Top 10 Chess players of all time
Chess is known as a great test of intelligence, but it is also a great test of concentration.
One of the most important teachers of Confucianism after Confucius was Mencius (372 BCE – 289 BCE), and he wrote that meditation and concentration can be more important than intelligence in board games such as chess. He argued that a person with weaker intelligence than his opponent, but with strong concentration skills, will do better than the intelligent player whose mind wanders away often.
See: The Zen of Chess and D-Chess
Listed below are the Top 10 Chess players of all-time, according to the opinion of Dhamma Wiki founder Dr. David N. Snyder and discussed at the Theravada Buddhist online forum, Dhamma Wheel.
In determining the best all-time, there are many different methods and no one measure works. For example, in the past when competition was lighter, it was easier to remain champion for many years, so length in years at the top is not the best method, by itself. Also, elo chess ratings tend to get inflated over time (as do all rating systems), so that is not entirely accurate. A composite of factors need to be looked at. For my version of the Top 10 all-time, I use the following factors:
- 1. Brute strength of the player (as determined by ratings, best performances)
- 2. Number of years as World Champion (if any)
- 3. Significance of the player to the history of chess (or one of the predecessors of the current game)
- 4. Significance of the player to the promotion of the sport/game and the image of chess
10. Wilhelm Steinitz (1836-1900) from Austria / U.S.
World Champion from 1886 to 1894 (8 years) At the top of the ratings chart for 173 months (over 14 years) from 1866 to 1890
Steinitz was born on May 17, 1836 in the Jewish ghetto of Prague (now capital of the Czech Republic; then in Bohemia, a part of the Austrian Empire). The last of a hardware retailer's thirteen sons, he learned to play chess at age 12. He began playing serious chess in his twenties, after leaving Prague to study mathematics in Vienna, at the Vienna Polytecnic.
9. Paul Morphy (1837-1884) from the U.S.
World Champion from 1858-1859 At the top of the ratings chart for 39 months between 1858-1861
The first [known] chess prodigy, winning games and matches against top rated players at a very young age.
He earned a degree, studying mathematics and philosophy and later also a law degree at the age of only 19. Since he was not old enough to practice law, he had time to play chess, which he did very well at, beating masters easily.
There were no "official" world championship matches yet at that time, but he was generally considered to be the world's best and world champion from at least 1858-1859. Bobby Fischer considered Morphy to be the greatest chess player of all-time (but other chess commentators disagree).