|
|
|
Topic: Best non-world champion of all time
| |
|
|
Author
| Message |
|---|
|
|
Between Efim Geller, Zukertort, and Harry Pillsbury it looks to be quite a tough comparison, any one of these people in their respective time periods could have been world champions had circumstances been different (they so even with World champions at the time may as well say same strength) I read that Geller got a plus score over Fisher before, is this true (is why he is on the list)?
|
|
|
Chigorin, Keres, Bronstein y Korchnoi.
|
|
|
I would say Viktor Korchnoi, with near-absolute certainty.
Don't forget David Bronstein and Paul Keres, as well. I'd certainly rank those two ahead of Zukertort and probably Pillsbury.
Geller did, indeed, have a plus score against Fischer (+5-3=2) and even a plus score against the set of World Champions from Euwe to Kasparov inclusive (though he had a negative or equal score against several of them individually).
|
|
|
I'd have to say Korchnoi on this one. Geller has a plus or about equal score with several World Champions, only Spassky used to beat him frequently (3-0 twice in the Candidates, 1965 and 1968, outside that they had about an equal score). Very good suggestions have been made already, I'd put Keres at no.2, then Bronstein, then would come Pillsbury, Chigorin, Zukertort, Geller and the rest, I'd put Ivanchuk in there, too.
|
|
|
Damn I even thought about Bronstein the minute after I made this and signed off! Did'nt Ivanchuk win the FIDE Knock-out before? From a completely objective skill viewpoint Bronstein and Keres ARE above Zukertort and Pillsbury, however relative to time period Pillsbury finished tournaments ahead of even Lasker, and don't forget that he was young and probably would have defeated Lasker for the world title if it wasnt for his premature death, of course that's just speculation but the grounds have weight behind them. It's that the top rank's contenders are so evenly matched that there is no true "best" as the best tends to have such a miniscule amount more skill then the rivals that for the sake of simplicity it can be said that the top is all the same skill level.
|
|
|
| Philidor wrote: Didn't Ivanchuk win the FIDE Knock-out before? |
No -- the closest he got was losing in the final to Ponomariov in 2002. There's also the question of whether the winners of the FIDE knockout competition were world champions in any meaningful sense.
|
| 1 2 3 4 5 Next |
|
|
|
