Not going strictly by ELO here, but he's completely dominating the chess world right now. I'd have to think he'd be favored in a match against any player in history.

Perhaps. Not that much is known about how well Carlsen performs in match play but I feel like 2000s Kasparov would be very similar strength to the current Magnus but with far greater match experience Kasparov would be my pick in a match of a decent length. So apart from maybe Kasparov at his best, I think Carlsen seems to be playing the strongest chess ever played by a human.

I think he's absolutely cemented his place amongst The all time top 3 though and nobody except maybe Capablanca has shown the extent of domination over their contemporaries as Fischer, Kasparov and Carlsen.

One thing is for sure is that right now it's really exciting to watch Carlsen play and observe his progress. 2900 and WC next year? Looks likely.

Have to agree with this.

Yes.

To be 60+ points clear of everyone in this generation where computers have enhanced our understanding so much, everyone's theoretical knowledge is vast and quite a decent % of non-Carlsen games go pretty smoothly from Houdini-prep to draw agreed is a phenomenal achievement. You only have to look at how bunched up it is otherwise & how many players are within 60 points of Aronian on the other side.

Kasparov never showed the same class at beating 2750+ players with quite the same regularity from equalish positions. It's simply impossible these days for anyone to get the same opening advantages he got. If you let Kasparov be at his best, in this generation and improving with it he wouldn't be that far off Carlsen but he wouldn't be as good as an overall player. If you directly compare to quality of chess of say 1998 Kasparov to 2013 Carlsen, then it isn't even close - Carlsen is levels above.

Obviously Carlsen will have to win the WC, stay around for a while longer etc before he can be considered the greatest, but he is the best.

No, he isn't.

Simply because I think it is not possible to compare players of different generations. Every generation learns and has access to knowledge that the generations before them have worked out. Does Carlsen play better chess than Botvinnik, Aljechin, Lasker or Morphy? Probably. But does this mean he is a better player than these guys were? I don't think so.

Also, I think the "OMG he is rated 100 points avove the 2nd rated player" argument is invalid. Imagine Kramnik or Aronian having a rating of 2850. Would this make Carlsen a better or worse player? No, it doesn't influence his strength. Kasparov was hell of a player even though for most of his career he had a player in Karpov that was equal in strength to him.

Also, I think it's much to early in Carlsen's career to evaluate his overall position among the all-time best.

This is a good way to answer the question. There's obviously no way to know which player is best but if Capablanca or Fisher could be resurrected at the peak of their playing abilities, how many people would bet on them to beat today's Carlsen in a 24 game match?

I think this topic is only discussing Carlsen's playing level in absolute terms, not relative. That being said, the likes of Capablanca or Morphy have absolutely no chance against him. Of older/inactive players only Kasparov, Karpov, and Fischer would stand a chance in a long match.

It's impossible to compare players from different generations simply because each one has the benefit of the previous one to fall back on. A more interesting question is how much innovation they brought to their respective eras.

Nimzovich and Reti may have introduced a lot of new ideas in the 1920s but Alekhine was the one who took these on board as well as traditional attacking values to become World Champion.

Equally Botvinnik was part of a movement in the Soviet School of Chess which included Bronstein, Keres, Smyslov and Tal. One can argue who brought the more innovation but Botvinnik led that generation by assimilating it all together in one package.

Fischer was a standout in his peer group if only for the fact that he worked almost exclusively alone. He brought together a great deal of learnt knowledge and added an intensity to the game which was lacking from his contempories.

Karpov/ Kasparov is more my era and to be honest they were both pretty dominant in their own way. After winning the WC by default, Karpov embarked on an amazing run of tournament results where he seemed to be able to dominate fields of any strength. Kasparov brought back some of the Fischer intensity but coupled it with an even greater level of preparation. The information age was starting up and Chessbase was becoming the tool of choice. Prior to this it would have been possible to keep a new move and use it more than once before it became public knowledge. Now there was greater scrutiny on every new TN and Kasparov's preparation was taking all this into account as well as coming up with novelties of his own.

Arguably now that computers have reached the level they have players have changed as well. Carlsen in particular seems capable of ekeing out the smallest of advantages into a win by making moves that while they may not be "best" dont lose any advantage and keep the opponent working on his defence. It's almost like watching water dripping on a stone - it may take a long time but eventually erosion will take place!

I think in a game against peak Kasparov he would score 70%. As Nakamura said:


Kasparovs main advantage was his opening prep skillz. Carlsen today have better knowledge of openings. And his middle game skillz is much better having grown up with computers his intuition is just better. And we all know if there is one player who is really good at winning drawn endgames it's Magnus.

Cmon even as a kid he did draw Kasparov effortless:


(yes I'm a fanboy)

I think the answer is clearly yes simply because he's radically changing chess at a time when the game was/is not only being played at an incredibly high standard but also starting seem to be very set in its ways. You go to the board, exchange memorized Houdini lines while trying to uncork your novelty. If nobody blunders then you quickly agree to a draw and repeat the process tomorrow. Now comes along Magnus and he is not only playing pseudo-random openings that are far from intricately prepared, but he is basically never agreeing to draws unless the position is absolutely dead and devoid of any practical winning chances whatsoever. And in doing so he's done a great job of showing that the technique of these world class players is simply lacking, making all their premature draws look even more inappropriate.

Also today there are more parents than ever grinding their children into chess from extremely young ages. Magnus not only grew up during this generation but has far surpassed all of the other 'wunderkind'. And of course, his name is Magnus. That's just awesome.. well at least as long as you end up best in the world at something.

Agree with this--he wins games.

Analyst, in the Tata thread, produced some 2011-present stats showing that Carlsen is performing a cut about the rest of the top 5, even when just looking at his performance against them.

Now, he isn't beating them at will, but he is performing at 2880 against 2780 competition, with just one loss--remarkable.

I'm a fan of matchplay as a metric of chess dominance and I hope we'll see a great match with Carlsen soon. But Carlsen is clearly playing the best chess right now, no doubt, and I happen to think that, generally, chess players are improving over time.

This is absolutely true. I want to add that this puts Magnus in a league with other great players who did the same thing at their time. Most notably Alekhine, who shattered the notion of the "draw death" from the Capablanca era to pieces, and Kasparov who broke into the super tournament scene dominated won by Karpov who tried to beat everyone with white and allowed them the Zaitsev repetition with black.

It's also instructive to look at the rest of the crowd at the end of the 70s. Players like Hort, Kavalek and some others repeatedly scored something like +1 -1 =15. Lots of games were highly dry affairs. Kasparov changed the dominant style completely.

Now the Kasparov approach seems to run dry, along comes Carlsen, changes (in a way) back to the old ways of playing "simple chess" but on a completely different level and with an ambition and fighting spirit previously unknown.

I don't think you can really compare the two eras. It was just a different style of chess in the 90s where it was possible to prepare openings and win alot of games based on opening preparation alone. It wasn't just Kasparov, but all the top players of that era Anand, Kramnik, Topalov, Leko, and even Karpov won a lot of games in the same way.

Now opening knowledge has progressed to such an extent that it's no longer possible to win like this. So today's top players just have to strive for some kind of double edged position and just play chess, so we have these pragmatic players at the top like Aronian, Carlsen, Nakamura, Radjabov, and even Kramnik has sort of changed his style a little bit in that direction. By the way, opening preparation is still incredibly important in today's game. Carlsen played the Ponziani and won a nice game against Harikrishna, but it's not just him screwing around - he definitely looked at this opening before hand and was prepared with ideas for how to get a complicated position in all the lines.
It's a different skill from looking at the main line Najdorf and trying to find a forced win, but it's still a skill of top players.

Imo, all the great players adapt to the eras they are playing in - I'm sure if Carlsen was playing in the 90s he would have been a great opening expert and if Kasparov was playing today he would strengthen his endgame technique to stay on top.

Her's my list:
Fischer
Kasparov
Calsen
Lasker
Capa
Karpov
Botvinnik

Yes I left Alekhine off. And I hate his namesake opening. He's next though

i just think some here forgot how karpov did dominated his peers for a very long time like carlsen is now, only much longer then carlsen imo.

Carlsen is amazing but he needs to dominate a bit more longer imo if u want to compare him to capablanca or karpov dominating era.


Carlseen need to play some match in WC match, tourney alone cant be the only factor to say who s the greatest of all time.

match and tourney are way more different to gauge the best player imo.

Bring everyone back from the dead in their prime as they were with no change in knowledge...I think Magnus beats everyone until he gets to Kasparov and Fischer.

Against Fischer the talent is probably a wash, which is a huge thing to say (Fischer after all inherited his brain from a Theoretical physicist who critiqued the entire encyclopedia) but Magnus's opening knowledge is too big of an edge.

The fight with Kasparov would be long and bloody. Talent may go to Magnus but preparation goes clearly to Kasparov and Magnus's fighting spirit hasn't even really been tested. I guess it comes down to how much difference 15 years make in opening theory.