Who are the best chess players of all the time? A question that is personal and without a doubt everyone has his own name list. So how we decide who are the best players in this board game, called Chess.

A number of titles or awards? Definitely No! Chess players are not ordinary people and none of them has the same strategy and tactics, they are more likely “magicians” and brilliant minds. So let’s have a look at this top list and their story behind.
P.S it’s a personal list and if you disagree, make your list and send it to us for discussion.

1.Garry Kasparov (1963)

Greatest of the Greats, Two decades or 25 years, Ruler of the Chess Kingdom, writer, and political activist.

 

These are all about a Garry Kasparov, maybe the best among all the players. When other 12-old year’s teens were playing boyish games this young man became Champion of USSR under -18 and the champion of the world under-20 at 17 years old. Breaking the rules yeah? His international fame came when he was 22 years old and became the youngest world chess champion in Chess history, in 1985.  His parents are Kim Moiseyevich Weinstein and Klara Shagenovna  Gasparian.  His talent revealed when he was five years old and offered a solution to a chess problem in the newspaper. He found out how the chess figures move watching Kim and Klara’s chess play. Unfortunately, his father never saw his son making the history but his mother dedicated her life to his career.

Why is Kasparov the best?

• At 12 became Champion of USSR under -18
• At 17 became the champion of the world under-20 
• At 22 became the youngest world chess champion in the history defeating champion Anatoly Karpov
• He defended his title five times
• In 1999 broke Bobby Fischer’s rating record and achieved his peak rating of 2851
• His famous matches against the IBM supercomputer Deep Blue in 1996-97 were key to bringing artificial intelligence, and chess, into the mainstream.
• Kasparov was ranked world No. 1 from 1986 until his retirement in 2005
• Won the Chess Oscar, given to the best player in a year, a record 11 times. 
• Kasparov was World Champion for 15 years, the longest reign 
• Kasparov holds records for professional tournament victories (15) and Chess Oscars (11)
• He was the highest rated player in the world almost continuously for 21 years \

 

2.Magnus Carlsen (1993)

The King of Chess, Model, Ambassador, Celebrity

 

“Grandmaster at 13” is a thing that only Magnus Carlsen can do. It seems that Norwegian, 27 years old man has started his career but in fact, he conquered all the titles that can be possible. A current World Champion started from the age of 5 when he was first introduced to the game and three years later he participated in his first tour. He got the grandmaster title by competing against the strongest grandmasters. So in one sentence, he achieved everything in his beginning career.

“There wasn’t any particular player I modeled my game after. I tried to learn from everyone and create my own style. I studied past players. Truth be told I never had a favorite player. It’s just not my nature to go around idolizing people. I just go try to learn.” Carlsen

• Carlsen got his grandmaster title at the age of 13 years.
• He became No. 1 chess player in the world rating 2800 in 2009 and reached in the FIDE rankings in 2010, thus becoming the youngest person ever to achieve that title.
• Carlsen became World Champion in 2013 by defeating Viswanathan Anand. In the same year, he again held his title defeating Anand and won the 2014 World Rapid Championship and World Blitz Championship, thus become the first chess player to simultaneously hold all three titles.
• Magnus reached a peak rating of 2882 which is the highest in history.
• He uses a variety of openings  which makes it more difficult for opponents to prepare against him 
• Carlsen won the Chess Oscars in 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013. 
• In the January 2006 FIDE rankings, he reached rating of 2625, at the age of 15 years, again becoming the youngest person to surpass 2600
• In the 2009 Nanjing Pearl tournament Carlsen won and raised his FIDE rating to 2801, the youngest player ever to surpass 2800 Elo at the age of 18.
•  Magnus became the first player from a Western nation to reach the top of the FIDE rankings (the former player was Bobby Fischer in 1971) 
• On the January 2013 FIDE rankings, Carlsen reached 2861, thus surpassing Garry Kasparov's 2851 record in July 1999

 

3. Jose Raul Capablanca (1888 – 1942)

“Most players ... do not like losing, and consider defeat as something shameful. This is a wrong attitude. Those who wish to perfect themselves must regard their losses as lessons and learn from them what sorts of things to avoid in the future.” 3rd World Champion and Chess Genius Capablanca.

A Cuban Chess player was famous for his phenomenal endgame skill and speed of play. Jose Raul Capablanca was born in Havana, Cuba in 1888. He started to learn chess at the age of four by watching his father play. At the age of 12, he won the Cuban champion, Juan Corzo. Capablanca studied engineering at Columbia University in America, his free time he was spending at the Manhattan Chess Club (New York). He became famous when he won a match against US Champion Frank Marshal, that time he was just 20 years old student. Capablanca is still considered to be one of the best players in Chess history.

• Capablanca won Emanuel Lasker in 1921 and took the title of World Champion 
• Jose was undefeated for eight years - 1916 to 1924
• Capablanca excelled in simple positions and endgames. Bobby Fischer described him as a "real light touch". 
• He could play tactical chess when necessary and had good defensive technique.
• He wrote several chess books during his career, one of the famous was “Chess Fundamentals”  Mikhail Botvinnik regarded this as the best chess book ever written.
• Capablanca’s style of chess had a great influence on the play of future world champions Bobby Fischer and Anatoly Karpov.
• In the ten years  (from 1914 to 1924) he lost only one game 
• A 2006 study stated that Capablanca was the most accurate of all the World Champions when compared with computer analysis of World Championship match games
• He invented a chess variant which is called Capablanca's Chess in the 1920s

 

4. Bobby Fischer (1943 – 2008)

“I object to being called a chess genius because I consider myself to be an all-around genius, who just happens to play chess, which is rather different.”

A man that raised the American chess history a level higher was Bobby Fischer. The eleventh World Chess Champion was an American chess Grandmaster and one of the greatest players of all time. He was introduced to chess at the age of 6 and 7 years later won a “Brilliancy known as “The game of the Century”. At the age 14, Fischer played in eight United States Championships winning each game. He was also known as the youngest grandmaster of his time.

• At 15, Fischer became the youngest grandmaster in that time and the youngest candidate for the World Championship.
• At age 20, Fischer won the 1963–64 U.S. Championship with 11/11, the only perfect score in the history of the tournament
• Bobby e became the first official FIDE No.1 rated player in July 1971,
• He won the World Chess Championship from Boris Spassky of the USSR in 1972.
• In the 1990s, he invented a modified chess timing system that added a time increment after each move, now a standard practice in top tournament and match play. He also invented “Fischerandom” which a new variant of chess known as "Chess960".
• Fischer used to play the openings like a book, the middle game like a magician and the endgame like a machine 
• His book “My 60 Memorable Games”, is regarded as a classic work of chess literature which was published in 1969

 

5.Paul Morphy (1837 – 1884)

"Genius is a starry word; but if there ever was a chess player to whom that attribute applied, it was Paul Morphy"
Andrew Soltis

The greatest chess master and the unofficial World Chess Champion.

American chess player and known as “The Pride and Sorrow of Chess” considered of the greatest player in his time. He had brilliant chess career but retired at a young age. Morphy was born In New Orleans (Louisiana) in a wealthy family. He learned to play chess by watching his father and uncle's game and already at the age of nine was considered to be one of the best players of New Orleans. At 12 he defeated Johann Löwenthal Hungarian Chess master.

• He won in the tournament of The First American Chess Congress in New York City, the tour included strong players such as Alexander Meek and Louis Paulsen. 
• Morphy became champion of the United States and stayed in New York playing chess (1857), winning the majority of his games.
• He played with every strong player in Europe and usually won the games
• After the match with Staunton Morphy became the world's best player.
• He had a tactical play where opponents were often checkmated in under 30 moves.
• The Morphy Defense was named after him and  still remains the most popular variant of that openings (1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 a6)
• Morphy was a player who intuitively knew what was best, he played quickly and was hard to beat, knew how to defend and would draw or even win games in spite of  getting into bad positions
• He retired from chess in 1859 (at the age of 22) when his career had just started

These 5 Chess Genius players made a change in a history of Chess World, but there are young and rising talents that are still creating and developing a history of this extraordinary game. 
Right below is the Fide’s February List of Top 10 players.

(P.S. We're waiting for your top five list.)

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