The vote was only 35-32 against.

On the Fischer v Karpov debate Fischer's ranking was 2780 which is far higher than that achieved by Karpov in the period 1975 - 1985.Fischer was only 29 in 1972 so he had a few years left in him all other things being equal.

Well, of course had Bobby been remotely stable he likely would've become champ earlier and certainly held it much longer. He chose not to play the 1964 Interzonal over Soviet collusion concerns, and he withdrew from the 1967 Interzonal, after starting out 8.5-1.5, over scheduling disputes regarding his religious observances.

Very easy to imagine him being champ from at least '69-'87, tho he was 1-3-8 v Petrosian prior to 1970, with two losses as White, and 0-3-2 v Spassky prior to Reykjavik, all losses as Black, both draws as White.

And Kasparov completely destroyed him with Anand having a terrible position and zero chances the entire game, even though Kasparov certainly could not have expected such an opening. Anand never played it again.

Even the staunchest and strongest supporter of the scandinavian, Tiviakov, was very modest in his explanation of why he likes it: "...the reputation of the scandinavian defense is much worse than the positions arising from it. And what else could be worse than the positions arising from the Dragon where black can lose by force?"

fact is: Fisher was like he was. Without his craziness, he might never have become the strongest chess player in the 1st place. I think Karpov deserved the title after the way Fisher negotiated the WC-match and he proved to be the best for at least a decade afterwards in many tournaments.

OT: I think Korchnoi doesn't really qualify, he was a ferocious fighter but not with the same creativity or contribution to chess in general as the likes of Bronstein or Keres. Larsen also had the fighting spirit and lots of creativity, but tbh he never even came close to a WC match.

Great thread OP, a really interesting topic to discuss IMO.

As far as I am concerned, it is really hard to name just one person. The likes of Keres, Korchnoi, Bronstein, Larsen all pop up in my mind immediately when I hear this question, but I think that some of the modern players shouldn't be forgotten too, for example Ivanchuk, who has been in a very top for what, over 20 years? Yes, he is not really stable and etc., but one cannot doubt his genius in chess.

Also, could someone define to me what do yall mean by the "Greatest" ITT?

One person I'm half surprised about is actually Shirov. He has a plus score against some quite strong opponents: Kramnik and Topalov to name a couple. I'm guessing the problem has always just been that he's unbalanced. While he has a plus score against them, he's always been just absolutely destroyed by Kasparov and Anand. Maybe if/when Anand retires, we will see his surging to the top!

Yes but posters are taking the view that he could not have got back to near his best after taking time off after 1972.I think that if he had played in 1975 he would have been a stronger player than Karpov throughout the seventies (Fischer's ranking was 2780,Karpov's 2700).In my view Karpov was very lucky that he got a window between the early retirement of Fischer and the arrival of Kasparov.

You're just wrong, this is nonsense. Both GM Alburt and IM Watson have observed that black was better early on. Look at the game or again or check a strong player's notes. Kasparov won because he was a better player then Anand and generally beat him far more often than he lost to him.

I have looked over the game.

I'll ask the simple question. If black was better out of the opening, then why did Anand decide to never play it again? For that matter why did no strong player ever repeat in his footsteps? Of the few high level games (black rating 2600+) why is white scoring +2 =2 -0? Why do you have to go all the way down to the 2400's to find an opponent play it as black and win without outrating his opponent by 200+ points, and even in that game it was just thanks to white blundering away an exchange?

I have no idea what Alburt or Watson saw there, but there seems to be no evidence to support their idea and it seems no strong player agrees with them. Even they aren't willing to put their game where their mouth is as I see neither of them has ever played it either.

Gotta be something here. Black is apparently getting an opening advantage versus Kasparov, but nobody choose to ever play it again? Doesn't make much sense now does it?

EDIT: And all of this was based on the very early stages of the opening, starting after Anand's 6. .. Be6.

Whatever, it's known that black was doing well in the opening, it's not my problem if you think your judgement is more valid than that of far stronger players. Cool database search though!

Edit: I'm pretty sure Kasparov himself annotated the game and said black was doing well early on.

lol sample size, lol annotation by result.

Never said I was humble. Appeals to authority don't really mean much to me when their stances go against all logic and data otherwise available.

It's not my problem if you find it reasonable to suggest black soundly got a better position against Kasparov in a game, yet the moves were never once repeated afterwords. If you have any link Kasparov analysis, I'd love to see it. The only analysis I could find of the game was in german, and my german is quite rusty.

Are you really this dense? If black actually soundly obtained a better position, you would have a sample size. If black actually soundly obtained a better position, you'd have differing results than 2600+ players being slaughtered on the black side.

Strong players did not repeat the opening, because it is not good/promising.

Black is consistently losing in the very few games played in this line, because his position is not good.

This is not rocket science.

Ok, I quote the relevant notes from Watson's critically acclaimed "Secrets of Modern Chess Strategy." Exclams/Question marks etc. are his.

Kasparov-Anand, PCA World Championship

1. e4 d5 2. ed5 Qd5 3. Nc3 Qa5 4. d4 Nf6 5. Nf3 c6 6. Ne5 Be6! 7. Bd3 Nbd7 8. f4 g6 9. 0-0 Bg7 10. Kh1 Bf5! 11. Bc4?! e6 12. Be2

"Kasparov mentions 12. Nxd7 Kxd7 13. Be3 Rhd8 with a slight advantage for Black."

12...h5 13. Be3 Rd8 14. Bg1 0-0 15. Bf3 Nd5! 16. Nxd5 exd5

"Kasparov gives 16...cxd5 here, with some advantage."

17. Bf2 Qc7 18. Rc1 f6 19. Nd3 Rfe8

"Black has a small advantage due to his somewhat better placed pieces."

Ok thread hijack over. Unless Dire wants to argue against Kasparov.

Obviously Kasaparov is trying to encourage his opponents to play the line because he knows it is awful

omg why didn't I get that

Level 4 joke imo.

Will look over the analysis after my session today. I don't think Kasparov was too concerned about facing the scandinavian again. And I don't think Anand was too anxious to ever play the scandinavian again either.

You might be clinically incapable of admitting that you're wrong.

WTF is even being argued anymore? Is it whether or not the Scandinavian is a good/ok opening at GM level? Or is it this quote:

If it's the second, Dire just give up. Kasparov et al think Anand was better at some points in the game. Rybka thinks Anand was better at certain points. And Kasparov's specific move order has rarely/never been repeated at high levels even when the Qa5 Scandi is played by black.

No, I will admit I overestimated Kasparov's position - Anand was not completely dead, since Kasparov did make some mistakes. I will also say that the scandinavian is mediocre at best. I mean that game is again an example of that, Anand obviously prepared that beforehand and Kasparov obviously had zero expectation of him ever playing it. The comments I read describing his actions after 1. .. d5?! by Anand were that Kasparov took off his jacket and started making faces. And that game is the best the second or third best player in the world could muster up.

Like pretty much anything that doesn't lose by force, it's fine at the amateur level. But there's a reason the scandi is nonexistent at the top levels.

"Anand was not completely dead" no ****, he was better dumbass.

You say this game is an example of how the Scandinavian is mediocre at best. . . right, a game where someone is better early on against Kasparov (according to Kasparov himself) is an example of an opening's weakness. You are such a moron.

Wow, calm down man.

The point I was making here is that Anand obviously prepared this ahead of time, and Kasparov was obviously shocked. But in spite of all of this preparation by one of the best players ever catching his opponent completely off guard and having his opponent play admittedly subpar, the best he could lay claim to is some abstract advantage which pretty quickly turned into a loss.

Imagine how this game would have turned out if Kasparov had even the slightest inclining that his opponent might have chosen the scandinavian.

It certainly sounds like the Scandinavian might get you in trouble if you ever get paired against a well prepared 2850+ player who has been world champion for 10 years. In that case may I suggest the Sicilian Najdorf instead, he'll probably have a tougher time there. Keep the Scandinavian for beating up weaklings at the 2650 level and below.

Roundtower, this might be an opportunity to use mod power to get this thread that was interesting back on track and move the scandi discussion somewhere else

OK, you can all go back to discussing Keres/Bronstein/Korchnoi and it's only a matter of time before some American suggests Marshall or Fine or Eric Schiller.

I'm not going to move all the Scandinavian stuff out of this thread, if someone is genuinely interested in debating the merits of it they can start a new thread and I'll merge it then. From now on, the only Scandinavian allowed in this thread is Bent Larsen.