Thanks to the Netflix series Queen's Gambit, along with popular streamers like Gothamchess and Hikaru Nakamura, Chess has enjoyed a sharp rise in popularity in recent years. Consequently, the World Chess Championship, which is currently taking place between Magnus Carlsen and Ian Nepomniachtchi, is receiving plenty of welcome attention.
As is often the case when the World Chess Championship comes around, debates and discussions have started about the age-old question of who is the greatest player of all time. There have been many chess players over the centuries who have dominated and innovated the board game, though the following players stand out from the talented crowd as the best of the best.
7 José Raúl Capablanca
José Raúl Capablanca was a Cuban chess player who lived between 1888 and 1942. Capablanca is remembered fondly for his incredible endgame skills, which helped him become World Chess Champion for the first time in 1921, a title that he held for five years. José also went on a near 10-year undefeated run, which spanned from February 1916 to March 1924.
Capablanca is best known today for writing some of the highest-quality chess books around, including 1921's Chess Fundamentals.
6 Viswanathan Anand
Viswanathan Anand (often referred to as Vishy Anand) is a grandmaster from India, who was FIDE World Champion in 2000, 2007, 2008, 2010, and 2012. The 51-year-old is a beloved figure in India, where he became the first recipient of the Khel Ratna Award, a prestigious accolade in the country that is awarded to people in sport for outstanding achievement.
Anand's FIDE rating peaked at an eye-watering 2817 in 2011; his current rating is 2751.
5 Paul Morphy
Paul Morphy was an American player who lived between 1837 and 1884. Morphy is known as "The Pride and Sorrow of Chess" as the prodigy retired from chess at the age of just 22. Despite the short career, Paul Morphy is considered to be one of, if not the most influential chess player of all time, as his quick, tactical, and often devastating attacking play was central to the so-called "Romantic era of chess."
Paul Morphy is also known for the Opera Game, one of the most famous chess games of all time that showed the importance of rapid development and ended with a picturesque checkmate.
4 Anatoly Karpov
Anatoly Karpov is a Russian grandmaster whose career achievements read like a family-sized shopping list. His achievements include being World Chess Champion from 1975 to 1985, FIDE World Champion in 1993, 1996, and 1998, and a nine-time Chess Oscar winner.
Karpov is also notable for holding his spot as the highest-rated player in the world for an incredible 102 months, which has only been bettered by Garry Kasparov and Magnus Carlsen (more on them later). Anatoly Karpov has written a plethora of chess books over the years, many of which focus on chess openings, such as 2007's How To Play The English, 2006's Caro-Kann Defence: Advance Variation, Gambit System, and 1990's The Closed Openings in Action.
3 Bobby Fischer
Bobby Fischer was a chess prodigy and grandmaster from the United States who had a sharp rise in fame at the age of 13. Fischer's rise in prominence came from a game played against Donald Byrne in 1956, where the 13-year-old sacrificed his queen on move 17 before ultimately winning the 41 move game - the match soon became known as The Game of the Century.
Bobby Fischer won his first World Chess Championship in 1972, defeating the USSR's Boris Spassky. The game received worldwide attention, as it was branded as a Cold War confrontation. A film about Bobby Fischer's life titled Pawn Sacrifice premiered at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival before releasing just over a year later. The film was directed by Edward Zwick and starred Tobey Maguire as Fischer.
2 Magnus Carlsen
Magnus Carlsen is a 31-year-old grandmaster from Norway who has been the World Chess Champion since 2013 when he defeated the aforementioned Viswanathan Anand. Magnus is also notable for having the longest win-streak in classical chess history, which began after a loss in July 2018 and ended after an unbelievable stretch of 125 games, when he was beaten by Poland's Jan-Krzysztof Duda in October 2020. There is a strong belief that, by the time Magnus retires, he will be considered the best chess player of all time.
Aside from chess, Magnus Carlsen is a model, avid Fantasy Premier League player, and co-founder of the company Play Magnus. The first Play Magnus product was an app of the same name where, as the name suggests, people could play chess against an AI Magnus of various ages that uses a database of his former moves. Play Magnus has since merged with Chess24 and acquired the learning platform Chessable.
1 Garry Kasparov
Garry Kasparov is a Russian grandmaster born in 1963. At the age of just 22, Kasparov became the youngest ever undisputed World Chess Champion when he defeated Anatoly Karpov in 1985.
The Russian grandmaster holds numerous records in chess, including the most Chess Oscars (11), most consecutive tournament wins (15), and the longest time spent as the world's number one rated player (255). Since retiring from Chess, Garry Kasparov has become active in politics; Kasparov is a member of The Other Russia, a coalition that opposes Vladimir Putin.