Author: Albert Silver
Date: 07:50:10 09/17/04
Go up one level in this thread
>Bom Dia, Alberto
>
>I agree with you, per usual. However, it's my perception that Kasparov isn't as
>dominant as he once was, as evidenced by his last few outings. And since his
>last few outings were relatively sparce, I'll also opine that he's a bit rusty.
>I think that he's on a downward slope now for performance, and probably also for
>desire to play. Conversely, Anand is mowing everybody else down and seems to be
>getting stronger, if that's possible.
>
>I also agree with you about both Fine and Rubinstein. However, I think that
>Joe's speculation about the best player never to win the WC needs some
>definitions enforced. For example, in my mind, one needs to be the dominant
>player for a period of time in order to be considered a WC. That's just my own
>personal bias. Instead, I think that there were shorter periods when others were
>the best player in the world (e.g. Tarrasch, Rubinstein were probably the best
>for a couple years or so). But I never viewed them as rightful WC's since their
>era of supremacy was so short. For example, I think that Rubinstein was the
>strongest player in the world for a couple years when Lasker was fading and
>Capablanca was ascending.
You dispute the validity of Tal's or Smyslov's titles then? They only held on
the the title for a single year after all. Before the crazy hectic times of
today where the system is a mess, and after the times when rightful candidates
needed a good dose of luck to get a shot, the system allowed for a champion
every 3 years. Had that been in store at that time, Rubinstein or a few others,
might well have been WC. In 1912 for example, Rubinstein won 5 good tournaments
in a row, and may easily have been the very best then. WWI made any such
possibility impossible of course. He was also a huge force for the next decade,
despite his fractured psyche.
BTW, as an aside, if you like Rubinstein, you can find no better books than the
2 by John Donaldson and Minev. It is not only complete, beautifully presented,
and containing notes of theirs; it includes all the notes found from other
sources as well, such as Steinitz, Rubinstein himself, Lasker, Kmoch, and many
others. A true feast.
Albert
>
>Conversely, I think that most of us consider Korchnoi to be the strongest player
>never to be WC. However, I'd argue that Korchnoi, unlike the other candidates,
>was never the strongest player at any point in his lifetime. For example, in the
>1960's, Spassky was the best in the world. By 1971, Fischer was the strongest
>player in the world and by the mid-70's Karpov proved to be at least his equal.
>Karpov subsequently got stronger only to be replaced by the even stronger
>Kasparov.
>
>So the whole matter gets confusing, as I see it. The reason is that Zukertort,
>Tarrasch, Rubinstein, Fine, Keres, Reshevsky all have claims to being the
>strongest in the world for a period. But these peak periods were relatively
>short (e.g. 1-2 years). But the best candidate for strongest non-WC was
>Korchnoi, IMHO. And he was never the strongest in the world. I find this both
>interesting and confusing. ;-)
>
>Tudo de bom,
>
>Stephen
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