER'S PRESS
15 - STEIN - LEONID STEIN MASTER OF ATTACK - RAYMOND KEENE - HARDINGE SIMPOLE PUBLISHING
16 - KERES - PAUL KERES: THE ROAD TO THE TOP - PAUL KERES - THE AMERICAN BATSFORD CHESS LIBRARY
16 - KERES - PAUL KERES: THE QUEST FOR PERFECTION - PAUL KERES & JOHN NUNN - THE AMERICAN BATSFORD CHESS LIBRARY
16 - KERES - KERES' BEST GAMES OF CHESS 1931-1948 - KERES/REINFELD - DOVER PUBLICATIONS INC
16 - KERES - GRANDMASTER OF CHESS THE COMPLETE GAMES OF PAUL KERES - PAUL KERES AND HARRY GOLOMBEK - ARCO PUBLISHING
17 - BRONSTEIN - THE SORCERER'S APPRENTICE - DAVID BRONSTEIN & TOM FÜRSTENBERG - CADOGAN CHESS
17 - BRONSTEIN - 200 OPEN GAMES - DAVID BRONSTEIN - DOVER PUBLICATIONS INC
17 - BRONSTEIN - THE MODERN CHESS SELF-TUTOR - DAVID BRONSTEIN - EVERYMAN CHESS
17 - BRONSTEIN - SECRET NOTES - DAVID BRONSTEIN AND SERGEY VORONKOV - EDITION OLMS
18 - ALEKHINE - ALEXANDER ALEKHINE – MASTER OF ATTACK - ALEXANDER RAETSKY & MAXIM CHETVERIK - EVERYMAN CHESS
18 - ALEKHINE - ALEXANDER ALEKHINE 'S CHESS GAMES 1902 -1946 - LEONARD M. SKINNER & ROBERT G. P. VERHOEVEN - MCFARLAND & COMPANY INC
18 - ALEKHINE - MY BEST GAMES OF CHESS VOLUME 1 1908 – 1923 - A. ALEKHINE - DAVID MCKAY COMPANY
18 - ALEKHINE - MY BEST GAMES OF CHESS VOLUME 2 1924 – 1937 - A. ALEKHINE - DAVID MCKAY COMPANY
18 - ALEKHINE - MY BEST GAMES OF CHESS VOLUME 3 1938 – 1945 - C.H.O'D ALEXANDER - DAVID MCKAY COMPANY
19 - SOKOLOV - SOKOLOV'S BEST GAMES - IVAN SOKOLOV - CADOGAN CHESS
20 - BOLESLAVSKY - ISAAK BOLESLAVSKY - JIMMY ADAMS - CAISSA EDITIONS
21 - PORTISCH - SELECTED GAMES OF LAJOS PORTISCH - EGON VARNUSZ - ARCO PUBLISHING
22 - RESHEVSKY - SAMUEL RESHEVSKY - STEPHEN W. GORDON - MCFARLAND & COMPANY INC
22 - RESHEVSKY - RESHEVSKY'S BEST GAMES OF CHESS - SAMUEL RESHEVSKY - DOVER PUBLICATIONS INC
23 - YUSUPOV - ARTUR YUSUPOV: OVER 100 VICTORIES SPANNING HIS CAREER - ARTUR YUSUPOV - THREE GIRLS PUBLISHING
24 - KHOLMOV - RATMIR KHOLMOV - ADAM CORNELIUS BERT - CHROMO PUBLISHING
25 - AVERBAKH - AVERBAKH'S SELECTED GAMES - YURI AVERBAKH - CADOGAN CHESS
26 - FURMAN - MISSING - MISSING - MISSING
27 - BELYAVSKY - UNCOMPROMISING CHESS - ALEXANDER BELYAVSKY - CADOGAN CHESS
28 - TIMMAN - JAN TIMMAN STUDIES AND GAMES - JAN TIMMAN - CADOGAN CHESS
29 - LARSEN - LARSEN'S SELECTED GAMES OF CHESS 1948-69 - BENT LARSEN - G. BELL & SONS LIMITED
30 - TAIMANOV - TAIMANOV'S SELECTED GAMES - MARK TAIMANOV - EVERYMAN CHESS
31 - VAGANIAN - RAFAEL VAGANIAN: OVER 100 VICTORIES SPANNING HIS CAREER - RAFAEL VAGANIAN - THREE GIRLS PUBLISHING
32 - KOTOV - ALEXANDER KOTOV - YURI AVERBAKH - ISHI PRESS INTERNATIONAL
33 - FLOHR - MISSING - MISSING - MISSING
34 - LJUBOJEVIC - LJUBOMIR LJUBOJEVIC - MILAN BJELAJAC - ZOFI SERVICE
35 - NAJDORF - NAJDORF: LIFE AND GAMES - TOMASZ LISSOWSKI, ADRIAN MIKHALCHISHIN & MIGUEL NAJDORF - B. T. BATSFORD LTD
35 - NAJDORF - YOUNG NAJDORF - TOMASZ LISSOWSKI - THE CHESS PLAYER
36 - SZABO - MY BEST GAMES OF CHESS - LASZLO SZABO - PERGAMON PRESS
37 - GLIGORIC - THE CHESS OF GLIGORIC - DAVID N. L. LEVY - WORLD PUBLISHING
37 - GLIGORIC - I PLAY AGAINST PIECES - SVETOZAR GLIGORIC - BATSFORD CHESS LIBRARY
37 - GLIGORIC - SVETOZAR GLIGORIC COLLECTED GAMES - COLIN LEACH - CAISSA EDITIONS
38 - FINE - LESSONS FROM MY GAMES - REUBEN FINE - DAVID MCKAY COMPANY
38 - FINE - REUBEN FINE: A COMPREHENSIVE RECORD OF AN AMERICAN CHESS CAREER 1929-1951 - - MCFARLAND & COMPANY INC
39 - HUEBNER - DR ROBERT HÜBNER 60 SEINER SCHOENSTEN PARTIEN - M. VAN FONDERN & P. KLEINE - BEYER VERLAG
40 - ANDERSSON - GRANDMASTER STRATEGY – WHAT AMATEURS CAN LEARN FOM ULF ANDERSSON'S POSITIONAL MASTERPIECES - JURGEN KAUFELD & GUIDO KERN - NEW IN CHESS
41 - SEIRAWAN - CHESS DUELS – MY GAMES WITH THE WORLD CHAMPIONS - YASSER SEIRAWAN - EVERYMAN CHESS
42 - EUWE - FROM MY GAMES 1920 – 1937 - DR MAX EUWE TRANSLATED BY FRED REINFELD - CHELTENHAM PRESS LTD
43 - HORT - MISSING - MISSING - MISSING
44 - RUBINSTEIN - THE LIFE & GAMES OF AKIVA RUBINSTEIN VOLUME 1 – UNCROWNED KING - JOHN DONALDSON AND NIKOLA MINEV - RUSSELL ENTERPRISES INC
44 - RUBINSTEIN - THE LIFE & GAMES OF AKIVA RUBINSTEIN VOLUME 2 – THE LATER YEARS - JOHN DONALDSON AND NIKOLA MINEV - RUSSELL ENTERPRISES INC
44 - RUBINSTEIN - RUBINSTEINS CHESS MASTERPIECES 100 SELECTED GAMES - HANS KMOCH - DOVER PUBLICATIONS INC
45 - MECKING - HENRIQUE MECKING LATIN CHESS GENIUS - STEPHEN W. GORDON - THINKER'S PRESS
46 - MAROCZY - MAROCZY'S HUNDERT SCHACHPARTIEN - B. KAGAN - SCHACHVERLAG B. KAGAN
47 - STEINITZ - WILLIAM STEINIZ – SELECTED CHESS GAMES - CHARLES DEVIDE - DOVER PUBLICATIONS INC
47 - STEINITZ - WILLHELM STEINITZ, CHESS CHAMPION A BIOGRAPHY OF THE BOHEMIAN CAESAR - KURT LANSBERGER - MCFARLAND & COMPANY INC
47 - STEINITZ - THE GAMES OF WILLHELM STEINITZ, FIRST WORLD CHAMPION - SID PICKARD - EVERYMAN CHESS
48 - VIDMAR - MISSING - MISSING - MISSING
49 - BERNSTEIN - COMBAT: MY 50 YEARS AT THE CHESS BOARD - SIDNEY BERNSTEIN - ISHI PRESS INTERNATIONAL
50 - NIMZOVITCH - ARON NIMZOWITSCH: ON THE ROAD TO CHESS MASTERY 1886-1924 - PER SKJOLDAGER AND JORN ERIK NIELSEN - MCFARLAND & COMPANY INC
51 - BOGOLJUBOV - BOGOLJUBOV – THE FATE OF A CHESS PLAYER - SERGEI SOLOVIOV - CHESS STARS LTD
52 - SHORT - NIGEL SHORT: CHESS PRODIGY - DAVID SHORT - FABER AND FABER
52 - SHORT - NIGEL SHORT WORLD CHESS CHALLENGER - RAYMOND KEENE - OWL BOOK
53 - TARRASCH - THREE HUNDRED CHESS GAMES – DREI HUNDERT SCHACHPARTIEN - SIEGBERT TARRASCH – TRANSLATION SOL SCHWARZ - HAYS PUBLISHING
53 - TARRASCH - TARRASCH'S BEST GAMES OF CHESS - FRED REINFELD - DOVER PUBLICATIONS INC
54 - PILLSBURY - PILLSBURY'S CHESS CAREER - P. W. SARGEANT AND W. H. WATTS - DOVER PUBLICATIONS INC
54 - PILLSBURY - HARRY NELSON PILLSBURY A GENIUS AHEAD OF HIS TIME - ALEXANDER CHERNIAEV - OM MEDIA
55 - SCHLECHTER - CARL SCHLECHTER ! LIFE AND TIMES OF THE AUSTRIAN CHESS WIZARD - WARREN GOLDMAN - CAISSA EDITIONS
56 - MARSHALL - FRANK J. MARSHALL'S BEST GAMES OF CHESS - FRANK J. MARSHALL - DOVER PUBLICATIONS INC
56 - MARSHALL - FRANK MARSHALL UNITED STATES CHESS CHAMPION A BIOGRAPHY WITH 220 GAMES - ANDREW SOLTIS - MCFARLAND & COMPANY INC
57 - ANDERSSEN - MASTER OF ATTACK – THE CHESS GAMES OF ADOPH ANDERSSEN - SID PICKARD - PICKARD & SON PUBLISHERS
58 - CHAROUSEK - CHESS COMET CHAROUSEK - VICTOR A. CHAROUCHIN - SCHACHFIRMA FRUTH
58 - CHAROUSEK - CHAROUSEK'S GAMES OF CHESS - PHILIP W. SERGEANT - DOVER PUBLICATIONS INC
59 - CHIGORIN - MIKHAIL CHIGORIN – THE FIRST RUSSIAN GRANDMASTER - ALEXANDER KHALIFMAN & SERGEI SOLOVIOV - CHESS STARS LTD
59 - CHIGORIN - MY LOVE AFFAIR WITH TCHIGORIN - A. E. SANTASIERE - CHESS DIGEST
60 - TEICHMANN - RICHARD TEICHMANN - JACK SPENCE - THE CHESS PLAYER
61 - JANOWSKI - DAVID JANOWSKI ARTIST OF THE CHESS BOARD - ALEXANDER CHERNIAEV AND ALEXANDER MEYNELL - HARDINGE SIMPOLE PUBLISHING
62 - DURAS - THE COMPLETE GAMES OF OLDRICH DURAS - J. KALENDOVSKY - THE CHESS PLAYER
63 - BLACKBURNE - BLACKBURNE'S CHESS GAMES - EDITED BY P . ANDERSON GRAHAM - DOVER PUBLICATIONS INC
64 - ZUKERTORT - MISSING - MISSING - MISSING

Well I hope this is not too far off topic.

Best Regards,

Nick

[vonderlasa]

There are books on all of the players you noted.
If I get time, I will post the titles.

[Larry]

The list is probably reasonably accurate. Of course ratings inflation
does play a big part.
The greatest player of all time is a little unfair to players who lived
in an earlier time, and went without the data bases and the easy
access to opponents.
My personal hero, Capablanca, is right up there at #5 in spite of
having lived the better part of a century earlier. This is way higher
than a lot of others who lived more recently. Alekhine, a chessaholic,
who defeated Capablanca, then shirked a rematch, is way down the
list where he belongs.
L

[spacious_mind]

The list is probably reasonably accurate. Of course ratings inflation
does play a big part.
The greatest player of all time is a little unfair to players who lived
in an earlier time, and went without the data bases and the easy
access to opponents.
My personal hero, Capablanca, is right up there at #5 in spite of
having lived the better part of a century earlier. This is way higher
than a lot of others who lived more recently. Alekhine, a chessaholic,
who defeated Capablanca, then shirked a rematch, is way down the
list where he belongs.
L

Yes I like this list a lot too. It is good to see all those old names on a list. I think my favorite writer on the above list is David Bronstein. I have always just found the way he writes easy to understand and therefore following his games is enjoyable.

As for favorite player, that changes with me depending which book I get into. At the moment I am quite fascinated reading Blackburne's book. I just love the way the old Masters used to play, the games are much more flamboyant and fun.

Missing on the list are a couple of more players that might be added further down the List, not counting any players from the late 80's onwards:

TORRE - THE LIFE AND GAMES OF CARLOS TORRE - GABRIEL VELASCO
COLLE - COLLE'S CHESS MASTERPIECES - FRED REINFELD
RETI - RICHARD RETI'S BEST GAMES - HARRY GOLOMBECK
STAUNTON - HOWARD STAUNTON – THE ENGLISH WORLD CHESS CHAMPION - R. D. KEENE & R. N. COLES
SPIELMANN - RUDOLF SPIELMANN MASTER OF INVENSION - NEIL MCDONALD
SPIELMANN - THE CHESS CAREER OF RUDOLF SPIELMANN JACK L. SPENCE

Regards

[spacious_mind]

There are books on all of the players you noted.
If I get time, I will post the titles.

Thanks, I look forward to seeing what you come up with.

Thanks to a good and dear German friend I have managed today to add to some of the missing books.

48 - VIDMAR - MILAN VIDMAR GOLDENE SCHACHZEITEN - MILAN VIDMAR
43 - HORT - BEGEGNUNGEN AM SCHACHBRETT SO SPIELEN PROFIS - VLASTIMIL HORT
64 - ZUKERTORT - JOHANNES ZUKERTORT - JOHANNES ZUKERTORT - CEED PUBLISHING


I also found another couple of books that I forgot to list which are:

57 - ANDERSSEN - ADOLF ANDERSSEN DER ALTMEISTER DEUTSCHER SCHACHSPIEL KUNST - HERMANN VON GOTTSCHALL
56 - MARSHALL - MY FIFTY YEARS OF CHESS - FRANK J. MARSHALL

So still missing in my collection of Keene-Divinsky list is:

26 - FURMAN
33 - FLOHR

Regards,

[LWSteve]

Fischer is without a doubt the greatest chess player of all time.

Because of what he accomplished without databases and computers.

He grew up kickin A$$ in the 1950's & 1960's with only a few chess books in his apartment.

My favorite modern day player is Gata Kamsky and its good to see him win the U.S. Championship again!

Back to Bobby Fischer...
More proof that he was the greatest...

If you guys have never seen the "Chess Game of the Century" then perhaps
you might want to go to You Tube and watch it.

Bobby Fischer was only 13 years old when he played this game! (1956)

Simply Amazing!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M624T3PTggU

LWSteve

[spacious_mind]

Fischer is without a doubt the greatest chess player of all time.

Because of what he accomplished without databases and computers.

He grew up kickin A$$ in the 1950's & 1960's with only a few chess books in his apartment.

My favorite modern day player is Gata Kamsky and its good to see him win the U.S. Championship again!

Back to Bobby Fischer...
More proof that he was the greatest...

If you guys have never seen the "Chess Game of the Century" then perhaps
you might want to go to You Tube and watch it.

Bobby Fischer was only 13 years old when he played this game! (1956)

Simply Amazing!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M624T3PTggU

LWSteve

Everyone I am sure has their favorites. Fischer's my 60 memorable games was the first chess book that I ever had, must have been 12 at the time and I played through that book at least a few times page by page through all the variation. I remember even having memorized a lot of the games.

But then about a year or so later I discovered Bottvinnik's 100 Best Games in the local library and then got into that one and realized playing through the book that the world was not centered around Fischer, that there were a a lot of greats and some even greater players before him and probably there would be others after him.

For me Fischer now when I look at all the greats in history, has fallen down the list considerably and would struggle to even keep a high spot. I think Keene was being kind.

He had just too many unsportsmanlike issues. I probably would have walked out on Fischer because of his tantrums special favor demands that he expected all the time. To me that would have been a distraction and an annoyance. I would have said forget it I am not playing him.

Fischer was a short lived wonder who tarnished his huge potential with whatever behavioral problems he had. You could say he was great for about ten years. Other greats sustained their greatness for 20-30 years +, even into their fifties and sixties.

Larry mentioned Alekhine and how he feels about his refusal to play a rematch against Capablanca. Scared of losing right!

Fischer after he won the world championship was scared of playing anyone else and never did except for a Spassky rematch 20 years later which he knew he could win since he had beaten him before. The quality of those rematch games were also not that great if you compare the standard of play that Geller, Keres, Botvinnik, Smyslov and others had in their fifties.

So using Larry's logic I think Fischer would have to fall below Alekhine on any List, since he never played anyone again and Alekhine after all kept his crown for 20 plus years.

Flawed genius regards,

[ricard60]

Some years ago probably 2 or 3 on chessbase page there was a comparison between greatest world champions.

http://www.chessbase.com/Home/TabId/211 ... ayer-.aspx

[LWSteve]

Fischer is without a doubt the greatest chess player of all time.

Because of what he accomplished without databases and computers.

He grew up kickin A$$ in the 1950's & 1960's with only a few chess books in his apartment.

My favorite modern day player is Gata Kamsky and its good to see him win the U.S. Championship again!

Back to Bobby Fischer...
More proof that he was the greatest...

If you guys have never seen the "Chess Game of the Century" then perhaps
you might want to go to You Tube and watch it.

Bobby Fischer was only 13 years old when he played this game! (1956)

Simply Amazing!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M624T3PTggU

LWSteve

Everyone I am sure has their favorites. Fischer's my 60 memorable games was the first chess book that I ever had, must have been 12 at the time and I played through that book at least a few times page by page through all the variation. I remember even having memorized a lot of the games.

But then about a year or so later I discovered Bottvinnik's 100 Best Games in the local library and then got into that one and realized playing through the book that the world was not centered around Fischer, that there were a a lot of greats and some even greater players before him and probably there would be others after him.

For me Fischer now when I look at all the greats in history, has fallen down the list considerably and would struggle to even keep a high spot. I think Keene was being kind.

He had just too many unsportsmanlike issues. I probably would have walked out on Fischer because of his tantrums special favor demands that he expected all the time. To me that would have been a distraction and an annoyance. I would have said forget it I am not playing him.

Fischer was a short lived wonder who tarnished his huge potential with whatever behavioral problems he had. You could say he was great for about ten years. Other greats sustained their greatness for 20-30 years +, even into their fifties and sixties.

Larry mentioned Alekhine and how he feels about his refusal to play a rematch against Capablanca. Scared of losing right!

Fischer after he won the world championship was scared of playing anyone else and never did except for a Spassky rematch 20 years later which he knew he could win since he had beaten him before. The quality of those rematch games were also not that great if you compare the standard of play that Geller, Keres, Botvinnik, Smyslov and others had in their fifties.

So using Larry's logic I think Fischer would have to fall below Alekhine on any List, since he never played anyone again and Alekhine after all kept his crown for 20 plus years.

Flawed genius regards,

Another thing that makes Fisher the greatest was he very rarely accepted draws.
He had the fighting spirit that all those guys mentioned above did not have!!!!

1. 1963 US Championship Fischer scored 11-0 not allowing a single draw.

2. In 1971 Scored unprecedented 6-0 in Candidates match versus Taimanov

3. In 1971 Scored unbelievable 6-0 score again in Candidates match versus Larsen. His performance rating was 3060.

4. Fischer still holds the world's record of 20 consecutive wins in 1971 without a loss or a draw.

Nothing wrong with going out on top. Ask John Elway.

Here are the "winning percentages" for all World Champions:

Alekhine 72.6 %

Fischer 72.5%

Capablanca 72.2%

Steinitz 67%

Kasparov 69.4%

Euwe 66.8%

Botvinnik 66.4%

Lasker 65.4%

Tal 65%

Karpov 64.9%

Petrosian 64%

Anand 62.7%

Kramnik 62.4%

Spassky 61.5 %

Smyslov 61.3%

The two players getting raked across the coals in this thread are the two guys on top. mmmmmm

Food for thought from Larry Evans...

http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/1996-0 ... -tal-board

1. PAUL MORPHY: Perhaps the most accurate player who ever lived, he would beat anybody today in a set-match. He had complete sight of the board and seldom blundered even though he moved quite rapidly. I've played hundreds of his games and am continually surprised and entertained by his ingenuity.

2. HOWARD STAUNTON: His games are completely modern, but very few of them show brilliancies. He understood all the positional concepts we now hold so dear.

3. WILHELM STEINITZ: He always sought completely original lines and didn't mind getting into cramped quarters if he thought that his position was essentially sound.

4. SIEGBERT TARRASCH: Razor-sharp, he always followed his own rules. In spite of devotion to his own supposedly scientific method, his play was often witty and bright.

5. MIKHAIL TCHIGORIN: The first great Russian player and one of the last of the Romantic School. At times he would continue playing a bad line even after it was refuted.

6. ALEXANDER ALEKHINE: Never a hero of mine. His style worked for him, but it could scarcely work for anybody else. His conceptions were gigantic, full of outrageous and unprecedented ideas. It's hard to find mistakes in his games, but in a sense his whole method was a mistake.

7. JOSE CAPABLANCA: He had the totally undeserved reputation of being the greatest living endgame player. His trick was to keep his openings simple and then play with such brilliance that it was decided in the middle game before reaching the ending - even though his opponent didn't always know it. His almost complete lack of book knowledge forced him to push harder to squeeze the utmost out of every position.

8. BORIS SPASSKY: He can blunder away a piece, and you are never sure whether it's a blunder or a fantastically deep sacrifice. He sits at the board with the same dead expression whether he's mating or being mated.

9. MIKHAIL TAL: Even after losing four games in a row to him I still consider his play unsound. He is always on the lookout for some spectacular sacrifice, that one shot, that dramatic breakthrough to give him the win.

10. SAMUEL RESHEVSKY: From 1946 to 1956 probably the best in the world, though his opening knowledge was less than any other leading player. Like a machine calculating every variation, he found moves over the board by a process of elimination and often got into fantastic time pressure.


LWSteve

[spacious_mind]

This is all great and interesting discussion

@Steve
Statistics can be interpreted in many different ways. Winning percentages are interesting but they don't tell the whole story. You are comparing stats from players who quit for whatever reason at the TOP to stats where players played for 40 Years. These percentages are hardly comparable.

In Fischer's case he had a great 10 years from around 1962 to 1972. And even then you can even narrow it down further to maybe 1966 to 1972. After all he got smashed every time previous to that in Candidate Matches. In fact he had loosing records to pretty much all the top Russian players until finally he started beating them consistently in the last 6 years.

The stats tell me that Fischer was great at beating players inferior to him but had problems with people who had the ability to stand up to him.

Morphy ranks extremely high because of the same reasons, he went and conquered the world and then stopped playing.

So in both cases their time span was too short to be able to realistically compare them with players that played the game and whose games are being used in these stats for 20, 30, 40 and even 50 years.

If you don't play then you cannot lose so therefore you look great right?

Another food for thought. The world champions have a distinct advantage. They only need to get there once. After that it's easy compared to the rest of the pack. After all you could now sit back and make preparations for one player only which is your challenger. Whereas the challengers have to fight their way through Interzonals and Canditate Matches. In the meantime you as the champion use this time with your Team to prepare for this one player. Now that's easy!

Even under these conditions just look at how close many of the old World Championship matches were. The Challenger was at least as good as the Champion which is very surprising really under these handicapped circumstances.

In addition if the match is drawn I win and if I lose I win since I am entitled to a rematch and therefore get a second chance without having to play anyone else. Great!

So for many of these reasons the Keene-Divisnky List is a lot more interesting albeit that it still has room for other thoughts and improvements.

Best regards,

[Steve B]

Fischer is without a doubt the greatest chess player of all time.

Because of what he accomplished without databases and computers.

He grew up kickin A$$ in the 1950's & 1960's with only a few chess books in his apartment.

My favorite modern day player is Gata Kamsky and its good to see him win the U.S. Championship again!

Back to Bobby Fischer...
More proof that he was the greatest...

If you guys have never seen the "Chess Game of the Century" then perhaps
you might want to go to You Tube and watch it.

Bobby Fischer was only 13 years old when he played this game! (1956)

Simply Amazing!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M624T3PTggU

LWSteve

Without getting into a debate about who was the greatest of all time
the fact that one man working basically alone ..took down the entire Soviet Chess Establishment is truly remarkable
his string of consecutive victories against the best Soviet GM's on his way to the Championship has been compared to a Pro NFL team winning every single game for an entire season
one of my favorite Fischer Quotes came when he was presented with the Key To NYC in September 1972 right after he won the championship

he said
"I never thought I'd see the day when chess would be all over the front pages here,but confined only to one paragraph in Pravda.
i guess thats my fault"

Fischermania Regards
Steve

[spacious_mind]

OK more fuel to the fire Here is my opinionated top 25 List:

1 - KASPAROV
2 - BOTVINNIK
3 - CAPABLANCA
4 - KARPOV
5 - ALEKHINE
6 - LASKER
7 - SMYSLOV
8 - BRONSTEIN
9 - GELLER
10 - KERES
11 - TAL
12 - FISCHER
13 - PETROSIAN
14 - KORCHNOI
15 - STEINITZ
16 - EUWE
17 - SPASSKY
18 - STEIN
19 - RESHEVSKY
20 - RUBINSTEIN
21 - SCHLECHTER
22 - CHIGORIN
23 - TARRASCH
24 - NIMZOVITCH
25 - BOLESLAVSKY
26 - MORPHY


Sorry I just cannot place Morphy higher, the time span is just too short to be fair to the rest.

@ Steve, agreed if you take the last 6 or 8 years it was as high A standard as anyone ever achieved. Just don't agree if you are comparing a lifetime career.

OOOOps I had missed Petrosian so this is a top 26 list

Best regards,

[ricard60]

Some years ago probably 2 or 3 on chessbase page there was a comparison between greatest world champions.

http://www.chessbase.com/Home/TabId/211 ... ayer-.aspx

Who was The Strongest Chess Player of All Time?

Computer Analysis of World Chess Champions

By Matej Guid and Ivan Bratko
University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Computer and Information Science, Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Ljubljana, Slovenia. This article is based on a paper by the same authors published in the ICGA Journal; full reference is given below.

Who is the best chess player of all time? Chess players are often interested in this question to which there is no well founded, objective answer, because it requires a comparison between chess players of different eras who never met across the board. With the emergence of high-quality chess programs a possibility of such an objective comparison arises. However, so far computers were mostly used as a tool for statistical analysis of the players' results.

Our approach was different: we were interested in the chess players' quality of play regardless of the game score, which we evaluated with the help of computer analyses of individual moves made by each player. A method to assess the difficulty of positions was designed, in order to take into account the differences in players' styles and to compensate for the fact that calm positional players in their typical games have less chance to commit gross tactical errors than aggressive tactical players. We also give a carefully chosen methodology for using computer chess programs for evaluating the true strength of chess players.




The fourteen classic-version World Champions, from the first World Chess Championship in 1886 to the present, were evaluated. Matches for the title of »World Chess Champion«, in which players contended for or were defending the title, were selected for analysis. Several different criteria were designed. The basis for evaluation was the difference between the position values resulting from the moves played by the human and the moves chosen as best by the chess program. We also calculated the average number of blunders and observed how would the players perform providing they would all deal with equally complex positions. Our analyses, among other things, also clearly show that the percentage of best moves played depends on analysed position itself and that is in very high correlation with the difference of best two moves evaluations (according to the computer): the bigger the difference between best two moves evaluations – the easier it is to find the best move. By observing the average material quantity during the games, we tried to determine players inclination to simplify positions.

Generally, our computer analysis seems to have produced sensible results that can be nicely interpreted by a chess expert. Anyway, many will find some of the results quite surprising. The winner according to the main criterion, where we measured average deviations between evaluations of played moves and best evaluated moves according to the computer, is Jose Raul Capablanca, the 3rd World Champion.

As we did in the study, this result should be interpreted in the light of the comparatively low complexity of positions in Capablanca's games. Anyway, he was also on top according to other criteria where we measured quality of play and was only beaten according to one criterion (albeit a very important one), namely the quality of play provided that all players dealt with equally complex positions, by the present World Champion, Vladimir Kramnik. Both Capablanca and Kramnik distinctly deviated from the rest of the players.



Separatelly, we conducted analysis of the latest World Championship match between Kramnik and Topalov. The results (mean loss per move: Kramnik 0.1220, Topalov 0.1328; only the games with classical time control were taken into account) tell that Kramnik's play was somewhat better, while the overall quality of play in the match was on quite decent level (comparing to other World Championship matches), although the record (Kramnik's 0.0903 in the London 2000 match against Kasparov) was really not in danger. Note that the lower this measure the better the performance.

The chess program Crafty was used to perform the analyses. We needed an open source program in order to slightly modify it, as is described in the article. One may argue that Crafty is weaker than at least some of the fourteen World Champions who were taken into consideration. However, altogether more than 37,000 positions were evaluated and even if evaluations are not always perfect, for our analysis they just need to be sufficiently accurate on average since small occasional errors cancel out through statistical averaging. Anyway, we would like to encourage other researchers that might have access to source code of the strongest commercial chess programs, to modify and run them in the way we proposed, in order to obtain a comparison between various different engines as well.



The basic criterion for evaluating World Champions was the average difference between moves played and best evaluated moves by computer analysis. According to this analysis, the winner was the third World Champion, Jose Raul Capablanca. This result should be interpreted in the light of the comparatively low complexity of positions in Capablanca's games which is quite in line with the known assessments in the chess literature of his style. For example, Garry Kasparov in his set of books My Great Predecessors when commenting Capablanca's games speculates that Capablanca occasionally did not even bother to calculate deep tactical variations. The Cuban simply preferred to play moves that were clear and positionally so strongly justified that calculation of variations was simply not necessary. He also describes Capablanca with the following words: “He contrived to win the most important tournaments and matches, going undefeated for years (of all the champions he lost the fewest games).” and “his style, one of the purest, most crystal-clear in the entire history of chess, astonishes one with his logic.”



The results of blunder-rate measurement are similar. We expected positional players to perform better by this criterion than tactical players, since in quiet positions there were less opportunities to blunder. Note the excelent result of Tigran Petrosian who is widely renowned as a pure positional player. In compliance with this observation, Steinitz, who lived in an era of tactical romantic chess, took clearly last place.



Capablanca is renowned for playing a 'simple' chess and avoiding complications, while it is common that Steinitz and Tal faced many 'wild' positions in their games. The results of complexity measurement clearly coincide with this common opinion.



The method for assesing the complexity of positions is described in detail in the original article (see also the reference below). Graph of errors made by players at different levels of complexity clearly indicates the validity of the chosen measure of complexity of positions; the players made little errors in simple positions, and the error rate increased with increasing complexity.



We used the above mentioned metric of position complexity to determine the distribution of moves played across different intervals of complexity, based on positions that players had faced themselves. This, in turn, largely defines their style of play. For example, Capablanca had much less dealing with complex situations compared to Tal, who is to be regarded as a tactical player.



The main deficiency of the two criteria, as detailed in the previous subsections, is in the observation that there are several types of players with specific properties, to whom the criteria do not directly apply. It is reasonable to expect that positional players in average commit fewer errors due to the somewhat less complex positions in which they find themselves as a result of their style of play, than tactical players. The latter, on average, deal with more complex positions, but are also better at handling them and use this advantage to achieve excellent results in competition. We wanted to determine how players would perform when facing equally complex positions. The winner was the fourteenth World Champion Vladimir Kramnik. Kramnik also had the best performance of all the matches; his average error in his match against Kasparov (London, 2000) was only 0.0903. We also tried to determine how well the players would play, should they all play in the style of Capablanca, Tal, etc. It is interesting to notice that Kasparov would outperform Karpov, providing they both played in Tal's style.



The percentage of best moves played alone does not actually describe the quality of a player as much as one might expect. In certain types of position it is much easier to find a good move than in others. Experiments showed that the percentage of best moves played is highly correlated to the difference in evaluations of the best and second-best move in a given position. The greater the difference, the better was the percentage of player's success in making the best move.



Based on that observation, another criterion was the expected number of best moves played providing that all players dealt with positions with equal difference between the best two moves, as was described in the previous section. It represents another attempt to bring the champions to a common denominator. See the results right below.



Kramnik, Fischer, and Alekhine had the highest percentage of best moves played, but also the above-mentioned difference was high. In contrast, Capablanca, who was right next regarding the percentage of the best move played, on average dealt with the smallest difference between the best two moves. The winner by this criterion was once again Capablanca. He and Kramnik again clearly outperformed the others.



The purpose of calculating the average material quantity, that is the sum of the numerically expressed values of all pieces on board, was not to determine the quality of play, but to collect additional information on a player's style of play. We mainly tried to observe a player's inclination to simplify positions.



Among the players who stand out from the others, Kramnik obviously dealt with less material on board (remember his early queen exchanges in his Berlin Wall games against Kasparov?). The opposite could be said for Steinitz, Spassky, and Petrosian.

[spacious_mind]

HI Ricardo,
I know we can add Anand, Kramnik and even Judit Polgar amongst others to an all time greatest list.

This list we are discussing is pre 1985/6.

Regards,

[ricard60]

Some years ago probably 2 or 3 on chessbase page there was a comparison between greatest world champions.

http://www.chessbase.com/Home/TabId/211 ... ayer-.aspx

Who was The Strongest Chess Player of All Time?

Computer Analysis of World Chess Champions

By Matej Guid and Ivan Bratko
University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Computer and Information Science, Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Ljubljana, Slovenia. This article is based on a paper by the same authors published in the ICGA Journal; full reference is given below.

Who is the best chess player of all time? Chess players are often interested in this question to which there is no well founded, objective answer, because it requires a comparison between chess players of different eras who never met across the board. With the emergence of high-quality chess programs a possibility of such an objective comparison arises. However, so far computers were mostly used as a tool for statistical analysis of the players' results.

Our approach was different: we were interested in the chess players' quality of play regardless of the game score, which we evaluated with the help of computer analyses of individual moves made by each player. A method to assess the difficulty of positions was designed, in order to take into account the differences in players' styles and to compensate for the fact that calm positional players in their typical games have less chance to commit gross tactical errors than aggressive tactical players. We also give a carefully chosen methodology for using computer chess programs for evaluating the true strength of chess players.




The fourteen classic-version World Champions, from the first World Chess Championship in 1886 to the present, were evaluated. Matches for the title of »World Chess Champion«, in which players contended for or were defending the title, were selected for analysis. Several different criteria were designed. The basis for evaluation was the difference between the position values resulting from the moves played by the human and the moves chosen as best by the chess program. We also calculated the average number of blunders and observed how would the players perform providing they would all deal with equally complex positions. Our analyses, among other things, also clearly show that the percentage of best moves played depends on analysed position itself and that is in very high correlation with the difference of best two moves evaluations (according to the computer): the bigger the difference between best two moves evaluations – the easier it is to find the best move. By observing the average material quantity during the games, we tried to determine players inclination to simplify positions.

Generally, our computer analysis seems to have produced sensible results that can be nicely interpreted by a chess expert. Anyway, many will find some of the results quite surprising. The winner according to the main criterion, where we measured average deviations between evaluations of played moves and best evaluated moves according to the computer, is Jose Raul Capablanca, the 3rd World Champion.

As we did in the study, this result should be interpreted in the light of the comparatively low complexity of positions in Capablanca's games. Anyway, he was also on top according to other criteria where we measured quality of play and was only beaten according to one criterion (albeit a very important one), namely the quality of play provided that all players dealt with equally complex positions, by the present World Champion, Vladimir Kramnik. Both Capablanca and Kramnik distinctly deviated from the rest of the players.



Separatelly, we conducted analysis of the latest World Championship match between Kramnik and Topalov. The results (mean loss per move: Kramnik 0.1220, Topalov 0.1328; only the games with classical time control were taken into account) tell that Kramnik's play was somewhat better, while the overall quality of play in the match was on quite decent level (comparing to other World Championship matches), although the record (Kramnik's 0.0903 in the London 2000 match against Kasparov) was really not in danger. Note that the lower this measure the better the performance.

The chess program Crafty was used to perform the analyses. We needed an open source program in order to slightly modify it, as is described in the article. One may argue that Crafty is weaker than at least some of the fourteen World Champions who were taken into consideration. However, altogether more than 37,000 positions were evaluated and even if evaluations are not always perfect, for our analysis they just need to be sufficiently accurate on average since small occasional errors cancel out through statistical averaging. Anyway, we would like to encourage other researchers that might have access to source code of the strongest commercial chess programs, to modify and run them in the way we proposed, in order to obtain a comparison between various different engines as well.



The basic criterion for evaluating World Champions was the average difference between moves played and best evaluated moves by computer analysis. According to this analysis, the winner was the third World Champion, Jose Raul Capablanca. This result should be interpreted in the light of the comparatively low complexity of positions in Capablanca's games which is quite in line with the known assessments in the chess literature of his style. For example, Garry Kasparov in his set of books My Great Predecessors when commenting Capablanca's games speculates that Capablanca occasionally did not even bother to calculate deep tactical variations. The Cuban simply preferred to play moves that were clear and positionally so strongly justified that calculation of variations was simply not necessary. He also describes Capablanca with the following words: “He contrived to win the most important tournaments and matches, going undefeated for years (of all the champions he lost the fewest games).” and “his style, one of the purest, most crystal-clear in the entire history of chess, astonishes one with his logic.”



The results of blunder-rate measurement are similar. We expected positional players to perform better by this criterion than tactical players, since in quiet positions there were less opportunities to blunder. Note the excelent result of Tigran Petrosian who is widely renowned as a pure positional player. In compliance with this observation, Steinitz, who lived in an era of tactical romantic chess, took clearly last place.



Capablanca is renowned for playing a 'simple' chess and avoiding complications, while it is common that Steinitz and Tal faced many 'wild' positions in their games. The results of complexity measurement clearly coincide with this common opinion.



The method for assesing the complexity of positions is described in detail in the original article (see also the reference below). Graph of errors made by players at different levels of complexity clearly indicates the validity of the chosen measure of complexity of positions; the players made little errors in simple positions, and the error rate increased with increasing complexity.



We used the above mentioned metric of position complexity to determine the distribution of moves played across different intervals of complexity, based on positions that players had faced themselves. This, in turn, largely defines their style of play. For example, Capablanca had much less dealing with complex situations compared to Tal, who is to be regarded as a tactical player.



The main deficiency of the two criteria, as detailed in the previous subsections, is in the observation that there are several types of players with specific properties, to whom the criteria do not directly apply. It is reasonable to expect that positional players in average commit fewer errors due to the somewhat less complex positions in which they find themselves as a result of their style of play, than tactical players. The latter, on average, deal with more complex positions, but are also better at handling them and use this advantage to achieve excellent results in competition. We wanted to determine how players would perform when facing equally complex positions. The winner was the fourteenth World Champion Vladimir Kramnik. Kramnik also had the best performance of all the matches; his average error in his match against Kasparov (London, 2000) was only 0.0903. We also tried to determine how well the players would play, should they all play in the style of Capablanca, Tal, etc. It is interesting to notice that Kasparov would outperform Karpov, providing they both played in Tal's style.



The percentage of best moves played alone does not actually describe the quality of a player as much as one might expect. In certain types of position it is much easier to find a good move than in others. Experiments showed that the percentage of best moves played is highly correlated to the difference in evaluations of the best and second-best move in a given position. The greater the difference, the better was the percentage of player's success in making the best move.



Based on that observation, another criterion was the expected number of best moves played providing that all players dealt with positions with equal difference between the best two moves, as was described in the previous section. It represents another attempt to bring the champions to a common denominator. See the results right below.



Kramnik, Fischer, and Alekhine had the highest percentage of best moves played, but also the above-mentioned difference was high. In contrast, Capablanca, who was right next regarding the percentage of the best move played, on average dealt with the smallest difference between the best two moves. The winner by this criterion was once again Capablanca. He and Kramnik again clearly outperformed the others.



The purpose of calculating the average material quantity, that is the sum of the numerically expressed values of all pieces on board, was not to determine the quality of play, but to collect additional information on a player's style of play. We mainly tried to observe a player's inclination to simplify positions.



Among the players who stand out from the others, Kramnik obviously dealt with less material on board (remember his early queen exchanges in his Berlin Wall games against Kasparov?). The opposite could be said for Steinitz, Spassky, and Petrosian.

This link stands for Capablanca as best player of all time. If you clik the link you can see the complete study.