Comparing world champions

By Frank "Boy" Pestaño
Chessmoso

COMPARING world champions of different eras is speculative, risky and controversial. For example, who is the better boxer, Muhammad Ali or Rocky Marciano? Or is Tiger Woods really better than Jack Nicklaus? In the same vein, how would Manny Pacquiao fare against the master boxer Salvador Sanchez or the great Alexis Arguello?

The only basis for comparison is to look at the statistics of the different personalities involved. Even then, with all the facts factored in, the conclusions are still subject to criticism.

There have been 14 world champions in chess in the modern era. Who is the most and least aggressive? Who has the greatest fighting spirit? Which world champion is content with draws?

Here are some surprising answers from a statistical analysis by Johannes Fischer in an article in Chessbase.

In the table “gms” is the total number of games; “ave. len.” is the average length of these games; “ave.draws” is the average length of the drawn games; “<20” is the number of games drawn in less than 20 moves; and “quo” is the total number of games divided by the short draws (so a larger number is better).

As shown on the table, Steinitz, Lasker, Fischer and Alekhine are the world champions with the greatest fighting spirits. They have a higher ratio of won games than the rest, their draws have a higher number of moves and their short draws are lower. It is rather remarkable that the classical masters appear to be the most aggressive, foremost Steinitz, who has the lowest drawing ratio of them all, though he also has the highest losing ratio. Steinitz played almost no short draws at all and the chance to encounter a draw when watching a Steinitz game is only one percent.

Smyslov, Petrosian, Spassky, Karpov and Kramnik have the higher percentage of draws. Spassky has the highest drawing ratio of 59 percent, followed by Petrosian and Kramnik with 57 percent each.

The average number of drawn moves is shorter than that of Steinitz, Lasker, Alekhine or Fischer and shows that they were the least aggressive of the group. The draws of Spassky and Petrosian last only 29 moves while that of Kramnik are a little higher at 31 moves.

Overall, the chessplayer with the most fighting quota is Lasker, followed by Fischer, Alekhine, Euwe, Capablanca, Botvinnik, Kasparov, Karpov, Smyslov, Tal, Kramnik, Spassky and Petrosian, respectively. Stenitz is not included as his data distorts the whole group.

The statistics do not show as to who is the greatest player of all time. However, it is generally regarded by experts and the chessplaying community that it narrows down to Bobby Fischer or Garry Kasparov. What is your opinion?

KASPAROV AND FIDE. Fide has reacted to Kasparov’s earlier decision to withdraw from his world championship with Rustam Kasimdzhanov, scheduled on April 25 to May 14 this year.

Kasparov claimed that Fide has destroyed his life for claiming that the match will be held in Dubai in January this year when there was no clear financial guarantee. Much earlier, the same thing happened to him when his match with Ponomariov was cancelled in 2002. Kasparov said that he missed the opportunity to play at the ongoing Wijk aan Zee tournament and that for two and a half years, Fide has not meet its commitment as regards the Prague Agreement.

Fide claimed that Kasparov all along knew that demanding excessive financial guarantees will take sometime and that the demand will be in place by Jan. 25, as promised by the organizer of the championship, the Turkish Chess Federation.

CEPCA JANUARY TOURNAMENT. Our first tournament this year, exclusive for members, will be held on Jan. 30 at 3 p.m. at the Handuraw Café in Mabolo.

It will be a five-round Swiss rapid chess event, which will classify members into Class A, B and C, with time controls set at 10, 15 and 20 minutes, respectively.