In July 2022, the current world chess champion, Magnus Carlsen, announced he would not defend his title against challenger Ian Nepomniachtchi. Nepomniachtchi had just won the challenger’s tournament. It’s widely assumed that Carlsen just wasn’t motivated because his chess skill is clearly superior to Nepomniachtchi’s — Carlsen defeated Nepomniachtchi by a score of 7.5 to 3.5 in the 2021 world championship match.

I’ve followed chess very closely for many decades. Here is my subjective list (but based on solid data) of the seven most dominant chess players of all time. By that I mean players who were clearly better than their contemporaries for a significant period of time.

I wanted to do a top-ten list, but after a lot of thought, I think there are just seven chess players who absolutely dominated their contemporaries. Listed in chronological order.

1. Paul Morphy (1837-1884) – Morphy was born in New Orleans and quickly established himself as the best player on the planet. This was a time before an official world championship, but Morphy is generally regarded as world champion from 1858–1862 when he crushed virtually every world class opponent he played against.

2. Emmanuel Lasker (1868-1941) – Lasker was born in Poland but raised in Germany. He was a mathematician and philosopher. He was the world chess champion for 27 years, from 1894 to 1921, by far the longest reign of any world chess champion.

3. Jose Raul Capablanca (1884-1942) – Capablanca was born in Cuba and was a natural chess prodigy. He was world champion from 1921-1927, succeeding Lasker. Capablanca only lost 34 tournament games in his lifetime, and was undefeated from 1916-1924. Amazing!

4. Robert (Bobby) J. Fischer (1943-2008) – Fischer was born in Chicago but raised in New York. He defeated Russian grandmaster Boris Spassky in 1972 to win the world championship but he chose not to defend his title in 1975. Fischer won his first U.S. championship at age 14, and again in 1964 with a perfect 11-0 score — unprecedented.

5. Anatoly Karpov (b. 1951) – Karpov was born in Russia, then part of the Soviet Union. He inherited the world championship from Fischer in 1975 and then successfully defended his title for the next 10 years.

6. Garry Kasparov (b. 1963) – Kasparov was born in Azerbaijan, then part of the Soviet Union. Kasparov was world champion from 1985-1993, succeeding Karpov. Kasparov was also widely regarded as the world’s strongest player through 2000 when the world championship organization was in chaos.

7. Magnus Carlsen (b. 1990) – Carlsen was born and raised in Norway. He won the world championship in 2013, defeating V. Anand of India by a score of 6.5 to 3.5. Carlsen’s style is strategically relentless and tactically brilliant.

Other super-strong chess players who won a world championship but who don’t make my chess-dominance list include Wilhelm Steinitz, Alexander Alekhine, Max Euwe, Mikhail Botvinnik, Vasily Smyslov, Mikhail Tal, Tigran Petrosian, Boris Spassky, Vladimir Kramnik, and Viswanathan Anand. All of them great players but not nearly as dominant, in my opinion, as the seven on my list above.