On a more serious note, i think an exact ranking is hard to achieve. I would put them into categories:

A) Kasparov, Karpov, Botvinnik, Lasker (won against multiple opponents, were considered best of their time for more than a few years)
B) Fischer, Steinitz, Kramnik, Anand, Alekhine, Capablanca (Fischer would have made A had he defended his title)
C) Euwe, Spassky Smyslow, Tal, Petrosian.

Maybe Botvinnik could be shifted to b) and Alekhine or Capa to a). Matter of taste i guess.

Wasn't Steinitz considerably weaker than the other 14, in absolute strength? He might be 2200 fide today, and particularly weak in the opening.

It's a bit worrying that I've had or read games collections by all of these bar 3 - Anand, Kramnik and Euwe. Maybe I need to update my collection to take them in!

I probably learnt more from Botvinnik, Petrosian, Capablanca and Karpov in no particular order and admired but never completely understood Kasparov and Alekhine.

However by far the most entertaining was Tal and yet along with most people I dont rate him as highly as the others mainly because of his short tenure.

But going back to the original post I should have just answered "no idea" since I cant really compare someone if I havent seen many of his games and although I've grown up with Anand none of his games seemed to catch my imagination.

Aside from people who follow chess, who ever heard of Anand? Not in the top 20. Would change if Anand beats Carlsen.

I will never accept Smyslov near the top of the list for one fact...He had a chance to play Hubner in a rapid match to see who advances in their candidates match....Smyslov choose to spin a roulette wheel instead

Kasparov
Petrosian
Alekhine
Capablanca
Karpov
Lasker
Botvinik
Spassky
Euwe
Kramnik
Morphy
Anand
Steinitz
Fischer
Tal
Smyslov

Rapid match or spin the wheel? Think a lot of 'em woulda given that wheel a good ol' spin. Depends how we define rapid though I guess.

Anand? Below Kasparov and below Carlsen. Silly lists in this thread.

Well...except for Kramnik 2000.

do you have a source on that? I never heard that they had the option to play it out.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_H%C3%BCbner


From the article

His fortune was dealt a particularly cruel blow at his 1983 Candidates Quarter Final match against Vasily Smyslov, when Smyslov refused to play tie-break rapid games (these were optional at the time and a noted strength of Hübner). Consequently, the match was awarded to Smyslov on the spin of a roulette wheel


I am trying to find a source more credible than this...or where this entry got the info from.

If Anand beats Carlsen this year there should be no argument for him being in top 5 all time.

If convincingly then top 3.

In terms of absolute strength, I think he's top 5.

I already disagree with my own list

so let me get this, if anand beat a guy that never been a world champion yet , Anand is one of the greatest ever .

am i missing something ?

Kasparov dominate chess for 15 years,
Karpov like 10.
Capablanca did not lost a game for like 10 years.
Fisher before retired had more then 100 point rating over anyone and dominates an amazing run over the best in the world.
Lasker been what ? 27 years WC reign .

ok, last 2 years Carlsen been amazing yes, but 2 years is imo far from being the end of it , i mean if it is, Carlsen did not acomplish anything more then what Morphy did in his own dominance in 1857-59 .

i dunno, seem to me maybe your prerequiste to classify Anand is a bit short imo .

the way u dominate your competitors is a good value, but u do need some perspective for how long he dominates and how long a player carreer is as well.

Fischer should not be that high on the list. Who knows how he could have handled the pressure of being world champion...he just quit

i thought so too...in the strict sense of world champions he was the worst.

i think we can probably put fischer as the #1 candidate of all time, but the dude was WC for like 2 years and then disappeared. he can gtfo the history books as far as i'm concerned.

well that makes.

Carlsen never even reach WC and dominate chess for 2 years and some here think he deserve to be almost the best of all time while fisher did reach WC in an astonishing fashion ( and almost alone vs the entire russians), destroy (not just beat) anyone in his path.

so fisher is not like in the top 5 , great....

how many games did he play after he won the world title?

at least he did won it.....
he did dominant a hell more than Carlsen.
and he did had over 125 points ELO difference between him and spasky (#2 in the world not with 15 other players...)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Fischer

"After beating Spassky by the score 12½–8½ in their 1972 match, his rating dropped to 2780.[205]"

u crush the #2 in the world and u still loose ELO, how can u reach more than he did ?


"reigning World Champion Viswanathan Anand described him as "the greatest chess player who ever lived."

but who is he to know such a thing


"Fischer's great rival Mikhail Tal praised him as "the greatest genius to have descended from the chess heavens".

believe what u want but imo i would trust them a bit more for no particular reason....

but thinking Carlsen should be consider better then fisher just yet , i lol....

he might be able to surpass fisher and kasparov in time , no doubt about it but hold down your horses and this match is far from being the match that will decide where Anand will hold in history..

Anand is not in his prime for sure and Carlsen is just beginning his reign, tho it will at least gives us some hint about it.

Tal waxed fischer 4 -0 in a candidates tourney...

I'm not the biggest Fischer fans by any means, but it's worth mentioning that while what you posted is true, it's slightly misleading. The aforementioned match took place in 1959 when Fischer was 16, more than a decade before his period of dominance.

well, Carlsen isn't even in most people's list here...

people aren't putting carlsen on their lists, genius.

Considering Anand hails from India and how Indians venerate their sports heroes, and how many Indians there are, I'll safely say that more people know about Anand than any other chess champion who has walked this earth.

As another example- about 10 times as many people are likely to know about Sania Mirza than women's tennis #1 Victoria Azarenka!