Why do people seem to disagree that Tal is infact top 10 of all time?

there has been a lichess blog post about how accurate WCs played during chess history after the record Carlsen and Nepo set in one of their recent games (cf section "the charts"):
lichess.org/blog/YafSBxEAACIAr0ZA/exact-exacting-who-is-the-most-accurate-world-champion

@coledavis said in #8:
> What about Capablanca (if he wasn't so lazy)?
as seen in the chart, he was pretty far ahead of his time.

Maybe people gravitate towards a style that appeals to them - and how they enjoy the game? My favs are Morphy, Ivanchuk , Tal , and Rashid Nez. When looked back after the computer era and people are playing 3000+ , perhaps in 200 years positional advantages will spell "Greatness" and my list here might not make much sense anymore ?
I remember Hikaru complaining about Tal being on a "All Time" great list too ... it was in a video over the summer of this year (2021) If I remember right Hikaru's comment was along the lines of " Tal's sacrafices had problems , " or something along those lines ... Which , seems to be not in the spirit of what an audience enjoys about the game of chess ... some of us want to see blazing fights , risky moves ... etc ... And Tal was exactly that for many of his games ... Hikaru does not seem to be the type of guy that would be fun at a party ... but his talent is other-worldly... thanks, D.D.

@Successistaken said in #1:
> Hikaru Nakamura suggested that Tal should be nowhere near the top 10 as Chess.com had him here
>
> www.chess.com/article/view/best-chess-players-of-all-time
>
> Which I believe is an absolute joke, I agree that maybe his reign as a world champion was short lived but if you look at his career overall forget his legendary matches you have to say he infact does deserve to be there. He was a SIX TIME soviet champion which is the joint most along with Botvinnik, more than Karpov and Petrosian, He had the longest unbeaten run in chess history of 95 games, till Ding Liren broke it and also won multiple strong tournaments throughout his career along with the 1988 Blitz championship in a tournament that had Kasparov and Karpov not to mention winning MANY other tournaments as well.
>
> I don't know about you but the magician from Riga, the pirate of Latvia is well and truly top 10 of all time.

His detractors will probably criticize the fact that engines don't think highly of his sacrifices. But my argument is that he isnt playing against engines, he is playing humans, and humans generally dont defend perfectly, and even if they do defend well they often burn their clock and later on blunder in time trouble because of the chaos he created. Was he the most accurate world champion in history? Absolutely not. Was he one of the most dangerous world champions and most difficult to defend against? Absolutely!! Easily top 10 in my books. If everyone played like Tal, chess would be far more exciting and enjoy far more mainstream popularity. They had to move him and Botvinnik to a different room because the fans were cheering too loudly when Tal would start weaving his magic in their 1960 match. If that isnt proof enough that he was loved by the fans and a great ambassador for the game, I dont know what is.

Nakamura put Tal in his top tier when he made a video about renowned chess players. I think he only put ten or so players in that tier. That wasn't just about strength but still.

Added the link to the video in case anyone is interested. There's also a Part 1, but Part 2 talks about Tal. About 1:01:10

youtu.be/kMU7Z8RZxy4

-- If everyone played like Tal, chess would be far more exciting and enjoy far more mainstream popularity. They had to move him
----and Botvinnik to a different room because the fans were cheering too loudly when Tal would start weaving his magic in their
---1960 match. If that isnt proof enough that he was loved by the fans and a great ambassador for the game, I dont know what is.

Well said ! que mic drop right there ...

Very Very difficult to break Top 10 ALL TIME & NO they are not all alive today ... That is absurd ... Hard to NOT Include Phillidor Morphy Lasker Capablanca Alekhine Botvinnik Fischer Karpov Kasparov Carlsen & THAT is 10 >>> What about Kramnik ? ... Steintz Spassky Petrosian Tal ... Anand ? & Smyslov . Then you have arguments for players like Keres Rubenstein Kortchnoi Caruana Euwe Bronstein Topalov. I would say putting Tal ahead of Kramnik who beat Kasparov in a match would be difficult to do or Anand . So these days we should be mentioning Top 15 or 20 ALLTIME more often

@Le_Patzer83 said in #13:
> His detractors will probably criticize the fact that engines don't think highly of his sacrifices.

I think you could make a reasonable argument that he didn't just dominate his contemporaries in the way that some players have done over the years - in terms of how long they were at the top or how far ahead of anyone else they were, you could make a reasonable argument for putting Morphy, Steinitz, Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, Botvinnik, Fischer, Karpov, Kasparov, Anand, and Carlsen ahead of Tal, for example.

That's not to say he wasn't a great player, or that he shouldn't be your favorite player, or the one whose games you enjoy most, but if you're literally just looking for the ten best players of all time then it wouldn't be unreasonable to say that he doesn't quite make the list.

what you have to remember is that Tal was very sick for many years, (in addition to drinking and smoking too much), and that limited his time at the top.

I think NMThunderclap brings up a great idea that chess has been around for so long now and so many of these superGM's ( Meaning all the "Romantic" players as SuperGMs too) they are so close for estimated ELO and all that , that his point is we should probably just say top 20 or 30 , because there are so many great players ... us chess fans get alot of great material for fire-games at a moments notice . Just the idea of watching Ivanchuks great queen sacrafices in slow motion over and over , and going to GingerGM's "Best Tal sacrifices video" over and over ... The past two years (2020-2021 and maybe + ) can possibly go down as Chess Golden Era ...not only the best time to be a fan , we can see anything from anytime --- but to learn , play at a whim on this site... and listen to player interviews on YouTube anytime... anyway ... top 20 -30 , that's NMThunderclap's point ... well said ... problem solved :) There is no top10 anymore in 2021 :)

Thanks ... @DiCello In fact there is a video or set of videos ichess has about the Top 50 Chess Players Ever & their contributions . Trying to learn something from each is sure to bolster your own game & will show Objectivity about learning to improve parts of your own game that need attention >>> I haven't read My Great Predesceors by Kasparov but went thru alot of Complete Games by the champions but you can also these days Study Chess Videos & Chess Books to improve . As Richard Reti said in Modern Ideas In Chess about a players developement in beutifull prose by the way is like the developement/evoulution of ideas & mankind itself