The best challenger for the word title - were clearly those challengers who went on to win the title !! 

If it's a list of those who did not quite get there, then out of the pre 1948 crowd,Schlecter i think is the most deserving - rumours persist to this day that he had to throw his game v Lasker, although whether it was an official match is another story.

After this, I would say on ability Anand- he would have been a world champ in any other era. In terms of getting there hands on the  title  hard to disagree with Victor the Terrible at Baguio. But hard to ignore 'Barry' Bronstein's claims - that he may have had to deliberately avoid winning !

Andrew

Oh, Keano, you naughty boy. We are counting only points won over the board here. True enough about Leko, mind.

Quote:

I only took into consideration the matches for the world title and so excluded the 1948 tournament. By the way, ended only 4th at this tournament not only behind of future champions Botvinnik and Smyslov but also behind Reshevsky.

Bit torn between Tarrasch, Schlechter and Korchnoi. Tarrasch because he could have played Steinitz around 1890 and only played Lasker when he was past his prime (though he humiliated Marshall a few years prior). Schlechter for drawing the match. Korchnoi for overall performance, plus scoring 3.5/4 against Karpov with 5-2 behind. In the end I went for Tarrasch due to his overall results (completely dominating the field around 1890, including quite a plus against Steinitz) and meanwhile keeping up his practice.

I left Bronstein out, since he shouldnt have played Botwinnik in the first place as he freely admits in one of his books. Boleslavsky slowed down in the candidates tournament to allow Bronstein to tie in the hopes of securing a 3-people tournament iso a match.

IMJohnCox wrote on 02/13/07 at 12:03:08:


Sorry for Leko, I overlooked him!! 
I have just added him to the group with Short.

What's happened to Leko!? (arguably, anyway) 

Schlechter deserves a button of his own. He drew with the man Tal called the greatest of the champions. Getting slaughtered by Kasparov isn't quite in the same league of achievement.

In fairness I don't think you can look beyond Bronstein or Schlechter, who did after all draw with the champions.

I think I would just go for Bronstein - longer match, Botvinnik so dominant in 1948 and then challenged at the height of his powers, suspicion that Bronstein was pressured into not winning, etc.