I was once told that on winning the World Championship, Fischer lost Elo points as he should have won it by a better score. This was pointed out to me in a context of who is better: Kasparov or Fischer. My interlocutor argued that there had been inflation in the Elo ratings and Fischer at his strongest was stronger than Kasparov.

Any thoughts?

This might interest you.

FIDE Chess Rating Inflation

No one will ever know.

If you ask various chessplayers their opinion on this, the ones who will say Fischer are mostly American and the ones who say Kasparov are from all over the world. Obviously this isn't evidence in itself, but it suggests that there isn't much to back up your interlocutor's claim.

Personally I think rating inflation has been minimal. There are more grandmasters now because there are more chessplayers, and the top players of today play significantly better than the top players of 30 years ago. However a lot of people disagree.

I agree. Probably #50 in the world today is about equal to strength to #10 in the world from Fischer's day.

There's pretty strong evidence for inflation. If trying to compare Fischer and Kasparov, it might be more useful to look at who had a higher rating advantage over their peers, rather than comparing absolute ELO ratings.

Ratings are not a good way to measure absolute strength - they only measure your strength relative to your peers. There's no doubt in my mind that Fischer at his peak was further ahead of his peers, but Kasparov maintained his dominance over a longer period of time, and had Karpov not existed, would have had a Fischer-like level of superiority over all comers.

Wouldn't a better way be to look at their games and determine who seemed more brilliant?

It's been raised in other threads, but it probably bears repeating here. Players today have the benefit of playing on the Internet, as well as the benefit of today's chess computer engines at their disposal as opponents and for analysis.

That has to matter.

The bar for brilliance gets set higher throughout time. Also almost everyone gives more credit to flashy moves when it comes to determining brilliance.

They were both unbelievably great and dominant players, and I think it's almost impossible to surmise what would have happened if they got to play at their peaks on a level playing field (ie, no 30 years of extra opening theory and chess development for Kasparov). Both guys dominated everyone in the world for the peaks of their careers (Kasparov's peak was much longer but his dominance slightly lower), it's difficult to give reasons why one would lose to the other.

Fischer did for a while take on and crush the entire Soviet chess machine pretty much single-handed though.

This is an interesting article, but I would like to see it also adjust for the number of players. Comparing #11-#50 in 1972 to #11-#50 in 1990 doesn't mean much if there are 5 times as many rated players in 1990 as there were in 1972. You'd have to compare 1990's #11-#211 (averaged) vs. 1972's #11-#50 (if you wanted to ignore the top 10, as this study did). Or something like that anyway, the details of exactly how best to adjust would be something I'd have to think about.

The author's conclusion that something changed in 1985 is reasonable based on the data he presents, but it's entirely possible that that "something" was an explosion in number of chess players. Does anyone know how many people were on FIDE's rating lists in various years, or where to find that info? Or for that matter, does anyone know how many titled GMs there were? That could be an alternative adjustment factor to use...

I don't know who was better, but they were both jerks. Fischer was a bigger jerk, though.

This.

Cant we just have Fritz analyze all their top games and tell us.

FYP. Rybka >>>>>>> Fritz

Actually I think Fritz was better in its time than Rybka, but rating inflation means Rybka looks better. Can't we have Anand analyse both of their games and settle this once and for all?

Rybka right now is better than Fritz ever was, period. This is not a debate that people into computer chess have.

lol.

Infinitely more tactful than every response I was considering.

"For 24 hours a day for 15 months (from February 2007 through May 2008), 12 computing threads (on three Intel quad-core Q6600 computers running at 3.0 GHz) analyzed the games of the World Champions."

http://www.truechess.com/web/champs.html

The Greatest Was ...
I think you can reach your own conclusion! And of course, it depends -- what are the necessary qualifications for the world's greatest chess player?

Was Kasparov really that dominant? Looking at his five matches against Karpov:

1) Karpov Leading 5-3 when match got canceled
2) Kasparov wins 13-11
3) Kasparov wins 12.5-11.5
4) Draw 12 -12
5) Kasparov wins 12.5-11.5

Is this considered dominating your rival (serious, not being sarcastic) or did he not peak until Karpov faded?

TNBishop, Karpov at his peak was unbelievably strong and one of the most dominant champions ever. The only reason you're not here debating Karpov vs Fischer is because of Kasparov. Consistently and decisively defeating Karpov over lengthy matches is a phenomenal feat. But it's also a given that Kasparov just became that much stronger after his matches with Karpov.

I thought Karpov is the guy with the most tournament wins to his credit.

Dominated the tourneys for years and killed everyone else in matches until Kramnik. What can you do, Karpov was v strong.

Ah, I didn't know that. So Kasparov became even stronger after battling Karpov...

Is it possible Karpov would've peaked higher had he battled Fischer for the title?