The Best Chess Players Over Time (Estimated By Accuracy) 

Great job!!

How about Paul morphy or players from 1800s who played before time controls

Strange Fabiano Caruana

Hold on thar podnah. I thought Capa died in the 40's but on the graph he died in 1939.

@@dannygjk probably he just don't play in 40'

Why do u say or both as if u can not be retired after death

"both"

Yes it's really heart breaking. We've got lots of genius chess players and also at a point of the life they sacrificed (or will sacrifice) their own life. Everyone will be always immortal through their games

Paul Morphy just went to law school and precised it. Like, the guy played for fun, you know? Stop being a bummer.

SUPEH?

But Were the opponents back then weaker or stronger compared to today?

@@forzatech9482 is that relevant to their accuracy? I'm not being a smart ass with that response, it's a legitimate question. Accuracy seems independent of opponent.

@@joshqaszq4773 I have no idea I’m new to chess. Was just an idea that came to me.

@@joshqaszq4773 I feel like making the best move is easier against weaker opponents, still though bobby was great

@@spyhy4019 Most likely is easier because they don`t hide many difficult traps that could force you into a seemingly good gain that in the end actually punishes you more. So against a weaker enemy, accuracy can be easier to be achieved.

They are the fathers of modern chess, so yeah... We all build on them because they were the best of their times, and we all learn that they were so good next to their contemporaries.

Then came magnus

Kasparov and Karpov were pretty evenly matched tbh

@@edwardrust3197 not according to the graph :p

Edward Rust which makes it beautiful because magnus is great against Garry, shows you even tho ages apart the highest level can remain the same makes you wonder if someone from 1800s and someone from now would play who’d win

If he only continued and tried harder, he will be the Goat without any debate needed

@@totecol8300 true

@@totecol8300 yes, even magnus said that!

@@totecol8300 Capablanca> Fischer

@@shilpaprajapati4801 Capablanca had more IQ than Fischer. Fischer had to spend hours and hours studying chess daily but Capablanca hardly studied chess. He was naturally genius

sorry but i really dont want an antisemitic asshole fischer to be reborn, even freaking judit polgar was avoiding talking about him

@@regardzz uh...you know antisemitism is not in someone's genes, right? It is a learned behavior and has to do with the way someone is brought up during their development.

regardzz It would be worth it. No question in my mind. The greatness of his chess far outweighs the negative parts of his personality/opinions. His chess is special, his views are not. Accept the chess, reject the rest. Besides, he wouldn’t play if he was brought back anyway. Morphy probably wouldn’t either. It’s a shame.

@@Punkledunk yeah, but the original idea is that we bring them back as babies in the year 2000. They would be 20 now. Who knows what there views would be now.

@@Punkledunk why won't they play?

Yeah, it Fisher achievements were indeed amazingly impressive, but the difference in Elo points between the best and the second best player in the world was never as great as when Paul Morphy played at his best.

@@theUroshman competition was nowhere near as difficult as Fischers era

@@clemy2030 u could say that about any era technically so that's not really fair is It? Relative to his time he was better than magnus is in his. Who knows if anderson would have been as good as caurana today or if caurana would be as good now in 1860.

It's really hard to compare players from different eras, not only in chess, but most in of the sports. For example, the top 20+ players of today would be able to beat Fischer or Morphy, that's why most times we compare them to the competition they had. Now, in my opinion, the best players are Kasparov, Fischer and Magnus (in this order), but we have to wait and see how far can carlsen go.

@@theUroshman morphy played in a weak era with not many players in it. Fischer has an official chess record in highest rating gap between n1 and n2 with 120 points, and this was in the era with tal, petrosian, keres, geller, larsen, spassky, korchnoi, smyslov etc

He is so good he disappeared and went to play with the chess gods

Ohhhh...........a better way to say it

Fr

Plot twist: He ended hating chess (maybe not lit, but kind of) 🥴

@@fingerjoel He got bored of it and worried about the implications of determined chess outcomes from memorization. As a result he began to despise it because everything was just memory rather than "figuring it out." The magic was gone for him.

I would add: 5. Capablanca on this list, this man had such extraordinary precision

@@oblinky and for over 50years at the top

And Lasker has the record for holding the world title (27 years)

capa? He was above his peers for a long time.

Also Big Vlad and Vishy

And he hardly took any time to make his moves.

@@LukeEganLyrics There were even articles written that when Morphy played Paulsen that paulsen took many hours just to make 1 move.

He was a fucking genius, that's what he was.

He literally played quickly equivalent to blitz time control. I think if he played seriously and played standard classical time control like modern player, hed be 2600 even back then Also if you arm him with modern opening theory which would improve accuracy of his first 10 moves, he'd be a 2800 player or even higher

Morphy had the best book knowledge of his time. All his openings are based on Staunton's book, which is why he was accurate and was virtually winning right out of the opening against every opponent. Anderssen liked to experiment and got punished by Morphy. And later, Steinitz played much more imaginative chess.

Top 3 all time

Where are you getting that from? That's just an estimate because they didn't even start elo chess ratings until 1950 or 1960. That's not a direct comparison at all. You must have looked at an estimate for capablanca. Fischer was legitimately rated 2785 though.

@@billj4525 You see how the title of the video says "Estimated by Accuracy"? Those are the ratings I'm looking at. You know, the ones that pop up during the entire video and otherwise the point of the whole video??

@@billj4525 . Fischer was widely consider the #1 player in the world during his last ten years of his careers. These estimations are just further proof of what we already know and change nothing.

Actually it was Alekhine who beaten Capablanca and became chest grandmaster way before Fischer did. He might not be entirely on Capablanca nor Fischer level, but when it comes down to it that man won all the matches he needed to win.

True. Even Botvinnik remarked that since Morphy, nothing new has been discovered the open game lol

don't tell Tal that!! 😂

He wasn't really. Probably reached the strength of modern day GM at best. Capablanca was a lot more talented. He hardly studied chess and knew the best intuitively. Also Morphy relied a lot on his opponents making opening mistakes

@@achyuththouta6957 do you understand what that means to have modern day GM strength 150 years ago? Without engine? Without lines upon lines of preparation? Without having a team working with you? Morphy is one of the most talented players in chess history.

@@themanwithnoname3145 He was talented sure but the competition back then was kinda ass. Capablanca in my opinion is the most talented because he didn't really study chess that much and still crushed his opponents through intuition and logic.

There was lots of chess literature back then

@@funnyman4744 But results didn't come easy and instantaneous. Today with engines, it's a matter of fraction of a second. Nothing to compare here. You don't need that many books sitting next to you.

@@natividadcua8258 Op said there was no chess literature back then?

People like you are reason people doesn't play much chess in these times. Has he gone crazy because of chess or are there some unrevealed truths about his life only he would jave known. Think before making a statement

Lol Fischer had all the russian chess library

Especially with how wild Tal games are. The guy had no fear of complicating games. What a legend

Fantastic comment, ty for ur analysis!

Blighttown vibes

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Lol

@@ryanflanagan9624...yes?

@@ryanflanagan9624 God is dead

IMO international math olympiad

yes, and it is worth paying attention to who were the opponents of Fischer, Petrosyan, Spasky... great Soviet masters, achieving such accuracy with such opponents is even more impressive than Morphi's feat

Preach

Yep especially since in the last 20 years chess knowledge and books has improved so much, everyone's first 10 moves are all 100% accurate and preparation, so that will bring the average up.

Yeah but the graph looks cool and it gives a nice rough sum up. Which is the point. Description even says : This visual representation allows you to see when players like Bobby Fisher, Garry Kasparov, Magnus Carlsen, and Jose Capablanca performed across history.

Agreed. They should eliminate that factor of "playing style" by removing opening moves entirely of the formula. Count only the (late?) midlegame and endgame moves and the graph will be MUCH more accurate !

What's more we now know that a good move for Stockfish can not be the best according to AlphaZero. Alphazero had wonderful games sacrificing a piece for activity, maybe it would like better some Tal's moves

Dont forget the blunder of the century my friend

@@PlAzMaRiPain so?

Yes, I noticed that.

The accuracy comes for the long variations he used to analyze and play until the end. He was known for this.

Yea same i was pleasantly surprised to see that

Such an underrated comment. I observed that as well to my great surprise

Yeah this! I’ve been chess history passionate for over 25 years, but Polugaevsky’s accuracy in 1970’s is such a huge surprise to me!

Just like other sports its normal

Lamo

Mikhail Tal had serious health issues by the early '60s. I believe they were kidney related. Brilliant player when so young, but that took a toll in him. He beat Fischer 4 times in the 1962 Curacao (sabotaged by Soviet collusion vs Fischer) playoff. Fischer vowed to never lose to him again & he never did.

* Mikhail Tal was physically sick... most of his life, especially his adult years... * Just think..., if Mikhail Tal was ( NOT ) physically sick in his adult years and truly ( concentrated on playing chess ) and ( not ) constantly worried about his physical health and worried about his medical bills and died mentally and physically and financially broke... * *You could say... "All chess players should care about their mental and physical health comes FIRST." * "Without very good to excellent mental and physical health..., you have NOTHING." Mikhail Tal and Bobby Fischer proved that..., as several other highly ranked chess players proved, too... " Semper Fi " Mike in Montana :)

Amazing chess-longevity on the highest level !

Must say he deserves recognition

He was so strong by 1961, too.

Fisher and Kasparov, the GOAT.

And the meteoric rises. Ride like lighting, crash like thunder.

Actually that he didn't go much higher than the peak of recent players would indicate he is a fair bit weaker than the current top players. When playing against weaker opponents it is easier to get a high accuracy, Fischer being so far above the competition should have had an accuracy rating into the 3k's if he was on par in skill with the chess players that in the last 10 years rate in the 2800+ area against opponents making much stronger moves where being accurate becomes significantly harder.

I think above all were the creativity in his games.

He played against engines for testing purposes.

@@MrGreenBeanBeenBeanin The engines back then were weak.

So was his competition, making it even.

@@antoniobergara7878 The main point of the video was comparing accuracy.

Indeed. I wonder if he was born today and still has same passion for chess

Nothing stays the same. Viewing at .5 speed helps in following the changes.

Keeping the same perspective would had made this unwatchable. Did you consider that?

Let me guess, Chess also makes your brain hurt...

And Morphy

If he took chess like a job with all the resources of today he would probably beat stockfish and alpha zero lmao

I think a lot of people don't realize, too, that he retired from chess at the age of 22.

Not to take anything away from morphy, but very few people even played chess at that time at all. It wasn't even played professionally at all and their were no ratings. Very very few people took chess seriously at all even when accounting for the time period. You really can't compare his dominance at that time to other times. Thats why it's so hard to compare players of different eras. Their are so many different reason for why it doesnt make sense logically to compare them. Having said that Morphy was amazing and definitely one of the most talented players ever as are many many players, but their is FAR TO LITTLE information out there to compare him to players of different eras in any accurate way. Fischer was incredible and definitely one of the top players ever. Fischer, kasparov, and magnus are the top players in my opinion in terms of information available, and anyone before that is too hard to predict where they fit in. Potentially their were players before them that were better at chess in terms of talent and just in general, but their is no way to determine that because their is not enough information.

@@billj4525 . Have you ever reviewed any of Morphy's games and thought: "I could have beat that patzer." GTFOH!

How did Morphy go crazy? getting bored with chess and retiring from the game does not equal crazy.

And they were both Americans. Figures. We are crazy lol

Yeah, it's good you said pre engine era, because with engines you can't use comparing top players to their rivals as a reliable metric anymore. It was not fool proof even in the past though. I mean morphy and guys before him had no competition and very few people even played chess at all back then. So their are so many different reasons why that's not fool proof, although I do think its one of the best ways to compare players of different eras, because the truth is is that their is no fool proof way at all to compare players of different eras. Accuracy means very little in trying to compare player of different eras, because whoever the world number 1 is currently is going to be more accurate than the world number 1 20 or 30 years ago just based on engines and technology alone, and the more technology increases the more likely it will be that the current number 1 will be more accurate than previous ones, and It honestly just makes it harder in my opinion to judge real talent, and how good they would have been in previous eras. Makes for super interesting discussions in my opinion though.

People tend to forget good Old Philly, yet more than 200 years later we still study his rook endgames

Methodology includes move accuracy. If you play really long accurate games and blunder once then it weighs better than someome who plays shorter games and sometimes plays the second best move. Karpov did top Elo ratings for a long time until Kasparov showed up.

Nezhmetdinov has a similar style. Very creative attackers.

@@heywardhollis1160 Rashid right?

you can pause the video to look better in case you dont know

But then he wouldn't be Tal :/

I think he would have destroyed almost everyone for decades.

But also he could be a very different Tal. One that wouldn't dedicate part of his life to chess

@@DanLyndon Its because of his risk taking style that we love him.

@@DanLyndon Tal was sick in the return championship of next year. And the funny so called "Botvinnik rule" of giving 2nd chance to the last ex-champion makes no sense.

Kramnik had a higher record high in 2008 and 2017

@@TheFedJo in 2008/2009 Kramnik peaked at 2982. He never passed that point again, nor did he beat Carlsen'a record high. There are plenty of players who *at a certain moment of time* had the highest rating ONLY at that specific moment, but whose rating wasn't high enough to beat the previous best record. So, Kramnik passed Carlsen's rating for ONLY specific moments, but not Carlsen'a high of 2988 in 2015.

Harry Nelson Pillsbury was way ahead of his time, he destroyed Lasker and was playing 20 board blindfold simuls with a game of draughts on the side. If he didn't die early he would've been world champion easily.

@@chessmasters9012 I agree. Anyone who looks at his games can see him finding his way thru complications almost like an engine.

Uh 2596-2563 = 33, not 43

these three would have disabled the engine

Exactly- Capablanca could walk up to a game played by grandmasters and figure out in seconds what needed to be done. He was truly like a machine.

And the pther could analize a game for days i think is fair

But makes them looks worse in terms of dominance, as other current players won't be far from them

And then we have Morphy.

What a ridiculous assertion. Accuracy encompasses all other methods like ELO comparisons, distance to their competitors, number of wins against their competitors, etc. Magnus was unbeaten in 125 games, which is world record. He has had the highest ELO in history, he plays the best chess players the world has seen, he is the most accurate chess player that has ever existed. So, even though it is tough to hear for Americans, Magnus is clearly the GOAT.

@@karljohanhaarberg6706 I don't think he's the GOAT and I'm norwegian lol. My top 5 are Morphy, Fischer, Capablanca, Kasparov and Carlsen.

It's true. No one has ever dominated like Morphy did.

@@petercohen3966 there also wasnt as much competition or resources and chess was much less popular back then, not to discredit morphy as hes still a legend but not a fair comparison with others like fischer kasparov carlsen

@@Someone-hi1nt That the whole point. No one has ever been further ahead of their peers than Morphy. It's not even close. He was about decades ahead of his time.

@@petercohen3966 yep, and chess was much less popular with less resources and less competitive players, again im not discrediting him but if a few other chess geniuses (magnus, kasparov, fischer) were born in the 1800s and grew up then theyd also have had the same dominance... if morphy was born in lets say 1990 with access to all of todays resources, he wouldnt even be close to that level of dominance just due to way more resources, more top players, and more competition in general

@@Someone-hi1nt You have zero evidence of that and it's very unlikely. It's not really logical either. You said yourself, chess was much less popular. So it's just as likely any of them would not have cared to even play the game. You're talking about natural aptitude I suppose. We could make a discussion on which grand master had the most natural aptitude. That might be someone different. But if you're talking about who took what they were given and made the most out of it to outcompete the rest of the world, Morphy is the winner bar none.

life saver, Thank you

He landed from outer space.

Brilliant! Thank you!

The higher the competition the lower the accuracy gap. This means Carlsen is the best player till date.

accuracy gap isnt a good way to determine this tbh

1962: Hi newbie 1963: FISCHER STARTS CLIMBING THE GRAPH

Try entering Morphy's game against Paulsen, the one with the famous queen sac. The engine will say that the sac was wrong until depth 50+, then all of a sudden start to go "Whoa, hold on a minute!" Mind-blowing indeed.

If u havent wathc the video of invisible to engines form agadmator watch it. I dont want to spoil it but Peter Leko played an incredible move.

Computer and human sacrifice skills are different. There is two sacrifices that they have proven they are the best. One of them is Marshall's queen sacrifice and it's extremely easy for engines to see. Other one is Nechmetinoff's (wrongly spelled) positional queen sacrifice and computers have trouble at positional exchange sacrifices, as all of us know. Lastly, sorry for bad Englisch. ^^

​@@chrischardon6621 this is just because of the way engines designed, they just tend to rule out all lines that lead to big material losses if there's no immediate payback in the close followup. They just don't calculate these lines. This is intended behavior devs put into them.

What is depth? Measurement of how many games the engine played?

Neither Karpov. Chess is full of casual that only know Fischer because he is usa.

@@TheFlanker47 yanks

Is it difficult to see an American company not even listing Fischer among the top 3 chess players in the history of chess? Based on the most appropriate measure of player quality.