Being 125 points ahead of World Champion Spassky more significant than being 10 points ahead of Aronian, no way! :-)

meow, meow

That's pretty much conventional wisdom by now, no? It was a big deal when Kasparov passed Fischer and it will be a big deal when Carlsen passes Kasparov, but mostly just because it's the simplest and most obvious metric, not the most accurate or relevant. Fischer's incredible gap over the rest and Kasparov's ridiculous plus scores are harder to quantify but surely mean more than an arbitrary rating number a dozen years later. (Nobody even notices anymore as more players stampede across Fischer’s 2785.) It will be interesting to see if Carlsen can detach himself from the pack. Probably better for him if Aronian (or others) keep on his heels the way Kasparov had Karpov pushing him hard well into the 90s until the next generation came along.

Isn't Kasparov's comment just common sense ? There can't truly be anybody out there that believes the Carlsen of today is a better player than the Fischer of 1972, can there ? Granted, he skirts the issue of Fischer versus himself but that's a never-ending topic.

There is a way to know if a player rated 2700 today has the same strength as a player rated 2700 30 years ago: comparing their moves with those suggested by a computer. As far as I know, when this analysis has been performed, the results suggest that the ratings closely mirror move strength. Put another way, the moves by Vallejo today are of the same "intrinsic quality" than those of Tal in 1980 (both around 2700 ELO). Tal opponents were weaker than Vallejo's, and therefore he was a top-5 player then.
There is nothing strange about that: obviously the quality of training has improved a lot. The 20th player in the world today plays chess much better than the 20th player of 1980. It happens that, by chance, the ELO system seems to reflect this improvement.

Happy birthday, Garry Kasparov!

"When Fischer was climbing to the top he’d score +6, I’d score +6-7"...of course, Garry, you scored 7 while Fischer scored just 6, humble as always, aren't you? Anyway, we still love you for all the great moments you have given us throughout your career, С Днем Рождения!

He has a point, and he is right about it.

Fischer's "+6":
+16 (19/22) Herceg-Novi 1970 (blitz)
+9 (13/17) Zagreb 1970
+13 (15/17) Buenos Aires 1970
+13 (17.5/22) Palma de Mallorca 1970 (interzonal)

Maybe Garry was talking about candidates' matches? :)

In sports where the performance level is unambiguously measurable, e.g. running, there's no question that absolute levels have improved. (The few exceptions to this "rule" are widely believed to be doping-aided.) Paavo Nurmi or Emil Zatopek would be lapped in a modern 10,000 meter race. But we don't think less of them for it. Nor do we deny that levels have improved.

But Fisher was playing against fewer active chess players. Rating inflation is a real anomaly. Surely the person who is the best of 200 chess players should be rated higher than the best of 100 players, statistically speaking. There is a greater chance of the superior chess player being the 'best of 200'than the 'best of 100'. So, statistically speaking Kasparov's rating should be higher Fisher's and Carlsen's higher than Kasparov and rating inflation is a hoax.

You can't ask if Player X from 50 years ago is better than Player Y from today, it simply isn't fair. The players of today profit from the players of the past "Standing on the shoulders of giants" if you will. That is why it's also not fair to compare Morphy to Fischer. Fischer knows far more theory, just like Carlsen probably knows far more than Fischer did.

The only way you can judge the greatness of someone is how they compared to their peers during their time, and it's pretty clear the big guys like Morphy, Fischer, and Kasparov are all legendary.

But there's "inflation" in athletic results too... records are constantly being broken. Why are those considered objective, but not an Elo rating? Ken Regan's recent work gives very strong evidence that Elo ratings ARE an objective measure of playing strength and that there has been essentially no inflation since the early '70s at least.

Gary is not only the greatest chess player ever, he has also intensely studied in depth those greats that came before him. His opinion on this matter should be given the most serious consideration.

Comparing champions from now to those from the past may be unfair; if we brought Capablanca or Fischer to our time and gave them today's resources they'd be able to beat anyone, just as they did at their time. Same with Carlsen or Kramnik taken to the 20's or 30's, only using those day's resources. All is relative.
Let's not forget that computers analysed all world champion's games and the one that gave better moves overall was (surprisingly?) Capablanca!. Everything is relative.

There is no point in comparing players without taking into account the time they were active. It is like comparing a M.D of our days with Hippocrates. Of cource the M.D of our days has much more knowledge than Hippocrates had, nontheless it is him who bends the knee in front of Hippocrates with respect...

Kasparov is right, elo inflation is significant. Carlsen is not at the same level as Fischer. When Fischer played it was quite certain he was going to win a tournament. With Carlsen it could as well be someone else. He also is not revolutionizing chess yet.

Of course Carlsen is an excellent player, but comparing him at par with Fischer or Kasparov is not (yet) the case...

Taking into account that Magnus Carlsen is still only 21 and hasn't reached anywhere near his peak yet we're probably seeing tournament by tournament the greatest ever chess talent in history. Sure, he'll mess up from to time but he is truly gifted and good for the game. Personally I don't give two hoots about chess ratings it's the player and his chess that matter. My favourite player Rashid Nezhmetdinov wasn't even considered a GM and yet if I could sit and watch Rashid and Misha Tal play chess against each other every single day I'd be very happy. The same applies to Capablanca and Morphy. It's the games that really matter not those boring numbers by their names. Leave that stuff to the stat-geeks.

Happy Birthday Gary, you were a great attacking genius. Loved your style of play. Wish you were still playing.

Have a good summer people.

Onboard his plane toward Iceland, Fischer said that if Morphy would come back today he would be beaten by an average grandmaster just because of the latter's advantage in opening theory and progress in the understanding of the game. So one could think that in absolute terms today's higher elos indeed partly translate raw accumulated progress. Kasparov himself wrote all his books about progress and revolution in chess so why wonder? That is not to say that absolute chess strength and elo should command more respect than being relatively the strongest at some point in time. Both Fischer and Kasparov were visionary geniuses. Likewise, an average PhD in physics today will know a lot more about quantum physics than Einstein did, yet we know who is the genius.

I think all this is a little out of proportion. Kasparov is not making a major statement, but more matter of factly is saying everybody already knows. He's not trying to belittle Carlsen in any way.

I am better than Fischer & Carlsen. End.

Pretty big logical fallacy in Kasparov's argument re. plus-scores.

Just because Muhammad Ali said he was the greatest does not mean that Cassius Clay was not ;();

This technical paper examines other factors which should be considered, like accuracy: http://web.zone.ee/chessanalysis/summary450.pdf

Chess 40 years ago is not the same as chess today. Top-grandmasters nowadays exist by virtue of computer preparation. Fischer could not do that. This makes it harder for a grandmaster these days to make the difference OTB. Chess has evolved and "strength in chess" now is not the same as strength in chess back in the 70s. That's why imho it would be harder for a "brilliant player" to stand out at modern times, than it was in Fischer times. Garry actually put that change in motion with his revolutionary approach of his KK-matches.

DAMN ITS CRAZY 2835 AT THE AGE OF 21 IS DAMN IMPRESSIVE TO ME SEEING AS THE CLOSEST PERSON TO HIM IS DAMN NEAR 10 YEARS OLDER THEN HIM BUT HEY YOU WOULD THINK THAT THE STRENGTH OF THE TOURNAMENT MATTERS I MEAN THE KID PLAYS IN ALL SUPER GRANDMASTER TOURNAMENTS WITH THE AVERAGE STRENGTH LEVEL 2760 ADD IN THE ADVANCEMENT OF CHESS WITH COMPUTERS ENGINE ANALYSIS
I WOULD SO HE IS DOING JUST FINE