Fischer or Lasker

@tpr said in #10:

... Chessmetrics has calculated elo retroactively for the period before elo was introduced.
Fischer is clearly ahead of Lasker.

I have not heard of funding being made available for flux capacitor experiments to verify chessmetrics accuracy across the decades.
"... I'm sure that, in 1985, plutonium is available in every corner drugstore, but, in 1955, it's a little hard to come by. ..."
It still seems to be a little hard to come by.

Fischer. Lasker's time was not ready for Lasker Random Chess even though he did indeed have some ideas about it.

@AntonP2016 said ^

Fischer or Lasker

What “Fischer or Lasker”? The question is completely incorrectly formulated! For example. If you mean “who would win the match?” then Fischer. He knew a lot of what the world learned after the Lasker era. In a match between them, Lasker would have received a bad or very bad position in more than 50% of the games, even just based on the results of the opening. If you mean “who is the greater champion?”, then Lasker. He was world champion for about 27 years. This will probably be a record forever. With a large gap from the immediate results of other champions. And Fischer did not even defend his champion title once. And there are many more options for the question with different criteria. According to some criteria the answer will be “Fisher”, according to other criteria the answer will be “Lasker”.

@tpr said ^

"The first one was Karpov vs. Fischer (which I still think Karpov is better)"

• No way, Karpov was not in the same league.

"The second one was Botvinnik vs. Fischer (which I still think Botvinnik is better)

• No way Fischer was better from 1969.

"Lasker was world champion for 27 years, the longest reign in classical chess."

• Lasker defeated Steinitz in 1894 and 1896 then Marshall in 1907, Tar...

Hi tpr! :)

“Karpov was not in the same league.”

• That’s for a different thread. This thread we’re in is about Lasker vs. Fischer.
  (But to be honest, your statement really doesn’t give any evidence and proof that they’re not in the same league.)

“No way Fischer was better from 1969”

• First of all, you need to learn some grammar.
  Without a comma between “No way” and “Fischer”, you essentially admitted to the fact that Botvinnik was better than Fischer from 1969.

• Second of all, this is basically the same as the one you mentioned before with Karpov.

• Third of all, this is supposed to be MY OPINION.

“He effectively only was World Champion for 16 years.”

• Even if he “effectively only” were World Champion for 16 years, 16 years is still impressive conpared to Fischer’s.

“Yes, winning New York 1924 was a huge accomplishment.”

• Yay, I’m happy we’re on the same page :D

“Fischer also was still good in 1992 after 20 years of inactivity, beating Spassky who had stayed active the whole time.”

• Yes, he did beat Spassky, but he only faced against one player.
  If he had several great tournaments at that time, then I would not be making this comment.

“Chessmetrics has calculated elo retroactively for the period before elo was introduced. Fischer is clearly ahead of Lasker.”

• Yes, if you’re using Chessmetrics, then Fischer is “clearly ahead” of Lasker. But Chessmetrics isn’t really a “reliable source”, this is just an estimate. Don’t take those elos for granted.

• Plus, even if they were accurate, peak elo doesn’t define an ENTIRE career, but rather a period of theirs.

• Longevity and consistency matters too.

Question for tpr: Are we basically friends since we reply to each other so much? ^_^

"he did beat Spassky, but he only faced against one player"

• Fischer also played a secret training match against Gligoric 6-3 with 1 draw
  https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?tid=71896

"Chessmetrics isn’t really a “reliable source”"

• Chessmetrics is reliable. The statistician Sonas took all chess results and calculated elo backwards in time based on those.

@tpr said ^

... Chessmetrics is reliable. The statistician Sonas took all chess results and calculated elo backwards in time based on those.

Maybe, someday there will be a zombie apocalypse, and we will be able to see how accurately the chessmetrics numbers predict the outcome of a match between zombie-Lasker and zombie-Fischer.

@tpr said ^

"there really isn’t a way to compare each other’s ratings."

Chessmetrics has calculated elo retroactively for the period before elo was introduced.
Fischer is clearly ahead of Lasker.

Chess in general was on quite different level. If look error rates of tournaments back then the average level was lower. More professionals more theoretical knowledge results in better top players.

So Lasker was best player of his time and comparing skill wise he would behind most top players today. Still having more impressive achievement than most top players today.

So comparing historical players ability is bit of moot.

"If look error rates of tournaments back then the average level was lower."

• At top level the quality was already high. They played a slower time control than now, and they adjourned games.
  There were fewer players at top level, but they were good.

@tpr said ^

Fischer also played a secret training match against Gligoric 6-3 with 1 draw
https://www.chessgames.com/perl/chess.pl?tid=71896

In the link it's actually 6-1 with 3 draws. Having said that it just means Fischer performed better against Gligoric than in your post that probably just makes pro Fischer argument stronger.

@tpr said ^

Chessmetrics has calculated elo retroactively for the period before elo was introduced.
Fischer is clearly ahead of Lasker.

Chessmetrics has Fischer ahead based on their respective best 1-, 2- and 3-year periods, but Lasker (and Capablanca) ahead on the 4-, 5- and 10-year windows. I'm not sure I'd say that was "clearly ahead"?

Chessmetrics seems like as good an attempt as we can get at estimating how strong players are based on the standard of their time, although you could argue that that's unfair to Fischer given that "the standard of his time" was set by the well-funded and well-organized Soviet chess machine, which he dominated over in spite of having no comparable support.

But to be honest, I think that once you're at the point of comparing people who were clearly the greatest players of their respective eras, arguing about who was "the best" turns into a bit of a silly parlour game.