Top Ten greatest chess players ever

Anatoly Karpov (born 1951) is a Soviet / Russian chess grandmaster and former World Champion. He was the official world champion from 1975 to 1985 when he was defeated by Garry Kasparov. He played three matches against Kasparov for the title from 1986 to 1990, before becoming FIDE World Champion once again after Kasparov broke away from FIDE in 1993. For his decades-long standing among the world's elite, Karpov is considered one of the greatest players of all time.

Bobby Fischer (1943-2008) was an American chess player and the eleventh World Champion. It is widely regarded as one of the best chess players of all time. Fischer was also the best-selling chess author.
Considered a "legend of chess." At 13, Fischer became famous for his game "The Game of the Century" against Donald Byrne in NewYork. At age 15 became the youngest GM and candidate for the World Championship so far.

Mikhail Botvinnik (1911-1995) was a Russian International Grandmaster and three-time World Chess Champion. He worked as an electrical engineer while playing high level chess. He also developed a chess algorithm designed to "think" like a human player.
Playing chess class for decades, being an eminent author of chess, one of the pioneers of computer chess and a chess master in his later years, Botvinnik is widely regarded as the most important contributor to chess in the 20th century .

Viswanathan Anand (1969 -) is an Indian chess grandmaster, the current world champion and highest ranked player in the world.
Anand is one of six players in history to break the 2800 mark on the FIDE list, and at the age of 37, for the first time became the world number one.
Anand became the first grandmaster from India in 1987.
Anand has been described as the most versatile world champion, as Anand is the only player to have won the world championship of chess in many formats, including knockout, tournament, match, Rapid and Blitz.