Author: Stephen Ham
Date: 14:42:05 09/16/04
Go up one level in this thread
On September 16, 2004 at 17:02:27, Joseph Merolle wrote: >Well he beat both Kaspy and Karpov in tounament play at the higt of their >renaissance. I am wondering if he has anything left to offer stephen. > Dear Joe, After reading your response, I question whether you've read mine. I've had some one-off victories and some draws with several Minnesota State Champions in OTB chess. Does that make me a candidate for being Minnesota State Champ? Of course not. Instead, my victories were exactly as stated...just as Seirawan's were. There are several ways to measure being the World's best. One of them is to come very close via the qualification process, only to be denied by war or politics. Seirawan never even got close in the qualification process Joe, whereas Keres, Korchnoi, Fine, Reshevsky, and Anand all did. Another is to top the rating list, or to be in the top 5 or so. Seirawan at his peak was probably only in the top 50. So he failed again. An additional clue is to win as many top tournaments as Keres, Korchnoi, Fine, Reshevsky, or Anand. Again, Seirawan isn't even remotely close. As I recall, he didn't win many Big tournaments at all. Yet another clue is success in matches against top players. Again, I don't recall any success there either. I do recall him getting blown out by Speelman (certainly not a top tier player himself) in 1988, at the peak of Seirawan's success. The final clue would be to compare Seirawan to the other candidates for strength. Here this would be a joke, since Seirawan never was of the strength of Keres, Korchnoi, Fine, Reshevsky or Anand at their respective peaks. In fact, it would be an embarrassment to Seirawan to even do so, Joe. So Joe, Seirawan was indeed a very talented and very gentlemanly GM. He also had some success. But he failed all the above tests - BIG TIME. He's never been a "1st tier" player and maybe at best might have been a "2nd tier" GM, but only at his peak. I'd guess that he spent the majority of his GM performance below the top-50 rating group. Perhaps this makes him a 3rd tier GM. So Joe, I respectfully question what you're thinking in your posts nominating Seirawan as the best player never to be World Champ. Stephen >On September 16, 2004 at 16:47:30, Stephen Ham wrote: > >>On September 15, 2004 at 21:36:11, Joseph Merolle wrote: >> >>>Most say this person is Viktor Korchnoi however although not a popular vote I >>>think this person by far is Yassar Seirawan! Yassar stoped both Kaspy , Karpov, >>>and crushed Viktor Korchnoi. I think people just vote for their underdog rather >>>then looking at facts and who the better players really are. I should add >>>Kasparov was in his prime when Yassar beat him (more then once) back when no one >>>could tauch him. Love to here your agreement or disagrement. >>> >>>Yassar Come out of Retirement with the Fide Knox outs you still have a chance to >>>bring the title back to USA! All in agreement say I. >>> >>>Regards JAMerolle >> >>Hello Joe, >> >>There are plenty of applicants for this title. The chief of which are: Keres, >>Korchnoi, Fine, and Reshevsky. One might even tongue-in-cheek add Vishy Anand's >>name to the list. Sure he won the FIDE World Ch. in 2000, but the FIDE World Ch. >>then was not a real (classical chess) World Championship, played under the >>qualifying and final standards of former REAL championships. Nonetheless I'd >>argue that Anand's the world's strongest player at present. >> >>Respectfully, I don't think that Seirawan even comes close to qualifying for >>this title, Joe. In spite of one-off victories over some top-tier players, >>Yasser was never a top-tier player himself. He also never near the top of the >>rating lists, even at his peak. He also never had the tournament/match victories >>that the other applicants to this title did. So I question how much >>due-diligence you performed when suggesting Seirawan, Joe. >> >>Stephen
This page took 0 seconds to execute
Last modified: Thu, 15 Apr 21 08:11:13 -0700
Current Computer Chess Club Forums at Talkchess. This site by Sean Mintz.