What about Nimzowitsch?

NO. We have to draw the line somewhere.

I wouldn't call Nimzowitsch scandinavian. He was born in Latvia and moved to Denmark only in his 40s if I am not mistaken.. Same with Korchnoi - I don't think many people would call him a Swiss?

So why is it that 99.99% of players from Latvia seem insanely strong, or at least of all insanely strong players a ton of them are from Latvia? Erm, the be kind of on topic... who's the strongest Latvian to never win the world championship?

If you look at chessmetrics Fischer's score in rating for the 1992 mathc is well behind other top players' performance at age 49, thisplus Karpov's huge score versus spassky are stong argument'sin Karpov's favour.

re. the best non champion - which non champins were actually the best players in the world at some time?

Rubenstein 1909 perhaps, Korchnoi in 1978? I know he lost the match but he played the best chess IMHO and he had a fraction of the support Karpov had.

Clearly alekhine was not best from 1938-46 but who was best then? Botvinnik from 1941. I always liked Pillsbury but feel that Lasker was always the better player overall.

If you dont want to get a warning for trolling or flaming here, it seems that your supposed to name Hikaru Nakamura

Keres and Korchnoi are two strong candidates for that title. And David Bronstein of course.

Haha. Are you and Dire gay pals or something?
Both you and Dire are way out of line here.
I would suggest that you lift the ban for quickfetus and give him an apology for your trolling in this thread.
The Scandinavian may be mediocre, but not because of this game
Kasparov was well prepared? Hmm... This game provides proof that he had barely looked at this opening at all.
The move 8.f4 is simply horrible and black was close to winning as early as move 15 (Unless you can find some defence with new Rybka analyses.)

In all seriousness, I think Nakamura would be a favourite over every non-world champion mentioned in this thread if you somehow froze them in their best year and transported them to 2009 to play a match tomorrow. Or in some (hard to measure) sense, plays higher quality chess than they did. (Similarly the other zillions players currently over 2700).

Which doesn't necessarily mean he's a "greater" player.

I think it's Kortchnoi and it's not really that close. Keres was obviously strong but never even managed to get through the candidates matches once. Korchnoi made it to the finals three times. Bronstein held Botvinik to a tie, but Botvinik was not really too impressive in his attempts at defending the title (lost it to Smyslov, Tal, and Petrosian, and tied with Bronstein).

As for the Kasparov scandanavian, Dire - you are only getting jumped on for saying Anand was dead and had no chances when that wasn't the case whether due to Anand's prep or Kasparov's lack thereof. I don't think anyone on this board is sitting here saying "god, what is wrong with Topalov, doesn't he realize how awesome the Scandi is?".

This is sort of an insane statement since Naka would definitely be a dog vs a handful of non-champions who are still active today. Although I don't remember who all was mentioned int his thread.

Іванчук?

That means Ivanchuk, right?

fwiw I didn't ban quickfetus and he's not banned for anything chess-related. I will ban people for repeated personal abuse though.

Who got closest to being champion? Schlecter only had to draw the 10t game ( though some say he needed a 2 point win) And he had a better position at one stage.
Though to be fair the game Schlecter actually won vs lasker te queen and rookending was a lucky win for him as the game isthe boks a s an example of great endgame play by lasker tillSchelcter's last try counterattack braks through.

Also Korchnoi gets to5-5 vs Karpov -If korchnoi had tried to hold a draw with black rather thanplay a dodgy linein the pirc he may have got the win.

Bronstein was so close at 12-12 and that match was so up and down.

On blance i think Bronstein was closest o becoming champ but Korchnoi was the best player not to be champ.

Kasparov once said ( I don't remember how long ago ) that the only players that "really understood chess" that were still active at the time other than himself were Karpov, Kramnik, Anand and Ivanchuk.

Do you think Ivanchuk has the tournament results needed to be in the discussion? Despite his prolific play, I don't see a lot of major tournament wins.

Well, he won Linares several times (in a dominating way in 1991, e.g.), Wijk, was European Champion and has won a lot of other tournaments. In recent times for example, he won the Sofia MTel Masters, Linares, Bazna and the Jermuk GP.

He definitely belongs in this thread.

Efim Geller is underrated imo, I wouldn't put him at the top of my list but definitely much higher than Ivanchuk.

Not to mention the world championship match Vs Ponomariov
where he lost only due to his bad nerves...

Ajezz deliberately didn't mention that i believe

He thinks, and i have to agree, that the only world champions after Kasparov were Kramnik and Anand. There are some problems with this line though (e.g. what about Shirov who won the right to play Kasparov instead of Kramnik?).

Rubinstein all the way!

Fine
Keres
Korchnoi
Reshevsky
Rubinstein

in that order.

I think all of the likely candidates have been mentioned several times with a few surprising additions. Bronstein is my favourite player and I wish he'd won that Game 24 and I've always admired Korchnoi and the fighting spirit that also brought him to within 1 victory of the title. Both would have been worthy champions. Bent Larsen was one of the top half-dozen players in the world for a long time but could never have been seen as the world's best due to his career spanning those of champions like Botvinnik, Tal, Spassky and Fischer.

Carl Schlecter's match and tournament results don't nearly qualify him for consideration, Rubinstein was a far greater player but I believe the only person of the time that could have legitimately beaten Lasker over the full distance (first to 6/10 wins or 12.5 points) was Harry Nelson Pillsbury. Hastings 1895 is one of the single most impressive tournament victories in the history of Chess and his lifetime record vs Lasker was an excellent (+5-5=4). Vs Schlecter he was (+8-2=9).

Two other American challengers, Reshevsky and Fine, were also amongst the world's strongest. Fine's head-to-head record vs his contemporaries is extremely impressive but his unwillingness to participate in the 1948 World Chess Championship Tournament effectively ended his 'challenger' status, amazingly he also failed to ever win the US Championships. Reshevsky's best chance came in the 1953 Candidates tournament but he played under the now acknowledged handicap of having to fight vs the Soviet players in every game whilst they gave each other easy draws. He also won 8 US Championships and didn't lose a match until he was 57, a streak that includes the now notorious unfinished match vs Fischer that ended with the honours even. I would put him 2nd on my list behind Paul II.

Paul Keres finished 2nd in 4 of the 6 Candidates Tournaments that he participated in, although his best chance for the title passed him by with the start of WWII. Having tied with Fine in winning the 1938 AVRO Tournament, but edging their individual match 1.5-.5, Keres was due to challenge Alekhine for the title, negotiations came to an end by 1941 but there's no doubt in my mind that he would have won such a match very comfortably.

Indeed he only lost one match in his entire career, to Spassky in 1965, fully 27 years after the AVRO tournament that could have brought him the title. Due to his Estonian roots he was often treated poorly by those that made the decisions in Soviet Chess, having to agree quick draws vs his countrymen when he was the stronger player definitely hurt his results.

Of all the players I've named I believe Keres is the only one that was legitimately the best in the world when someone else was champion, the fact that he never got to test his superlative record in a World Championship match is a crying shame, if he'd won the title before or during WWII he could have been one of the longest reigning champions the game has ever seen.

phil ivey

In retrospect I think I've been too harsh on Rubinstein, he probably was the best player in the world for a few years and, if he'd been able to find the necessary funds to challenge Lasker, would have had every chance of winning the title. Also, Tarrasch was arguably the best in the world between 1888-1893 but he refused a match vs Steinitz and then Lasker wouldn't play him until he was long past his prime.

The whole issue is so subjective that I could be persuaded to change around the order of any top 5 or top 10 list that I make but Keres would always be my first choice.

Or Phil Ivey.