On October 01 2011 05:03 Emporio wrote: I'm really interested not just by the relatively similarities of the players' success charts, but also by the comparisons you made to their play style.
It would make sense that the first "best" player would be whoever first actually understood what the game was about, followed by those that discoved new things, to be later eclipsed by players that took the fundamentals, the new styles, and then combined it with non-gimmicky skill.
For other people that know the history of chess and/or bw well, does the descriptions he made of those players accurately match the reality?
the comparisons were actually sound stylistically except for botvinnik and july.
botvinnik was the leader of the official soviet school/academy for chess i believe, and he played very textbook, and had a good endgame (indictative of being a bookworm/theory master)
july as you know just goes out and kills people
only similarity is that both were better in tournament settings and finals than they were normally. they brought their a game and a good competitive mentality
On October 01 2011 04:51 scDeluX wrote: Nice post, featured maybe ?
People need to see this. This should be a book. The charts convey so much information over such a long period of time, in 2 amazing mental sports. I'm in awe.
I have a lot of respect towards people who play chess or knows a lot about it. And when you "combine" broodwar and chess, it seems pretty amazing as i just noticed when i read your blog.
Amazing read and great work, one of the best blogs i have read in a long time.
this was a great read. well researched and entertaining, thank-you.
while i realize it is not as important as the information you presented, i would like to add one thing about july zerg. he succeeded at the highest level when he was at an age that is generally considered far over the hill. starcraft is a very very young mans game. and his near uniquely aggressive gameplay, even back in the BW days was amazing to watch.
this vod on the old violetak account on youtube sums up julyzerg. watch out for the ear rape at the beginning if you decide to watch it. also, i had the picture of bisu at about 4:46 as my desktop for a long time after this.
Made me nostalgic for my Chess playing days. (never too good, highest USCF rating was around 1500)
I liked the comparisons of players. And remember what a fan I was of Viktor Korchnoi as he always tried to screw withthe Soviet Union after his defection. (Yes, I am old and remember it)
I also am reminded of how fascinating a personality Mikhail Tal was... The attacker extraordinaire! Coolest nickname ever... The "Wizard of Riga".
The only thing I would want to add is that while Kasparov is statistically the best of Chess, he himself has stated that he felt that Bobby was the greatest player ever for his brilliancies and the gap that he created between himself and his "peers".
I remember reading an article from Garry in which he basically accounted for "rating inflation" and showed that at the time that Garry came closest to breaking the 3000 ELO barrier, that Bobby's demolition of his peers, had the average ratings been similar to the time of the article, would have put Bobby around 3200...
I think in the long run that Garry's prolonged dominance and ground-breaking research with Chess databases give him a very strong argument as "best ever". But I like to remind people that for the brief time that Bobby was on top, his like had never been seen before or since.
Too bad he was nuts... (or maybe the two were hand-in-hand)
Yo man this has got be one of the best post's Ive read. It's clear to see the amount of time and work you put in this. You should really be happy with yourself, because I feel like i learned a lot from this.I personally no nothing about chess, so it was cool to learn all theses champs. Amazing job, this one will be remembered!!! : )
EPT
