Comparing top chess players throughout history
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This article examines a number of methodologies that have been suggested for the task of comparing top chess players throughout history, particularly the question of comparing the greatest players of different eras. Statistical methods offer objectivity but, whilst there is agreement on systems to rate the strengths of current players, there is disagreement and controversy on whether such techniques can be applied to players from different generations who never competed against each other.
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[edit] Statistical methods
[edit] Elo System
Perhaps the best-known statistical model is that devised by Arpad Elo. In his The Rating of Chessplayers, Past and Present,[1] he gave ratings to players corresponding to their performance over the best five-year span of their career. According to this system the highest ratings achieved were:
- 2725 – José Raúl Capablanca
- 2720 – Mikhail Botvinnik, Emanuel Lasker
- 2700 – Mikhail Tal
- 2690 – Alexander Alekhine, Paul Morphy, Vasily Smyslov.
(Though published in 1978, Elo's list did not include Bobby Fischer and Anatoly Karpov).[2]
In 1970, FIDE adopted Elo's system for rating current players. So, one way to compare players of different eras is to compare their Elo ratings. The best-ever Elo ratings are tabulated below[3], including Elo's retrospectively calculated ratings for Capablanca, Botvinnik and Lasker. (However these are one-time peaks, while Elo's list was five year averages).
The average Elo rating of top players has risen over time. For instance, the average of the top 100 has risen from 2645 in July 2001 to 2665 in July 2006.[4] Many people believe that this rise is mostly due to a system artifact known as ratings inflation, making it impractical to compare players of different eras.
Elo was of the opinion that it was futile to attempt to use ratings to compare players from different eras; in his view, they could only possibly measure the strength of a player as compared to his or her contemporaries. He also stated that the process of rating players was in any case rather approximate; he compared it to "the measurement of the position of a cork bobbing up and down on the surface of agitated water with a yard stick tied to a rope and which is swaying in the wind".[5]
[edit] Chessmetrics
Many statisticians since Elo have devised similar methods to retrospectively rate players. Jeff Sonas, for example, calls his system Chessmetrics. This system takes account of many games played after the publication of Elo's book, and claims to take account of the rating inflation that the Elo system has apparently suffered. The players with the highest five-year Chessmetrics averages are:[6]
- Garry Kasparov (2875)
- Emanuel Lasker (2854)
- José Raúl Capablanca (2843)
- Mikhail Botvinnik (2843)
- Bobby Fischer (2841)
Looking at the one-year peak of players, Chessmetrics gives these same five players, but in a different order: Fischer, Kasparov, Botvinnik, Capablanca, and Lasker.[7]
One caveat is that a Chessmetrics rating takes into account the frequency of play. According to Sonas, "As soon as you go a month without playing, your Chessmetrics rating will start to drop".[8] While it may be in the best interest of the fans for chess-players to remain active, it is not clear why a person's rating, which reflects his/her skill at chess, should drop if the player is inactive for a period of time.
Sonas, like Elo, acknowledges that it is useless to try and compare the strength of players from different eras. In his explanation of the Chessmetrics system [9], he says:
- Of course, a rating always indicates the level of dominance of a particular player against contemporary peers; it says nothing about whether the player is stronger/weaker in their actual technical chess skill than a player far removed from them in time. So while we cannot say that Bobby Fischer in the early 1970's or Jose Capablanca in the early 1920's were the "strongest" players of all time, we can say with a certain amount of confidence that they were the two most dominant players of all time. That is the extent of what these ratings can tell us.
In a 2005 ChessBase article,[10] Sonas uses Chessmetrics to evaluate historical annual performance ratings and comes to the conclusion that Kasparov was dominant for the most number of years, followed closely by Lasker and Karpov.
[edit] Warriors of the Mind
In contrast to Elo and Sonas's systems, Raymond Keene and Nathan Divinsky's book Warriors of the Mind[11] is a rare example of a rating system which claims to directly compare the strength of players active in different eras and so determine the strongest player of all time. Considering games played between sixty-four of the strongest players in history, they come up with the following top-ten:
- Garry Kasparov, 3096
- Anatoly Karpov, 2876
- Bobby Fischer, 2690
- Mikhail Botvinnik, 2616
- José Raúl Capablanca, 2552
- Emanuel Lasker, 2550
- Viktor Korchnoi, 2535
- Boris Spassky, 2480
- Vasily Smyslov, 2413
- Tigran Petrosian, 2363
These "Divinsky numbers" are not on the same scale as Elo ratings (the last person on the list, Johann Zukertort, has a Divinsky number of 873).
[edit] Computer analysis of actual moves played
One of the latest methods of analyzing chess abilities across history has come from Matej Guid and Ivan Bratko from the Department of Computer and Information Science of Ljubljana University.[12] The basis for their evaluation was the difference between the position values resulting from the moves played by the human chess player and the moves chosen as best by a chess program, Crafty. They also compared the average number of errors in the player's game. According to their analysis, the leader was José Raúl Capablanca, followed closely by Vladimir Kramnik.
The "Classical" World Chess Championship matches were analyzed, and the results for the fourteen Classical World Champions were presented.
Players with fewest average errors:
- José Raúl Capablanca
- Vladimir Kramnik
- Anatoly Karpov
- Garry Kasparov
- Boris Spassky
- Tigran Petrosian
- Emmanuel Lasker
- Bobby Fischer
- Alexander Alekhine
- Vassily Smyslov
- Mikhail Tal
- Mikhail Botvinnik
- Max Euwe
- Wilhelm Steinitz
The method received a number of criticisms, one of them being that Crafty was not strong enough to evaluate the world champions' play.[13]
[edit] Subjective lists
A number of prominent players and writers have attempted to rank the greatest players. Generally these lists attempt to combine the two methods above - performance, and analysis of games.
[edit] Bobby Fischer
In 1964 Bobby Fischer listed his top 10 in the magazine Chess Life: Morphy, Staunton, Steinitz, Tarrasch, Chigorin, Alekhine, Capablanca, Spassky, Tal, Reshevsky.[14] This list notably excludes Fischer himself.
[edit] Irving Chernev
In 1976 chess author Irving Chernev published the book Golden Dozen, in which he ranked his all-time top 12: 1. Capablanca, 2. Alekhine, 3. Lasker, 4. Fischer, 5. Botvinnik, 6. Petrosian, 7. Tal, 8. Smyslov, 9. Spassky, 10. Bronstein, 11. Rubinstein 12. Nimzowitsch[15]
[edit] World Champions by world title reigns
The number of world championship wins, or world championship reigns, can be considered as a guide to player greatness. The table below organises the world champions in order of championship wins. (For the purpose of this table, a successful defence counts as a win, even if the match was drawn.) The table is made more complicated by the split between the "Classical" and FIDE world titles between 1993 and 2006.
| Champion | Total | Undisputed | FIDE | Classical | Years as champion |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Emanuel Lasker | 7 | 7 | 27 | ||
| Garry Kasparov | 6 | 4 | 2 | 15 | |
| Anatoly Karpov | 6 | 3 | 3 | 16 | |
| Mikhail Botvinnik | 5 | 5 | 13 | ||
| Alexander Alekhine | 4 | 4 | 17 | ||
| Wilhelm Steinitz | 4 | 4 | 8 | ||
| Vladimir Kramnik | 3 | 1 | 2 | 6 | |
| Tigran Petrosian | 2 | 2 | 6 | ||
| Viswanathan Anand | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| José Raúl Capablanca | 1 | 1 | 6 | ||
| Boris Spassky | 1 | 1 | 3 | ||
| Bobby Fischer | 1 | 1 | 3 | ||
| Max Euwe | 1 | 1 | 2 | ||
| Vasily Smyslov | 1 | 1 | 1 | ||
| Mikhail Tal | 1 | 1 | 1 | ||
| Ruslan Ponomariov | 1 | 1 | 2 | ||
| Alexander Khalifman | 1 | 1 | 1 | ||
| Rustam Kasimdzhanov | 1 | 1 | 1 | ||
| Veselin Topalov | 1 | 1 | 1 |
[edit] References
- ^ The Rating of Chessplayers, Past and Present, A. Elo, (1978)
- ^ Arpad Emre Elo – 100th anniversary, Chessbase, 2003
- ^ This table is based on one created by Przemek Jahr of Poland, which was reported in Chessbase 2-7-2005
- ^ Top Chess Players and Statistics at FIDE.com
- ^ Chess Life, 1962
- ^ Peak Average Ratings: 5 year peak range at Chessmetrics
- ^ Peak Average Ratings: 1 year peak range at Chessmetrics
- ^ The Greatest Chess Player of All Time – Part I, Jeff Sonas, at Chessbase
- ^ About the Chessmetrics Rating System, by Jeff Sonas
- ^ The Greatest Chess Player of All Time – Part IV, by Jeff Sonas, Chessbase, 2005
- ^ Warriors of the Mind, Raymond Keene and Nathan Divinsky, (1989)
- ^ Computers choose: who was the strongest player?, Chessbase, 2006
- ^ Review of "Computer Analysis of World Chess Champions", by Søren Riis, Chessbase, 2006
- ^ Fischer's Top 10
- ^ Twelve Great Chess Players and Their Best Games, Irving Chernev, 1995 (reprint of 1976 edition)
pl:Rekordowe rankingi szachowe
