Bobby Fischer or Magnus Carlsen - Who's the best chess player of all-time?

[Takes Two To Tango]

Continuation to this thread.

Considering both are the highest voted.

Who's the greatest chess player of all-time?

Not an expert on this subject at all. But I'm fascinated by who people think is the best. I always found Bobby Fischer very fascinating. I love his old interviews with Dick Cavett.

forums.sherdog.com

 

[Takes Two To Tango]

Please vote, thank you.

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[Cielo_]

Isn’t magnus the guy that cheated with a butt plug?

 

[Takes Two To Tango]

Isn’t magnus the guy that cheated with a butt plug?

lol I don't know, but that's pretty awesome.

 

[Gomi1977]

Isn’t magnus the guy that cheated with a butt plug?

No, that was Hans Niemann, who alledgedly cheated like that during a match against Carlsen.

 

[Cielo_]

No, that was Hans Niemann, who alledgedly cheated like that during a match against Carlsen.

Damn would have voted Carlsen then. Thats a true testament to how good he is

 

[Gomi1977]

Damn would have voted Carlsen then. Thats a true testament to how good he is

Further analysis revealed that it was all a load of bullocks; he did admit to cheating in online games in his teens on Chess.com, but statistical analysis of his over-the-board-games showed no signs of cheating.

And Fischer is the goat.

 

[THE Red Beard]

A lot of advancements with training exist to make is so Magnus is the top dog of all time. He is so co.plete and has no weakness. He would beat Bobby handedly I think. Technology and time training leads me to believe Magnus would beat anyone historically. He's studied Bobby's games also so he'd have a huge advantage in head to head.

 

[AFanNotAFighter]

I think I would put Kasparov ahead of Fischer. Fisher at his best during his peak was incredible but that was of short duration. His well documented mental issues held him back from having a longer career at his peak. I would take Magnus over Fischer. For anyone interested this was a phenomenal biography on Fischer.

 

[TheTickG]

No idea who Magnus is, but he sounds like a power lifter. So I'm voting for Bobby.

 

[subtlySteve]

Further analysis revealed that it was all a load of bullocks; he did admit to cheating in online games in his teens on Chess.com, but statistical analysis of his over-the-board-games showed no signs of cheating.

And Fischer is the goat.

For clarity, it’s Hans Niemann who admitted to cheating online (twice), not Magnus.

 

[subtlySteve]

I think I would put Kasparov ahead of Fischer. Fisher at his best during his peak was incredible but that was of short duration. His well documented mental issues held him back from having a longer career at his peak. I would take Magnus over Fischer. For anyone interested this was a phenomenal biography on Fischer.

I read it and loved it, it was fantastic.

It's tough to compare the two because they played in such different times.

Magnus Carlsen came up during an era full of computers, tablebases, and huge game databases.

On the other hand, Bobby Fischer had to read and translate Russian texts and magazines himself to get ahead.

It's like trying to decide who was the better inventor: Alexander Graham Bell or the engineers behind the iPhone.

Where it would have gotten really interesting is if they had played a game of Chess 960 (Fischer Random) against each other.

That takes more creativity than classical chess, and that's something both Bobby and Magnus have advocated for as an alternative or complementary format to classical chess.

Which is very interesting to me personally.

 

[HereticBD]

Don't know, but I would think that like most competitive activities, the game and strategies have evolved among the elites and the guys today are probably better than the old guard.

 

[aunshi189]

You need @JoeyJoeJoeJr in this poll

 

[Sweater of AV]

The usual choices are Carlsen, Kasparov, and Fischer. Each has their merits. Fischer was dominant against his peers and had to overcome significant odds to take the world championship away from the Soviets. Kasparov had the longest time as world champion out of the three. Carlsen has been on top for a long period of time, has the highest ELO rating in history etc.

The main argument against Fischer is his time on top was too short. Strictly speaking, the best player we've ever seen is Carlsen imho. The knowledge and resources available today coupled with his skills and natural talent would make it very difficult for Fischer in his time to beat him. There are also so many formats nowadays and Carlsen is the best in all of them.

Chess has become as much about memorization as anything else and Fischer hated chess because of it. Someone mentioned Fischer-Random where the pieces in the back row are randomized. It would have been interesting to see all three compete against each other in an environment like that but I think Carlsen would still generally be victorious. He's been great in the Fischer-Random events he's played in. Carlsen's ability to play from any position with high accuracy is second to none. You can especially see it in his end-game dominance. That being said, Fischer could certainly end up winning but I personally wouldn't bet on it.

Just to clear up something mentioned. Hans Niemann was accused of cheating by Carlsen because Niemann beat him over the board. There was never any solid proof that Niemann cheated although he admitted to cheating online a couple of times when he was younger. He also couldn't really analyze aspects of the games afterwards at a level you would expect from someone that was beating top players. The anal beads thing was a silly comment made online that caught fire because people are idiots.

 

[Friendly Farmer]

Magnus. The guy is out of this world. He also got a lot of kids worldwide interested in chess, which is wonderful.

 

[Kowboy On Sherdog]

You need @JoeyJoeJoeJr in this poll

We don't deserve J4

 

[aerius]

Magnus. He's a legit drunken master who casually beats grandmasters while drunk off his ass and rapping along to Dre.

 

[Tone C]

We don't deserve J4

Nobody does....

 

[Ezekiel 25:17]

Would never know unless both played each other at their peak which is obviously impossible......for now