Who is the G.O.A.T. in chess?

@Eleuthero
"There's no doubt that Carlsen's championships were the most precise but the article owes much of that, as I did, to computer prep. It still leaves open to question what Botvinnik, Smyslov, Petrosian, Tal, Spassky, Fischer, and karpov would have done if they'd had an engine. We will never know."
I think we agree, then.

The thing is when a player is GOAT. Other non-GOAT players cannot win him, or struggles very bad to win. Like Kasparov Vs Karpov match in 1984. Kasparov only won after playing 31 match. It was 5-0. KAsparov was 0 until then. See:www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?tid=55015

Even in his prime Kasparov struggled to win Karpov. After 31 match, he won once then twice other time but lost the match. It is Chess fatigue that favored Kasparov, but sadly he could not be GOAT. However he is number 2.

GOAT is harder to win. So, Karpov is GOAT.

If you read Fischer‘s „60 memorable games“ and compare the quality of the games and analysis with material nowadays resp. do an engine check...

Forget about this G.O.A.T. thingy.

PS: Karpov was leading 5:0 by numerous draws, then 5:1, 5:2, 5:3 and suddenly the match was called off... And then Kasparov won the ensuing matches resp. drew to maintain world champion.

I am the G.O.A.T. But I hide it REALLY well.

@Sarg0n Yes after 31 match, there is thing called fatigue. 31 match 0 loss is one of greatest achievements as well, that too with prime Kasparov.

@CRO_CHESS_FAN

I totally agree with you about Chess 960. That's a form of chess where pure chess skill determines the winner. There is no "theory", no engines, and the prep, if any, is just practicing tactics. Bobby was right and 960 or some variant of it will probably be the chess of the future.

In the good old days (i.e., pre-engine era), most elites played well into their 50s and some, like Korchnoi, even into their 70s with respectable results. In the last couple of decades the greats like Kramnik and Kasparov quit in their early 40s which is very sad to me. Indeed, when you look at the FIDE live rating list of 2700+ players, of the 32 over that rating only 4 are over 40 and two of them, Svidler and Adams, are all but retired.

These days, some guys spiral downhill after 30. Look at the fall of Hikaru Nakamura since 2017. He's down 80 Elo points from his peak. "Old" guys like Topalov (age 44) don't get invited to elite events any more. Aronian and Dominguez at ages 37 and 36, respectively are kind of the elder statesmen of the active player list. I don't think it's good for chess culture to have such a surfeit of kids.

#96
Chess960 is fun, but so slow.
In female gymnastics children win the olympic medals.
There was a time when chess was for elderly gentlemen, now we have teenage grandmasters.

"I don't think it's good for chess culture to have such a surfeit of kids."

I don't think it's good for chess culture to determine who gets to play in a tournament not by the respective strength of the player but by some other random criteria. For instance by how it was in the good old days.

Those were the days when Fischer was a kid...

Modern top three candidates.. Carlsen, Kasparov and Fischer. Old timer top three candidates.. Morphy, Steinitz and Capablanca. If they all time traveled to play a match today (no additional training), Carlsen dominates. Capablanca would struggle with the blitz and rapid tiebreaker format. Morphy would get crushed out of the gate by modern theory.
With 1-2 years of post-time travel training, the outcome might be very different. Given their respective dominance over their peers when they played, their overall creative intelligence and fighting spirit, I think Fischer or Morphy would take it. Probably Fischer but I would be rooting for Morphy all the way.