I remember a Finegold lecture on this topic, where he talks about how people in the west just view Spassky as "the guy who lost to Fischer" and forgot about his other accomplishments.
I think Spassky tends to get written off because he didn't win the wch on his first attempt and subsequent overshadowing by Fischer. But people forget his strength as World Junior Champ (back when it was extremely competitive), joint 3rd at the Candidates at 19, and a pretty strong showing as world champ (including beating Fischer handily as late as the '70 Siegen Olympiad).
He was the best player of the world during most of the 60s. I guess most people doesn't even know he lost the first match, only that he lost to Fischer.
I think these 2 are interchangable Spassky's road to the title is very impressive he beat many strong players in matches including the likes of Korchnoi and Tal while Petrosian actually managed to defend his title which was a rarity in that era
I wonder what Fabi's status would have been if Magnus never took up chess. He would've been the second highest rated player in history (only a few points from the then undisputed GOAT), probably won one or two WCs etc. Godlike calculation, encyclopedic opening knowledge, always looking for a fight.
And now he's just a 'notable' player behind Topalov...
You have to include him in B for going 8.5/10 in Sinquefield 2014 alone. 3 points ahead of Magnus, whose only loss was to him. That was a 3098 tournament performance, the highest of all time!
Topalov's performance in the WCC 2005 is arguably as impressive. Caruana scored 7/7 and drew his remaining games, Topalov scored 6.5/7 in the first cycle, drew the rest of his games and became the Fide World Champion.
What I would say for them is that I've heard of them, and I wouldn't confidently claim that anyone will remember Caruana in a hundred years.
I agree with OP that influence is worth something in that respect.
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Fabi is one of the best players of the Magnus era and one of his most consistent and strongest rivals(if not the strongest) Fabi will be remebered like just we today remember Rubinstein, Pilsbury or Keres
That's an argument for flipping the ranking. Not all of the B ranks hold up in terms of playing strength, but they made notable contributions to the game in their time. Caruana may not leave a lasting impact on the game due to the generation he's a part of, but it's impossible to deny he's still one of the strongest players to ever live.
I sort of doubt he would be as high achieving if magnus weren't in the pool. I think that strong players tend to lift each other up. Obviously it's much more likely he would have been wcc, but I mean rating-wise
The only thing Nepo will be remembered for is so many excellent Candidates without a WC. He'll be a chess trivia question in 40 years, and I really mean none of this as an insult.
Oh, nitpickery is not a problem - if you post in a discussion thread, then that is healthy as long as civilized.
I'm not hailing Steinitz as much as I know others do, but as posted elsewhere, I have a few issues with Steinitz being put up a full two steps below Botvinnik. Sure Botvinnik was resilient enough to come back, but ... I guess the pyramid would look weird if the "S" tier were only four.
And is Viktor The Terrible really so much greater than the Ivanchuk that even Kasparov feared? And Smyslov was WC for just one year ...
Also, I think Rodrigo "Ruy" López de Segura is a "notable player" even though he is more notable for fathering opening *theory* (not so much how he actually played, which we don't know that much about) - if Philidor is on the 16 to 30 and Ruy López isn't even notable, then something is a bit off.
Morphy has to be S-tier to me. In the GOAT category is pushing it, even if it’s something I would lean toward agreeing with.
He has a super interesting double edge sword where people use the same points to make different conclusions; that being that his peers were nowhere close to as good as him, so his competition was not putting up the same resistance he would get in a modern playing field.
The flip side to that is how the fuck was he that far ahead of everyone else at that time period. He was playing in the stratosphere at a time when, compared anything modern, chess resources were infantile. One could argue he has the most natural understanding of the game of anyone, ever.
It’s an unanswerable question, but what would a modern Morphy look like? His brain from the 1850s but given access to all modern chess study resources.
To make a proper comparison, you would either have to give Morphy the better part of 200 years of chess study/resources, or remove the better part of 200 years of chess study/resources away from modern players. Which, obv, is impossible.
I think it depends on what the criteria are. Steinitz is clearly one of the most *important* chess players ever (I'd say *the* most important), but there's also 'absolute playing strength' (as in Steinitz or Morphy would probably lose to any modern superGM) and 'relative playing strength to his contemporaries' where he wasn't clearly head-and-shoulders over the competition the way that, say, Philidor, Morphy or Kasparov were.
I'm guessing that the tier list criterion is a bit of a mishmash of these ideas.
>I think it depends on what the criteria are. Steinitz is clearly one of the most *important* chess players ever (I'd say *the* most important)
Important? Yes. But by that sort of criteria you \*could\* argue the IM Levy Rozman should be in notable because he has influenced more than anyone. (Definitely has done more for Chess promotion that FIDE ever has)
\\Joke
Sure, but if we're going down the player-skill scale, I think Arpad Elo would be massively influential and right up at the top of the tier system in terms of his influence.
Every minute of every day, someone, somewhere is making chess-related decisions (Whether or not to go to a tournament, or to click 'play' on chess.com or to offer/accept a draw in an uncertain position) on the basis of a rating system either designed by Elo, or derived from his. Other than the inventors of positional chess, I don't think anyone else comes close.
Morphy's dominant performance against everyone is indeed really suspicious. I am starting petition for chess.com to thoroughly check morphy for cheating.
Well it essentially is cheating OTB when all your opponents are that much worse than you.
Morphy is the original prodigy, retiring before even basic opening concepts like the Queen's Gambit were even popularised. His era was largely one where the concept of aggressive sacrifices were innovative. A leading player of the time played 1. a3 in three games in a row against Morphy. I think Reuben Fine said it best "He was so far ahead of his rivals that it is hard to find really outstanding examples of his skill" and that's about as close to cheating as you can get haha.
Lol Morphy was some angry middling GM from the distant future where humans are somehow like 3400 and prep is going to school for 20 years to compete and felt he was born in the wrong time to truly enjoy chess so he wanted to back to the early Fischer era in the late 50s but accidentally hit 1850 and ended up a fucking monster lmao
Same tier makes sense.
Keamnik is becoming underrated because of the whining but i'm pretty sure Hikaru had him top 10 in his rankings a few years back.
Topalov: FIDE World Champion, world #1 for longer than Vishy and Kramnik, 5th highest rating of all time -> "notable player"
He should be A-tier, on par with Kramnik and Vishy.
Yes but Ivanchuk was never even #1 while Topalov was for a while.
You could argue that it was harder for Ivanchuk because he's a bit older and Kasparov and Karpov were monsters but Kramnik and Anand were also amazing and Topalov was as good as them for a while.
Overall they were at similar strength but I'd give the edge to Topalov for his performances in high pressure situations.
He should be higher but not at the same tier with Anand and Kramnik. He lost to both of them at world champion matches. Both of them have higher peak rating and if we count the fide world champion too both of them were champions for more years than him.
All the retroactive rating calculations people have done have him never even surpassing Morphy's rating, despite him playing later. Part of the reason they held the first World Championship was because Morphy died, and nobody wanted to call themselves the world champion while he was around and unchallenged for the title (Morphy was not willing to compete in chess at that point). Steinitz's World Championship matches were also by far the most inaccurate ever, especially the one against Zukertort.
I imagine these points hurt Steinitz's standing among people. And personally I do not care about theoretical contributions that much for a list like this, I just want to know how good people's competitive results are (how dominant were they and for how long?)
With that said I would probably put him in A tier minimum due to just how long he was #1.
The problem with retroactive rating calculations and using it as a basis for “onjective ranking” is that
* the further you go back in time, the more extrapolation is done, introducing inaccuracies.
* it doesn’t take rating inflation into account
* knowledge of chess has increased, not in the least due to the works of the old masters.
Claiming that Aljechin is objectively better than Steinitz is like saying that Bob Smithers, lecturer in physics at City College in Bumblefak, Pennsylvania is a better physicist than Isaac Newton was. It’s pointless.
You can use the same argument to discredit most of Karpov's carrer
Steinitz dominated his contemproraries in matches not unlike Morphy and was one of the best tournament players of his time and had great longevity
He definetly deserves to be in A he's one of the few WC was both dominant and had great longevity many of the players in Tier A were never even clear #1 at any point in their carrers and have won less WC's than Steinitz did
Again if we discredit Steinitz's reign because Morphy(who through most of it did little than play some casual games with his friends) existed then we should also attribute Karpov's reign to Fischer, Anand's reign to Kasparov etc
There this trend in sports GOAT discussion that I noticed that retiring while on top instead of gradually declining through many years gives you an enourmous boost to your legacy people start attributing all of the acomplishents of your successors to you
I see this especially in chess discussions people seem to value the "magic" or an "aura" of a certain player rather than concrete acomplisments so it's better that they retire while on top before anyone can beat them before we can see that they too are human
I disagree with this approach since it essentially punishes players who decided to have long carrers
I wonder how many people would have Tal as the GOAT contender if he decided to retire in 1960 after winning the WC, how would they rank Fischer if he just came back to just to play and lose to Karpov 1975 or how would they rank Morphy if he decided to keep playing but he just for whatever reason stop dominating and just became another elite player who does welll but doesn't win most of the event he plays
I feel in many people's eyes these later loses take away the "magic" of their earlier wins and makes them think less of their prowess which is sad we shouldn't punish players for playing the game that they love even in their older years
On the other hand it's like in boxing when the top boxer doesn't need to train as much for easier opponents. If you beat the opponent you do your job. All Steinitz had to do is win the matches and if he could do it with less preparation, as he had other stuff to focus on, then that's fine. Why should you overprepare and then beat the opponent with 10 games? I'm sure Morphy would play exactly the same way. Just not care for preparation and demolish the opposition with below par play. As you need to stay motivated.
Can be defended. That sort of pioneering work maybe means you are the greatest for a flash, but then everyone else will do it better than you.
But I am not sure that Botvinnik is a full *two* steps up from Steinitz in terms of greatness.
>Can be defended. That sort of pioneering work maybe means you are the greatest for a flash
But Steinitz was the best for a very long time a top player for like over 3 decades
>but then everyone else will do it better than you
Going by this logic Morphy isn't even top 50 and most people ranked here would kick his ass if you gave them a time machine and have them challenge Morphy to a game of chess
Common sense in chess was the first chess book I ever read and shaped my play style a lot. Some of it could be considered outdated now but the fundamentals and littles rules it taught me I’ll never forget. Let’s also not forget he held the reign of WC longer than anyone, albeit it was the early 1900s
If I'm not mistaken all of Tal's wins came when fisher was 16 or younger, also I don't think it was 5/6.
But in general if your comparing a list of Chess players you shouldn't single out specific matchups. For example the only person to have a winning record against Adult fisher was Geller. Geller was a very strong player, but I'm not sure if he belongs above notable players. Some players just match up well vs others.
I've no clue how you're ranking players, but Anand beneath Botvinnik seems wrong to me, and I learned the French because of Botvinnik. Morphy in A tier is also just plain wrong, he was the OG GOAT. Morphy's death was the final condition that allowed the first official match for the Chess World Championship to be held. Morphy was Magnus tier in that a title of World Champion lost seriousness if he were not to contest it.
Where in S can be debated, but he should be in S. On so many fronts he has out achieved others. Let's take Kramnik's two biggest unique contributions:
- Dethroned Kasparov (no one has "dethroned" the other two GOATs)
- Lots of contributions to opening theory
Now, take Anand's:
- Sane (only half-joking)
- Huge influence in India (he was the first GM in 1988, India now has almost a 100)
- Put himself on the map with no help from the country (similar to Fischer here)
- 5-time world champion, in different formats (tournament, match, round-robin)
- Unfortunately no blitz championships when young, but 2017 rapid alone is insane
- Longevity (surpassed by Korchnoi)
- Played a couple of world championships in disadvantageous circumstances (v/s Karpov & v/s Topalov)
Both their biggest demerits is that they were never clearly #1
He should be in S, not GOAT. I mean, he's a 5-time world champion; although not as dominant as Kasparov and Carlsen. He's achieved enough to be at least in S (behind Karpov)
The comeback of Hikaru since Covid is probably one of the greatest comebacks ever can’t believe everyone used to say he’s washed up retired player and he’s second in the world
You can check my history. I also don't like Hikaru. Him not being on here, especially considering some of the current players who are, is silly and pure spite.
Chess isn't just Classical anymore, and it's pretty clear that Hikaru is the second best of the post-Anand era at faster formats (not to mention also reaching 2800 in Classical). I agree he's not top 10 like he seems to think, but to not even have him top 50 is laughable.
Totally, Hikaru Nakamura's skills in rapid chess are exceptional, but not having a World Championship title really stands out. Just winning chess.com tournaments doesn’t usually put you in the legend category.
Depends on how you define “great”. If you look only at talent, then very few of the older generations can rank high in today’s game. With increasing popularity and increasing knowledge comes more talented players. It’s like those top NBA players of all time lists - Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, Julius Erving, and other older guys wouldn’t even be an all-star in today’s game. But people don’t wanna admit it because it’s “disrespectful” to their legacy.
While not liking Hikaru, his extremely high level in faster time controls (not to mention him being also very high in classical) should at least be worth of consideration.
Then Karjaken and Levon have no place on it either. Quite frankly neither does Ding. And while Judit is by far the most impressive woman to ever play the game, she’s not in the top 50 of any serious ranking
Don't let 1 bad year sour Ding's awesome chess career. The 100 game unbeaten streak is godly. He had more than a year where no one in the world could beat him.
winning two candidates (and ties 2nd in another) easily qualifies as 'notable player'. Others should be included, Aronian for example, but Nepo deserves to be there
Honestly, Anand and Kramnik both should be higher. Anand was a dominant force in the period between Kasparov and Carlsen, and still managed to win the Candidates after he lost the WCC. As for Kramnik, while he’s gone off the deep end, he was still an incredible player in his own right, and just as importantly, he probably is one of, if not the greatest theoreticians in the 20th Century, especially the latter half of the century. His revitalising of the Berlin Defense and answers against the KID are still played to this day.
What's the point of putting Morphy so low, he's simply incomparable. It's clear players like Anand, Fabi or Hikaru would have washed Fischer due to the modern computer prep and all the other breakthroughs in understanding of the game. There was no one alive in Morphy's time who could even make the game competitive for him. Morphy was so good, they decided to not start world chess championships until he died as it was simply given that he would win and there would be no point. Do you realize how good you have to be for that to happen? Sure, people predict that his ELO in modern times would be around 2400 level but he got there on raw skill alone, there were no coaches, chess understanding was nowhere near then as it is now, add to that the motivation factor. He was so good that he didn't even enjoy playing the game anymore by the end, there was no one who could challenge him. Add all this, and to me he was simply incomparable. His talent was too great and he was born too early.
Or we was born at the perfect time. Maybe he wasn’t wired to want to grind chess like you have to nowadays, and would’ve explored other things (he seemed very well-rounded and generally intelligent). This way we got to see the beauty of his games
In baseball when comparing players from different eras, we compare by taking the index between a specific player stat compared to the average stat at that time. This allows for relative comparisons. The most popular modern stat right now is WAR (Wins Above Replacement), which isn't exactly indexed against the average but the idea is still the same.
I think with this philosophy Morphy will be the best player in history.
Many people wanted to play him but Morphy didn't he would refuse most challengers and mostly played against his best friend Maurian untill they stoped around 1869 when Maurian could tell Paul wasn't enjoying it
After that Paul wanted nothing to with chess he would tell who tried to challenge him "I am not a chess player" he refused to play Steinitz even when though they met and talked to each other
He simply didn't want to be a chess player but a lawyer I think he may have grew to resent the game since his reputation as a "chess guy" made it hard for anyone to treat him seriously as a lawyer it's even said that most people came from to him not seeking legal advice but to convince him to play them or someone they knew
So it's no like there no one who wanted to play but more so the opposite the man really didn't want to play anymore after 1877 there is hardly an evidence that he played chess at all
Well, yes you are right. But it also depends on how you approach the question. Both baseball and chess player continue to improve over the year. An IM today can probably beat Morphy if they were to be magically transported back to Morphys time to play one game. Same with a minor league pitcher today would dominate against Babe Ruth. We have a better understanding of the game today than yesterday, have the luxury to spend more time honing our skills, and improve other aspects of our life to be better (e.g., health and diet). Most likely players of the future will be better than anyone playing today for the same reason. So by this logic, the GOAT will always be from a pool of modern player.
Morphy can't be ranked in such lists. Of course he was much better than his peers (and even champions who came after him, like Steinitz).
I suggest that all "greatest" lists should put him aside and have a footnote clarifying that while no one has dominated his peers like Morphy, we can't rank him against other greats who had better peers due to the increased popularity of the game.
OP is using a premade template, so nakamura didn't appear, because he wasn't added
[https://tiermaker.com/create/the-50-greatest-chess-players-of-all-time-16025832](https://tiermaker.com/create/the-50-greatest-chess-players-of-all-time-16025832)
good list but I would put Karpov in the top tier considering I have seen real debate between Karpov and Fischer's order
also Topalov is criminally underrated here, he rivaled Anand/Kramnik at one point and they were the clear top 3 ahead of the rest. while ultimately I think his legacy fell a bit behind the other two, he shouldn't be 2 tiers below them and with a bunch of people who have never been #1 in rating. fun fact, Topalov was #1 in rating for over a year while Kramnik was only ever tied for #1 for one month.
Imagine if 1984-1985 world championship had been a "best of 14 games" tournament and Karpov had retired after that. He would probably be considered GOAT.
Karpov was a world champion for 10 years and dominated in those 10 years, for example his score was +13−1=22 versus Spassky at that time. I don't see Fisher dominating for so long, just because he went mad early doesn't make him a goat, although I really like him as a player.
My top 3 is Garry, magnus and then Karpov. Bobby was impressive but 10 years undisputed and then even a fide wc for another 6 years are more impressive imo
Hikaru breached 2800 in 2015, his live rating now is over 2800, only about 30 FIDE points lower than Magnus Carlsen's rating. He's having a strong comeback now, and his peak was very, very strong. He's also a great promoter of chess (his livestreams).
He should be one of the Notable Players
He's also been in 3 candidates tournaments, won major tournaments, won a 960 world championship, and has generated more attention than to chess than almost anyone in history.
Obviously have some disagreements mainly
* Steinitz easily A tier
* Topalov and Fabi easily B tier maybe even low A
* I think Ding B tier since winning WC is a big deal and Nepo should also probably be B since winning the candiates twice in a row is quite rare only all time greats did before
* Spassky A tier I feel like all the Soviet WC's between Botvinnik and Fischer are roughly on the comparable level greatness wise
Overall though nice list I agree with alot of tier placements
Chat GPT response
Creating a tier list of the top 50 chess players of all time involves subjective judgment, but I'll base my selections on historical impact, achievements, influence on the game, and overall skill level. Here is my tier list:
S-Tier:
1. Garry Kasparov 2. Magnus Carlsen 3. Bobby Fischer
A-Tier:
4. Anatoly Karpov 5. Emanuel Lasker 6. José Capablanca 7. Mikhail Botvinnik 8. Vladimir Kramnik 9. Viswanathan Anand 10. Alexander Alekhine
B-Tier:
11. Paul Morphy 12. Mikhail Tal 13. Tigran Petrosian 14. Boris Spassky 15. Vasily Smyslov 16. Wilhelm Steinitz 17. Fabiano Caruana 18. Levon Aronian 19. Ding Liren 20. Ian Nepomniachtchi
C-Tier:
21. Bent Larsen 22. Viktor Korchnoi 23. David Bronstein 24. Akiba Rubinstein 25. Wesley So 26. Gata Kamsky 27. Richard Réti 28. Teimour Radjabov 29. Alexander Grischuk 30. Judit Polgar
D-Tier:
31. Efim Geller 32. Lajos Portisch 33. Peter Leko 34. Hikaru Nakamura 35. Sergey Karjakin 36. Boris Gelfand 37. Samuel Reshevsky 38. Yasser Seirawan 39. Max Euwe 40. Mikhail Chigorin 41. Rafael Vaganian 42. Nigel Short 43. Jan Timman 44. Evgeny Bareev 45. Vassily Ivanchuk 46. Leonid Stein 47. Alexander Beliavsky 48. Peter Svidler 49. Shakhriyar Mamedyarov 50. Anish Giri
This list reflects a combination of historical significance, championship titles, and contributions to the game of chess. Different people may have varying opinions, and the list could change based on personal preferences or additional criteria.
Polgar is underrated on this list. She is the unquestionably the greatest female of all time and has competed in top 10 vs men. Her impact on chess is multifaceted. She could come out of her semi retirement and possibly win a womens championship if she desired. She is the female equivalent of Magnus if such a thing existed.
What a terrible list. Capablanca second tier, Morphy *third*? Steinitz, the father of modern chess, a *fourth* tier player? Obviously created by someone who knows very little of the history of chess and mainly looked at (estimated) ratings. Karpov ranked below Kasparov? I do not like they guy but the way he dominate chess in the 1970s and 1980s puts him at the same level.
I also see a lot of contemporary names who, 25 years from now, won’t make it onto the list.
Capablanca isn't in the top 3 goat conversation, he held his title for too short, and he couldn't win any of the major tournaments in which lasker played.
Typical Spassky underestimation. Winning 2 Candidates cycles and a WC easily gets him ahead of Keres.
The year after he lost the WC and was being treated like crap in the USSR he decided to win the USSR championship just to remind folks who he was.
A really old player the best French player at the time where France was bascically a chess center of the world
His matches against against McDonnell were one of the first documented matches one of the first documented matches between two masters many consider them the very the first "unnofficial world championship" matches
Was considered by many to be the first unofficial world champion owing to his match with McDonnell and especially his reputation as the strongest player in the world in the early 19th century.
His era ended in the years before the beginning of the early international competitive system that Staunton ushered in with the London tournament.
Bound to be controversial, and the availability of tools makes it borderline apples-and-oranges to compare this century with anything prior.
I think a lot of people disrespect Liren these days, which is unfortunate, but I also question whether he should be on this list. Magnus is still a strong favorite vs anyone, but it's hard to deny that a lot of worthy players are nipping at his heels every day. Nakamura seems worth a pick, but then it feels wrong to leave out others, and MVL seems somewhat arbitrary to include.
Polgar belongs because she shows that women have a lot of unrealized potential as a group, at a level that hasn't quite happened since. She would just be another top-ten supergm of her time if she were male, but the very fact that Polgar is humanly possible, but only happened once sp far, is remarkable and perhaps sobering.
Can't fathom Judit Polgar as Notable player... She is easily "B" category.. being the only female player to make it to 2740, since then Women's chess has gone to some great levels, but still no one can reach her heights
He was so ahead of the rest of the competition at his time . It was basically him against the world for the world championship match and he fucking won it
The elo difference between Fischer and the #2 ranked player at the time was the same as the #2 ranked player compared to the #45 ranked player.. which is insane.
Did I mention he beat the #2 ranked player 6 times in a row and went on a 20 game classical win streak?
you are comparing fischer's rating gap, to the current ratings
and made no arguments why lasker's career was weaker
Lasker had very lopsided scores in his world championships
and even he was always consistent in his tournament performances, and kept getting above Capablanca while being 50+
I always felt Fischer was overrated. He only won the championship once, was not in the top ranks for long. Felt he was overhyped cuz he was the player that managed to beat the soviet dominance, albeit for a short time
I would rate him in the S tier along with Karpov.
Anand was a phenomenon. He was a five time Champion, won the title playing in multiple formats\\versions of the championship, and is still top ranked even though he's pushing fifty! He's a definite S tier, or maybe even a GOAT behind Carlsson and Kasparov. Definitely ranked above Fischer.
I would say Caruana ranks above the last tier, fitting into A tier. Kramanik, is a B tier player even though he was a champion. He's only slightly better than Spassky.
Hikaru should be included in the notable player list, if you got Liren & Nepo in it.
I would put Morphy in the GOAT class. It’s not his fault he was born during a time when chess theory was still in its early stages. Most of these other great players had thousands of games to study. Morphy did not yet dominated his contemporaries in an unprecedented way.
My main argument for Morphy is if he was born in 1995, he would have had computers, databases, sophisticated theory, great coaching etc, and I think his ELO could have been as high as anyones on this list. The man wasn’t challenged during his time, he was just naturally gifted.
When you’re THAT much better than all of your contemporaries, I think you’d probably dominate during any era. That’s why I think he’s a GOAT
A few changes to this.
Paul Morphy goes in GOAT tier. If Fischer's brief stay at the top puts him in GOAT tier, there is no reason why Morphy shouldn't be placed there as well. He was daylights ahead of everyone that was playing the game during his era.
Vishy Anand goes in S-tier. He is a better player than Botvinnik for sure. 5 times world Champion - once in knockout format, once in tournament format and 3 times in match format. Won 2 Candidates once as a youngster and once past his peak. Arguably the second best rapid chess player of all time, he had no competition in that format till Carlsen came along. Won multiple super tournaments. Has been a top 15 player for about 35 years now. All this while coming from a country with neither the chess culture nor the resources, while having to be a victim of Russian partisan at FIDE and PCA from time-to-time. No world champion in chess history has surmounted as many odds as Vishy had to in order to reach the pinnacle of chess.
Steinitz and Spassky are both A-tier. Topalov, Caruana, Aronian and Ding Liren move to B-tier.
And Hikaru features in B-tier too. Hikaru has been a massive contributor to the chess boom and his legacy shouldn't be judged just by his chess achievements.
Unpopular opinion but Fischer just does not belong in the same tier as Carlsen or Kasparov. He can be the first/second player in the S tier along with Karpov.
Why is Spassky so low? It's the first time ever I have seen Spassky as the worst Wch in any list (not counting Liren).
I remember a Finegold lecture on this topic, where he talks about how people in the west just view Spassky as "the guy who lost to Fischer" and forgot about his other accomplishments.
I think Spassky tends to get written off because he didn't win the wch on his first attempt and subsequent overshadowing by Fischer. But people forget his strength as World Junior Champ (back when it was extremely competitive), joint 3rd at the Candidates at 19, and a pretty strong showing as world champ (including beating Fischer handily as late as the '70 Siegen Olympiad).
He was the best player of the world during most of the 60s. I guess most people doesn't even know he lost the first match, only that he lost to Fischer.
I also found it weird that Spassky was put below Petrosian
I think these 2 are interchangable Spassky's road to the title is very impressive he beat many strong players in matches including the likes of Korchnoi and Tal while Petrosian actually managed to defend his title which was a rarity in that era
OP dont know much about chess or is trolling.
I wonder what Fabi's status would have been if Magnus never took up chess. He would've been the second highest rated player in history (only a few points from the then undisputed GOAT), probably won one or two WCs etc. Godlike calculation, encyclopedic opening knowledge, always looking for a fight. And now he's just a 'notable' player behind Topalov...
To be fair I think most would agree Fabi here is underated here I think he's easily B maybe even low A
There's not a single B player I would rate above Caruana tbh
You have to include him in B for going 8.5/10 in Sinquefield 2014 alone. 3 points ahead of Magnus, whose only loss was to him. That was a 3098 tournament performance, the highest of all time!
Topalov's performance in the WCC 2005 is arguably as impressive. Caruana scored 7/7 and drew his remaining games, Topalov scored 6.5/7 in the first cycle, drew the rest of his games and became the Fide World Champion.
What I would say for them is that I've heard of them, and I wouldn't confidently claim that anyone will remember Caruana in a hundred years. I agree with OP that influence is worth something in that respect.
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something about these is haunting lol
Fabi is one of the best players of the Magnus era and one of his most consistent and strongest rivals(if not the strongest) Fabi will be remebered like just we today remember Rubinstein, Pilsbury or Keres
Ivanchuk was top 2-3 for a long time, but so is Fabi.
That's an argument for flipping the ranking. Not all of the B ranks hold up in terms of playing strength, but they made notable contributions to the game in their time. Caruana may not leave a lasting impact on the game due to the generation he's a part of, but it's impossible to deny he's still one of the strongest players to ever live.
Then we need to define 'Greatest'. Does 'Greatest' mean 'most impactful' or 'most talented' or a combination of both?
Why do we remember any of the B tier players in the long term then?
tbh probably spassky/chucky/bronstein belong there, but a bunch of the people in "notable players" definitely should be moved up
I sort of doubt he would be as high achieving if magnus weren't in the pool. I think that strong players tend to lift each other up. Obviously it's much more likely he would have been wcc, but I mean rating-wise
Yeah but it would've been him and Hikaru instead so it could've still happened. Hikaru also would've benefited from that as well
>Yeah but it would've been him and Hikaru instead What about Ding, Nepo, Karjakin?
The only thing Nepo will be remembered for is so many excellent Candidates without a WC. He'll be a chess trivia question in 40 years, and I really mean none of this as an insult.
OP fucked up by posting his opinion. He should know everyone will nitpick every decision
I thought posts like this were supposed to invite discussion and rankings. What’s the point if we all just accept it?
I accept your opinion
Accept it more!
I respect his opinion and will not nitpick at it, regardless of where I disagree. But Steinitz in B tier is objectively wrong.
Oh, nitpickery is not a problem - if you post in a discussion thread, then that is healthy as long as civilized. I'm not hailing Steinitz as much as I know others do, but as posted elsewhere, I have a few issues with Steinitz being put up a full two steps below Botvinnik. Sure Botvinnik was resilient enough to come back, but ... I guess the pyramid would look weird if the "S" tier were only four. And is Viktor The Terrible really so much greater than the Ivanchuk that even Kasparov feared? And Smyslov was WC for just one year ... Also, I think Rodrigo "Ruy" López de Segura is a "notable player" even though he is more notable for fathering opening *theory* (not so much how he actually played, which we don't know that much about) - if Philidor is on the 16 to 30 and Ruy López isn't even notable, then something is a bit off.
>Smyslov was WC for just one year But a candidate for nearly 40. Plus the most successful player in the whole history of Chess Olympiad.
As is Morphy.
Morphy has to be S-tier to me. In the GOAT category is pushing it, even if it’s something I would lean toward agreeing with. He has a super interesting double edge sword where people use the same points to make different conclusions; that being that his peers were nowhere close to as good as him, so his competition was not putting up the same resistance he would get in a modern playing field. The flip side to that is how the fuck was he that far ahead of everyone else at that time period. He was playing in the stratosphere at a time when, compared anything modern, chess resources were infantile. One could argue he has the most natural understanding of the game of anyone, ever. It’s an unanswerable question, but what would a modern Morphy look like? His brain from the 1850s but given access to all modern chess study resources. To make a proper comparison, you would either have to give Morphy the better part of 200 years of chess study/resources, or remove the better part of 200 years of chess study/resources away from modern players. Which, obv, is impossible.
I think it depends on what the criteria are. Steinitz is clearly one of the most *important* chess players ever (I'd say *the* most important), but there's also 'absolute playing strength' (as in Steinitz or Morphy would probably lose to any modern superGM) and 'relative playing strength to his contemporaries' where he wasn't clearly head-and-shoulders over the competition the way that, say, Philidor, Morphy or Kasparov were. I'm guessing that the tier list criterion is a bit of a mishmash of these ideas.
>I think it depends on what the criteria are. Steinitz is clearly one of the most *important* chess players ever (I'd say *the* most important) Important? Yes. But by that sort of criteria you \*could\* argue the IM Levy Rozman should be in notable because he has influenced more than anyone. (Definitely has done more for Chess promotion that FIDE ever has) \\Joke
Sure, but if we're going down the player-skill scale, I think Arpad Elo would be massively influential and right up at the top of the tier system in terms of his influence. Every minute of every day, someone, somewhere is making chess-related decisions (Whether or not to go to a tournament, or to click 'play' on chess.com or to offer/accept a draw in an uncertain position) on the basis of a rating system either designed by Elo, or derived from his. Other than the inventors of positional chess, I don't think anyone else comes close.
I’m just getting into chess this year so excuse the ignorance but does Steinitz deserve to be higher or lower in your opinion?
The whole purpose of a forum is to nitpick opinions
I messed up by posting my opinion
Kramnik greater than Morphy confirmed
Kramnik has statistical evidence morphy cheated OTB
Morphy's dominant performance against everyone is indeed really suspicious. I am starting petition for chess.com to thoroughly check morphy for cheating.
Well it essentially is cheating OTB when all your opponents are that much worse than you. Morphy is the original prodigy, retiring before even basic opening concepts like the Queen's Gambit were even popularised. His era was largely one where the concept of aggressive sacrifices were innovative. A leading player of the time played 1. a3 in three games in a row against Morphy. I think Reuben Fine said it best "He was so far ahead of his rivals that it is hard to find really outstanding examples of his skill" and that's about as close to cheating as you can get haha.
Time to do the procedure
Best evidence for the fact that a time machine is possible and has/will be invented
Lol Morphy was some angry middling GM from the distant future where humans are somehow like 3400 and prep is going to school for 20 years to compete and felt he was born in the wrong time to truly enjoy chess so he wanted to back to the early Fischer era in the late 50s but accidentally hit 1850 and ended up a fucking monster lmao
He also had proof Morphy cheated while playing online
Same tier makes sense. Keamnik is becoming underrated because of the whining but i'm pretty sure Hikaru had him top 10 in his rankings a few years back.
Ending the arguable GOATs reign as World Champion would merit a top 10 alone for many
Interesting
Topalov: FIDE World Champion, world #1 for longer than Vishy and Kramnik, 5th highest rating of all time -> "notable player" He should be A-tier, on par with Kramnik and Vishy.
Yeah putting him lower than B tier, basically C tier is a crazy take
Him lower than Ivanchuk is very weird. The same generation and Topalov was WC. Good list otherwise.
Topalov was "only" FIDE WC which is not quite the same title as the real WC. He lost to Kramnik in his challenge to undisputed WC.
Yes but Ivanchuk was never even #1 while Topalov was for a while. You could argue that it was harder for Ivanchuk because he's a bit older and Kasparov and Karpov were monsters but Kramnik and Anand were also amazing and Topalov was as good as them for a while. Overall they were at similar strength but I'd give the edge to Topalov for his performances in high pressure situations.
He should be higher but not at the same tier with Anand and Kramnik. He lost to both of them at world champion matches. Both of them have higher peak rating and if we count the fide world champion too both of them were champions for more years than him.
Steinitz: invented modern chess -> B-tier
All the retroactive rating calculations people have done have him never even surpassing Morphy's rating, despite him playing later. Part of the reason they held the first World Championship was because Morphy died, and nobody wanted to call themselves the world champion while he was around and unchallenged for the title (Morphy was not willing to compete in chess at that point). Steinitz's World Championship matches were also by far the most inaccurate ever, especially the one against Zukertort. I imagine these points hurt Steinitz's standing among people. And personally I do not care about theoretical contributions that much for a list like this, I just want to know how good people's competitive results are (how dominant were they and for how long?) With that said I would probably put him in A tier minimum due to just how long he was #1.
The problem with retroactive rating calculations and using it as a basis for “onjective ranking” is that * the further you go back in time, the more extrapolation is done, introducing inaccuracies. * it doesn’t take rating inflation into account * knowledge of chess has increased, not in the least due to the works of the old masters. Claiming that Aljechin is objectively better than Steinitz is like saying that Bob Smithers, lecturer in physics at City College in Bumblefak, Pennsylvania is a better physicist than Isaac Newton was. It’s pointless.
wtf is this argument? Steinitz was over 50 years old when he played Zuckertort. At that age, Kasparov was already retired for a decade.
You can use the same argument to discredit most of Karpov's carrer Steinitz dominated his contemproraries in matches not unlike Morphy and was one of the best tournament players of his time and had great longevity He definetly deserves to be in A he's one of the few WC was both dominant and had great longevity many of the players in Tier A were never even clear #1 at any point in their carrers and have won less WC's than Steinitz did Again if we discredit Steinitz's reign because Morphy(who through most of it did little than play some casual games with his friends) existed then we should also attribute Karpov's reign to Fischer, Anand's reign to Kasparov etc There this trend in sports GOAT discussion that I noticed that retiring while on top instead of gradually declining through many years gives you an enourmous boost to your legacy people start attributing all of the acomplishents of your successors to you I see this especially in chess discussions people seem to value the "magic" or an "aura" of a certain player rather than concrete acomplisments so it's better that they retire while on top before anyone can beat them before we can see that they too are human I disagree with this approach since it essentially punishes players who decided to have long carrers I wonder how many people would have Tal as the GOAT contender if he decided to retire in 1960 after winning the WC, how would they rank Fischer if he just came back to just to play and lose to Karpov 1975 or how would they rank Morphy if he decided to keep playing but he just for whatever reason stop dominating and just became another elite player who does welll but doesn't win most of the event he plays I feel in many people's eyes these later loses take away the "magic" of their earlier wins and makes them think less of their prowess which is sad we shouldn't punish players for playing the game that they love even in their older years
On the other hand it's like in boxing when the top boxer doesn't need to train as much for easier opponents. If you beat the opponent you do your job. All Steinitz had to do is win the matches and if he could do it with less preparation, as he had other stuff to focus on, then that's fine. Why should you overprepare and then beat the opponent with 10 games? I'm sure Morphy would play exactly the same way. Just not care for preparation and demolish the opposition with below par play. As you need to stay motivated.
Can be defended. That sort of pioneering work maybe means you are the greatest for a flash, but then everyone else will do it better than you. But I am not sure that Botvinnik is a full *two* steps up from Steinitz in terms of greatness.
>Can be defended. That sort of pioneering work maybe means you are the greatest for a flash But Steinitz was the best for a very long time a top player for like over 3 decades >but then everyone else will do it better than you Going by this logic Morphy isn't even top 50 and most people ranked here would kick his ass if you gave them a time machine and have them challenge Morphy to a game of chess
Lasker is an All time Great. No doubt about this. Generally those lists favor the active players.
Common sense in chess was the first chess book I ever read and shaped my play style a lot. Some of it could be considered outdated now but the fundamentals and littles rules it taught me I’ll never forget. Let’s also not forget he held the reign of WC longer than anyone, albeit it was the early 1900s
I'd put Tal and Morphy higher but overall I like the list. Thanks for the post!
Yeah, didn’t Tal beat Fischer like 5/6 of the times they played?
If I'm not mistaken all of Tal's wins came when fisher was 16 or younger, also I don't think it was 5/6. But in general if your comparing a list of Chess players you shouldn't single out specific matchups. For example the only person to have a winning record against Adult fisher was Geller. Geller was a very strong player, but I'm not sure if he belongs above notable players. Some players just match up well vs others.
Most were when Fischer was a kid if I remember correctly
I've no clue how you're ranking players, but Anand beneath Botvinnik seems wrong to me, and I learned the French because of Botvinnik. Morphy in A tier is also just plain wrong, he was the OG GOAT. Morphy's death was the final condition that allowed the first official match for the Chess World Championship to be held. Morphy was Magnus tier in that a title of World Champion lost seriousness if he were not to contest it.
Vishy deserves to be higher
Has to be S tier for sure.
For me he is like not S but not goat too he is like in middle
Where in S can be debated, but he should be in S. On so many fronts he has out achieved others. Let's take Kramnik's two biggest unique contributions: - Dethroned Kasparov (no one has "dethroned" the other two GOATs) - Lots of contributions to opening theory Now, take Anand's: - Sane (only half-joking) - Huge influence in India (he was the first GM in 1988, India now has almost a 100) - Put himself on the map with no help from the country (similar to Fischer here) - 5-time world champion, in different formats (tournament, match, round-robin) - Unfortunately no blitz championships when young, but 2017 rapid alone is insane - Longevity (surpassed by Korchnoi) - Played a couple of world championships in disadvantageous circumstances (v/s Karpov & v/s Topalov) Both their biggest demerits is that they were never clearly #1
If this were based on chess influence he’d be in GOAT tier for sure.
He has a 3-17 record vs Kasparov, they are not the same level
He should be in S, not GOAT. I mean, he's a 5-time world champion; although not as dominant as Kasparov and Carlsen. He's achieved enough to be at least in S (behind Karpov)
Somebody hates Hikaru.
Some of these people just barely crossed 2500. Hikaru is currently over 2800. Clear rage bait.
The comeback of Hikaru since Covid is probably one of the greatest comebacks ever can’t believe everyone used to say he’s washed up retired player and he’s second in the world
You can't compare elo across eras like that. It's not like Wesley So should be higher than Tal for example.
You can check my history. I also don't like Hikaru. Him not being on here, especially considering some of the current players who are, is silly and pure spite.
Doesn't everybody?
I don't like a lot of the things about him, but to deny he's a great chess player and isn't better than most of the players on this list is stupid.
He deserves to be on this list.. He is legit
There is no reason to put Hikaru on the list. It’s about **greatest**
That "notable players" section was too full eh?
your point would be more valid if it were about THE greatest, not 50 greatest
hikaru isn't in the all time top **50** players? even if you completely discard speed chess it remains a ridiculous exclusion.
Chess isn't just Classical anymore, and it's pretty clear that Hikaru is the second best of the post-Anand era at faster formats (not to mention also reaching 2800 in Classical). I agree he's not top 10 like he seems to think, but to not even have him top 50 is laughable.
Also a fisher world champ, probably the greatest bullet player ever. The Hikaru hate here because of his ego blinds people on his talent.
Has he won a single world championship OTB in any of the faster formats?
He is the current Fischer random world champion
Totally, Hikaru Nakamura's skills in rapid chess are exceptional, but not having a World Championship title really stands out. Just winning chess.com tournaments doesn’t usually put you in the legend category.
Depends on how you define “great”. If you look only at talent, then very few of the older generations can rank high in today’s game. With increasing popularity and increasing knowledge comes more talented players. It’s like those top NBA players of all time lists - Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, Julius Erving, and other older guys wouldn’t even be an all-star in today’s game. But people don’t wanna admit it because it’s “disrespectful” to their legacy.
While not liking Hikaru, his extremely high level in faster time controls (not to mention him being also very high in classical) should at least be worth of consideration.
Then Karjaken and Levon have no place on it either. Quite frankly neither does Ding. And while Judit is by far the most impressive woman to ever play the game, she’s not in the top 50 of any serious ranking
Don't let 1 bad year sour Ding's awesome chess career. The 100 game unbeaten streak is godly. He had more than a year where no one in the world could beat him.
Nepo has never broken 2800 and you left off people who have. Weird.
I agree I would have put Hikaru there - he did break 2800 in 2015, and his live rating now is over 2800, just needs to be updated for July
winning two candidates (and ties 2nd in another) easily qualifies as 'notable player'. Others should be included, Aronian for example, but Nepo deserves to be there
Honestly, Anand and Kramnik both should be higher. Anand was a dominant force in the period between Kasparov and Carlsen, and still managed to win the Candidates after he lost the WCC. As for Kramnik, while he’s gone off the deep end, he was still an incredible player in his own right, and just as importantly, he probably is one of, if not the greatest theoreticians in the 20th Century, especially the latter half of the century. His revitalising of the Berlin Defense and answers against the KID are still played to this day.
Caruana being just "notable" is insane.
Even Carlson has said Caruana is closest to him.
What did Carldaughter say?
Mikhail Tal is GOAT
What's the point of putting Morphy so low, he's simply incomparable. It's clear players like Anand, Fabi or Hikaru would have washed Fischer due to the modern computer prep and all the other breakthroughs in understanding of the game. There was no one alive in Morphy's time who could even make the game competitive for him. Morphy was so good, they decided to not start world chess championships until he died as it was simply given that he would win and there would be no point. Do you realize how good you have to be for that to happen? Sure, people predict that his ELO in modern times would be around 2400 level but he got there on raw skill alone, there were no coaches, chess understanding was nowhere near then as it is now, add to that the motivation factor. He was so good that he didn't even enjoy playing the game anymore by the end, there was no one who could challenge him. Add all this, and to me he was simply incomparable. His talent was too great and he was born too early.
Or we was born at the perfect time. Maybe he wasn’t wired to want to grind chess like you have to nowadays, and would’ve explored other things (he seemed very well-rounded and generally intelligent). This way we got to see the beauty of his games
Tal the real goat!
Mvl over Hikaru doesnt make any sense
Morphy and Vishy are 2nd tier.
Where’s Anna Taylor Joy tho
Anand is S tier atleast
Morphy is god and tal should also be higher
In baseball when comparing players from different eras, we compare by taking the index between a specific player stat compared to the average stat at that time. This allows for relative comparisons. The most popular modern stat right now is WAR (Wins Above Replacement), which isn't exactly indexed against the average but the idea is still the same. I think with this philosophy Morphy will be the best player in history.
Disagree Philidor at his peak could give pawn odds to the 2nd best player of his time and still win he's clearly GOAT
[удалено]
Many people wanted to play him but Morphy didn't he would refuse most challengers and mostly played against his best friend Maurian untill they stoped around 1869 when Maurian could tell Paul wasn't enjoying it After that Paul wanted nothing to with chess he would tell who tried to challenge him "I am not a chess player" he refused to play Steinitz even when though they met and talked to each other He simply didn't want to be a chess player but a lawyer I think he may have grew to resent the game since his reputation as a "chess guy" made it hard for anyone to treat him seriously as a lawyer it's even said that most people came from to him not seeking legal advice but to convince him to play them or someone they knew So it's no like there no one who wanted to play but more so the opposite the man really didn't want to play anymore after 1877 there is hardly an evidence that he played chess at all
Unless I am misunderstanding, couldn’t that stat also just be measuring how relatively weaker the competition was?
Well, yes you are right. But it also depends on how you approach the question. Both baseball and chess player continue to improve over the year. An IM today can probably beat Morphy if they were to be magically transported back to Morphys time to play one game. Same with a minor league pitcher today would dominate against Babe Ruth. We have a better understanding of the game today than yesterday, have the luxury to spend more time honing our skills, and improve other aspects of our life to be better (e.g., health and diet). Most likely players of the future will be better than anyone playing today for the same reason. So by this logic, the GOAT will always be from a pool of modern player.
This really frustates me too.
Morphy can't be ranked in such lists. Of course he was much better than his peers (and even champions who came after him, like Steinitz). I suggest that all "greatest" lists should put him aside and have a footnote clarifying that while no one has dominated his peers like Morphy, we can't rank him against other greats who had better peers due to the increased popularity of the game.
100% agree
Morphy is s or goat. Anand is S. Steiniz and Marshall in the same class really?
Anand is not that bad idk why people hate him
OP is using a premade template, so nakamura didn't appear, because he wasn't added [https://tiermaker.com/create/the-50-greatest-chess-players-of-all-time-16025832](https://tiermaker.com/create/the-50-greatest-chess-players-of-all-time-16025832)
good list but I would put Karpov in the top tier considering I have seen real debate between Karpov and Fischer's order also Topalov is criminally underrated here, he rivaled Anand/Kramnik at one point and they were the clear top 3 ahead of the rest. while ultimately I think his legacy fell a bit behind the other two, he shouldn't be 2 tiers below them and with a bunch of people who have never been #1 in rating. fun fact, Topalov was #1 in rating for over a year while Kramnik was only ever tied for #1 for one month.
Imagine if 1984-1985 world championship had been a "best of 14 games" tournament and Karpov had retired after that. He would probably be considered GOAT.
Karpov was a world champion for 10 years and dominated in those 10 years, for example his score was +13−1=22 versus Spassky at that time. I don't see Fisher dominating for so long, just because he went mad early doesn't make him a goat, although I really like him as a player.
Agree. I’m not an expert but Karpov always sounded like one of the top players.
Where is T1
No hikaru?
https://www.reddit.com/r/chess/comments/jv4hhv/jan_gustafsson_and_peter_heine_nielsens_list_of/ Not far off
My top 3 is Garry, magnus and then Karpov. Bobby was impressive but 10 years undisputed and then even a fide wc for another 6 years are more impressive imo
No Nakamura?
Where is Levy Gotham chess?
Hikaru breached 2800 in 2015, his live rating now is over 2800, only about 30 FIDE points lower than Magnus Carlsen's rating. He's having a strong comeback now, and his peak was very, very strong. He's also a great promoter of chess (his livestreams). He should be one of the Notable Players
He's also been in 3 candidates tournaments, won major tournaments, won a 960 world championship, and has generated more attention than to chess than almost anyone in history.
So true! Imagine if HIkaru... just did slightly better. I wished he had won the Candidates. I really wished he had
Obviously have some disagreements mainly * Steinitz easily A tier * Topalov and Fabi easily B tier maybe even low A * I think Ding B tier since winning WC is a big deal and Nepo should also probably be B since winning the candiates twice in a row is quite rare only all time greats did before * Spassky A tier I feel like all the Soviet WC's between Botvinnik and Fischer are roughly on the comparable level greatness wise Overall though nice list I agree with alot of tier placements
You have to have hikaru in
Chat GPT response Creating a tier list of the top 50 chess players of all time involves subjective judgment, but I'll base my selections on historical impact, achievements, influence on the game, and overall skill level. Here is my tier list: S-Tier: 1. Garry Kasparov 2. Magnus Carlsen 3. Bobby Fischer A-Tier: 4. Anatoly Karpov 5. Emanuel Lasker 6. José Capablanca 7. Mikhail Botvinnik 8. Vladimir Kramnik 9. Viswanathan Anand 10. Alexander Alekhine B-Tier: 11. Paul Morphy 12. Mikhail Tal 13. Tigran Petrosian 14. Boris Spassky 15. Vasily Smyslov 16. Wilhelm Steinitz 17. Fabiano Caruana 18. Levon Aronian 19. Ding Liren 20. Ian Nepomniachtchi C-Tier: 21. Bent Larsen 22. Viktor Korchnoi 23. David Bronstein 24. Akiba Rubinstein 25. Wesley So 26. Gata Kamsky 27. Richard Réti 28. Teimour Radjabov 29. Alexander Grischuk 30. Judit Polgar D-Tier: 31. Efim Geller 32. Lajos Portisch 33. Peter Leko 34. Hikaru Nakamura 35. Sergey Karjakin 36. Boris Gelfand 37. Samuel Reshevsky 38. Yasser Seirawan 39. Max Euwe 40. Mikhail Chigorin 41. Rafael Vaganian 42. Nigel Short 43. Jan Timman 44. Evgeny Bareev 45. Vassily Ivanchuk 46. Leonid Stein 47. Alexander Beliavsky 48. Peter Svidler 49. Shakhriyar Mamedyarov 50. Anish Giri This list reflects a combination of historical significance, championship titles, and contributions to the game of chess. Different people may have varying opinions, and the list could change based on personal preferences or additional criteria.
No Keres, no Topalov. So and Kamsky seem to be overrated a bit, but it's minor issue.
Morphy A tier?! He was definition of the goat. Wiping floor with anyone while handover sleep deprived. We will never know how good he could have been
Polgar is underrated on this list. She is the unquestionably the greatest female of all time and has competed in top 10 vs men. Her impact on chess is multifaceted. She could come out of her semi retirement and possibly win a womens championship if she desired. She is the female equivalent of Magnus if such a thing existed.
What a terrible list. Capablanca second tier, Morphy *third*? Steinitz, the father of modern chess, a *fourth* tier player? Obviously created by someone who knows very little of the history of chess and mainly looked at (estimated) ratings. Karpov ranked below Kasparov? I do not like they guy but the way he dominate chess in the 1970s and 1980s puts him at the same level. I also see a lot of contemporary names who, 25 years from now, won’t make it onto the list.
Capablanca isn't in the top 3 goat conversation, he held his title for too short, and he couldn't win any of the major tournaments in which lasker played.
Yeah I have Lasker above him for that reason
To me Karpov is superior to Fischer.
Karpov did make that lil kid cry on national television so Ill put him higher as well, my goat
Isn‘t Hikaru Nakamura missing in there? When Ian, Caruana and Nepo are „notable“. It is World championship challenger one of the criteria?
I think Ian and Nepo are the same person.
Ian wins games, Nepo blunders to Magnus
Typical Spassky underestimation. Winning 2 Candidates cycles and a WC easily gets him ahead of Keres. The year after he lost the WC and was being treated like crap in the USSR he decided to win the USSR championship just to remind folks who he was.
Who is Bourdonnais and why is he on the list
A really old player the best French player at the time where France was bascically a chess center of the world His matches against against McDonnell were one of the first documented matches one of the first documented matches between two masters many consider them the very the first "unnofficial world championship" matches
Was considered by many to be the first unofficial world champion owing to his match with McDonnell and especially his reputation as the strongest player in the world in the early 19th century. His era ended in the years before the beginning of the early international competitive system that Staunton ushered in with the London tournament.
My list would look different, but this is very subjective as always.
Judit Polgár should be in the S tier too
Recency bias is strong. Exacerbated by recent players having engines to support their play.
Bound to be controversial, and the availability of tools makes it borderline apples-and-oranges to compare this century with anything prior. I think a lot of people disrespect Liren these days, which is unfortunate, but I also question whether he should be on this list. Magnus is still a strong favorite vs anyone, but it's hard to deny that a lot of worthy players are nipping at his heels every day. Nakamura seems worth a pick, but then it feels wrong to leave out others, and MVL seems somewhat arbitrary to include. Polgar belongs because she shows that women have a lot of unrealized potential as a group, at a level that hasn't quite happened since. She would just be another top-ten supergm of her time if she were male, but the very fact that Polgar is humanly possible, but only happened once sp far, is remarkable and perhaps sobering.
Fabi needs to be higher in my opinion
Nakamura?
Bruh
Can't fathom Judit Polgar as Notable player... She is easily "B" category.. being the only female player to make it to 2740, since then Women's chess has gone to some great levels, but still no one can reach her heights
She's the undisputed GOAT among female chess players. Definitely top 50 when you factor in cultural impact.
Morphy belongs in his own category. Capablanca should be top of S-Tier.
Including Caruana and not Hikaru feels wrong to do
Does Nakamura not even qualify for top 50? And is Kramnik that good?
Why is Hikaru not on the list? Is this strictly classical chess? Even if so, I think Hikaru deserves a place here.
Why is Hikaru not on the list? Is this strictly classical chess? Even if so, I think Hikaru deserves a place here.
Why is Hikaru not on the list? Is this strictly classical chess? Even if so, I think Hikaru deserves a place here.
I was looking for hikaru's name
List is omega rage bait. OP came in, dropped it and left. Thanks for the upvotes he said while farming engagement.
How does Fischer have a better chess career than Karpov or Lasker?
He was so ahead of the rest of the competition at his time . It was basically him against the world for the world championship match and he fucking won it
The elo difference between Fischer and the #2 ranked player at the time was the same as the #2 ranked player compared to the #45 ranked player.. which is insane. Did I mention he beat the #2 ranked player 6 times in a row and went on a 20 game classical win streak?
you are comparing fischer's rating gap, to the current ratings and made no arguments why lasker's career was weaker Lasker had very lopsided scores in his world championships and even he was always consistent in his tournament performances, and kept getting above Capablanca while being 50+
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To put Fischer over Karpov is a blasphemy. And I love Fischer and his life story…
Wasn't he a neo nazi lol
where is hikaru????????????
Morphy has to be GOATed.
I always felt Fischer was overrated. He only won the championship once, was not in the top ranks for long. Felt he was overhyped cuz he was the player that managed to beat the soviet dominance, albeit for a short time I would rate him in the S tier along with Karpov. Anand was a phenomenon. He was a five time Champion, won the title playing in multiple formats\\versions of the championship, and is still top ranked even though he's pushing fifty! He's a definite S tier, or maybe even a GOAT behind Carlsson and Kasparov. Definitely ranked above Fischer. I would say Caruana ranks above the last tier, fitting into A tier. Kramanik, is a B tier player even though he was a champion. He's only slightly better than Spassky. Hikaru should be included in the notable player list, if you got Liren & Nepo in it.
Kramnik should be same level as Anand. Similar years world champions, equal score in their games vs each others, exactly the same peak rating.
no gothamchess?
My thoughts exactly, I mean recently ‘HE BEAAAT A GM!!!!!’
Excluding Nakamura is laughable. Bent Larsen never surpassed 2660. Najdorf never 2540. Nakamura is CURRENTLY over 2800.
Great in what aspect? Contribution to chess? Objective chess ability? If it’s based on ability then it looks like you are stuck in the past…
Whare is Levy Rozman? /s
Missing Rashid Nezhmetdinov.
Came here to say exactly this. He's at least a notable player.
I would put Morphy in the GOAT class. It’s not his fault he was born during a time when chess theory was still in its early stages. Most of these other great players had thousands of games to study. Morphy did not yet dominated his contemporaries in an unprecedented way. My main argument for Morphy is if he was born in 1995, he would have had computers, databases, sophisticated theory, great coaching etc, and I think his ELO could have been as high as anyones on this list. The man wasn’t challenged during his time, he was just naturally gifted. When you’re THAT much better than all of your contemporaries, I think you’d probably dominate during any era. That’s why I think he’s a GOAT
No Salo Flohr is a crime. But for the 2. WW he would play Aljechin and I believe he had a real chance against him. He deserves atleast A-tier.
A few changes to this. Paul Morphy goes in GOAT tier. If Fischer's brief stay at the top puts him in GOAT tier, there is no reason why Morphy shouldn't be placed there as well. He was daylights ahead of everyone that was playing the game during his era. Vishy Anand goes in S-tier. He is a better player than Botvinnik for sure. 5 times world Champion - once in knockout format, once in tournament format and 3 times in match format. Won 2 Candidates once as a youngster and once past his peak. Arguably the second best rapid chess player of all time, he had no competition in that format till Carlsen came along. Won multiple super tournaments. Has been a top 15 player for about 35 years now. All this while coming from a country with neither the chess culture nor the resources, while having to be a victim of Russian partisan at FIDE and PCA from time-to-time. No world champion in chess history has surmounted as many odds as Vishy had to in order to reach the pinnacle of chess. Steinitz and Spassky are both A-tier. Topalov, Caruana, Aronian and Ding Liren move to B-tier. And Hikaru features in B-tier too. Hikaru has been a massive contributor to the chess boom and his legacy shouldn't be judged just by his chess achievements.
Dewa Kipas = GOAT
Unpopular opinion but Fischer just does not belong in the same tier as Carlsen or Kasparov. He can be the first/second player in the S tier along with Karpov.