Who had the best opening, middle game and endgame ever?

i wish they would make a video serious of the championship

very interesting comment but i dont agree with he didnt know how to compete with likes of them.he had an equal score with botvinnik and before AVRO a positive score.he was still capable of beating them.many consider AVRO 1938 showed he cannot compete successfully anymore with new generation since he finished in bottom of table and lost to botvinnik,keres and alekhine but this is incorrect.capa arrived in AVRO when he was ill.his wife olga talked about this many years later:

Perhaps I already felt the shadow of a presentiment overhanging, but I had no idea of the precarious state of Capa’s health and how dangerous his high blood pressure could be. Much later, when we were in Paris, Dr Domingo Gómez, Capa’s principal physician, told me that Capa should not have played in that AVRO tournament at all.

In the latter part of [his second game against Botvinnik] Capa suddenly got up and quickly went out. I noticed that when he returned his face had a rather grayish pallor, although he continued the game to its end. He graciously surrendered to Botvinnik, shaking his hand with a smile. Later he told me he had had blackness before his eyes when he rushed out, to throw some cold water on his face in the wash-room. As was his rule, he offered no excuse or explanation, merely saying, “Botvinnik played well and I did not”. I was the only one who knew how unwell he was at AVRO.’

next year in olympiad 1939 he had the best performance on top board.yes of course it was impossible for him to compete at highest level from 1950 on but in prewar era he was still a serious candidate to become world champion.keres only had a positive score against him(his only win was achieved in AVRO) but in that time he was inferior to him and had a lot to do to surpass capa.

plz read this link,capa interview in 1939.he has talked about his rivals specially keres and his physical condition during past few years:

http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/extra/capablanca11.html

Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks!...

Very interesting interview, tesla. And very self-serving of Capa, even if much of it is true.

Keres almost certainly knew the position where Capa offered a draw was indeed drawn. He didn't refuse it due to his inferior understanding of the position, but for psychological reasons. Capa's petulant response in the interview suggests that Keres was right to refuse the great Capa's kind offer to draw.

In the interview, Capablanca claimed to have a winning advantage against Keres at AVRO. It wasn't the game Keres won, which was a fairly classic example of exploiting small advantages. It was probably this one:

Capablanca played Keres when Keres was in his early 20s. As Capa himself says, Keres was still developing his skills. This was also true of Botvinnik. Both Keres and Botvinnik peaked in the 1950s. Capablanca may have been their equal in the 1930s, but both players improved dramatically in the next 15 years.

 i believe botvinnik remained always a step forward in evaluating positions.judgement and deep positional understanding was never keres strength point and i believe he was uncertain in choosing plans.so i can say that his judgement always remained unsteady and misfired in some very important games in his career.

and by the way i believe botvinnik peak of career was in 1940s.after he became world champion he stopped playing for 3 years and bronstien had very good chances to become world champion in 1951 but he made his biggest mistakes of his career in his match with botvinnik.

 he never had that domination again in 1950s or 1960 and he held his crown thanks to ridiculous return match rule which was an excessive psychological burden for smyslov and tal and he held his title two times by an equal score 12-12 against bronstien and smyslov and i believe it was ridiculous they didnt play additional games to announce the winner and botvinnik held his crown after 12-12.

i like botvinniks fighting spirit and non-whiny atitude.

Tesla, the Botvinnik rule was indeed an undue burden on the candidates. But Botvinnik won every rematch he ever faced. He really was the Patriarch. Karpov had the same Botvinnik rule against Kasparov. Karpov was undoubtedly better than Botvinnik, but Kasparov was able to overcome the rule and retain his title. 

Bronstein's mistakes, and there were many in that match, were largely due to his poor form in the endgames. It speaks to Bronstein's brilliance that he was able to play for the World Championship when he was clearly deficient compared to his peers when it came to the endgame. Botvinnik's battles against Smyslov featured some of the most interesting, complex games of that generation. They still deserve to be studied in depth.

Botvinnik showed the world how to play against Tal. He lived in an era when there wasn't a single dominant player. That doesn't mean he was weak, just that his competition was strong. 

So the fact that Botvinnik didn't dominate his rivals is not a mark against him, but rather a mark in favor of the 1950s and 1960s as a special period in chess history when there were several players at the very pinnacle of chess. We saw a similar occurence from 2000-2012 when Kramnik, Anand, Topalov and a few others were very close to each other and lifted each to new heights.

i dont question botvinnik strength.he was mighty but he didnt deserve to be world champion for 13 years.

karpov was better since he lived in a diffrent era.kasparov is undoubtedly a sounder player than smyslov and tal and the fact kasparov defeated karpov in a return match dont justify this unjust rule.smyslov and tal were ill specially tal in return match and in a poor form.they were successful in a long match against botvinnik why did they have to play him again? it is ridiculous world champion didnt have to play a single game in 3 years and then in a match in case of 12-12 he could hold his title and if he lost to challenger he would be rewarded a second chance to retain his title.botvinnik had a unique ability to prepare for a specific oponent.he was a splendid match player but if it wasnt for this ridiculous return match and 12-12 rule,he never was able to become world champion after his loss to smyslov in 1957.i dont think bronstien was that weak in endgame.he simply blundered and lost compeletely equal endgames.i think his mistakes also had psychological reasons.for example his loss in 6th game is tragic but he nevertheless made a draw with botvinnik and the match should have been continued but since FIDE system had been designed by botvinnik and his friends even after 12-12 he retained his title.that s the case after his match with smyslov in 1954.i dont blame botvinnik for why he wasnt dominant.i just said he dominated in 1940s but he remained world champion thanks to ridiculous match obligations compeletely in favor of him.as Petrosian said after he defeated botvinnik and this rule was abolished:

after all the challenger is produced  as the result of an objective qualification process.why after defeating the world champion should an additional examination be arranged?if the challenger were to be produced without qualification,then the champions right to a return match would have to be retained.

i mnot surprised why this rule was abolished since 53 year old botvinnik had no chance against a solid player like petrosian in a return match and he knew that himself.he didnt have enough energy anymore to work hard and find out how to overcome solid distinctive style of petrosian.it was too much for him.

The change to the Botvinnik rule was grandfathered in. Botvinnik actually had the right to a return match against Petrosian, but declined to exercise that right. It was due to take effect after 1963.

yes and as i explained in last paragraph,he didnt have any chance against petrosian in a return match. if he had,his friends made sure he would have played that return match.

Capablanca once suggested that Lasker was the strongest endgame player he'd met, and that Botvinnik and Keres (the younger generation) were less impressive than Lasker in the middle game, because he could make 'moves that shook the board', completely overturning the situation.

Tal suggested that Lasker was the greatest of all time, because he could make a mistake in every game, while Tal himself only made a mistake in every second game.Any other sign I'm biased towards Lasker?

im not sure i might be wrong, but didnt rubinstein outplay lasker in the endgames?

Good point....what must Capablanca have been thinking....silly me

garry kasparov and anand.

The Botvinik rule was also in effect when Kasparov took the title from Karpov. Karpov got a rematch.  I wouldn't be surprised if it was in effect during the Karpov-Kortchnoi matches as well.

He seemed pretty whiny to me in places (talking about not having played in 3 years re his match with Bronstein, for example).

Whiny? Did someone say Whiny?? I nominate Fischer for being the most-whiny WCH!

In defense of Botvinnik (never thought I'd write this, since I'm a Keres fan): not having played for 3 years is a serious problem if you're playing someone like Bronstein, who was a great improviser over the board. As the games tell, Bronstein ran rings around Botvinnik in many middle game positions.

Botvinnik is rightly renowned for being harsher in his self-criticism than most GM's would be against their worst enemy. Unfortunately, Fischer's disparaging comments from his wounded ego (especially in the light of THAT game, where Fischer left the board white as a ghost, with tears welling up in his eyes) are given too much attention. My impression of Botvinnik as a chess player, despite all the things I dislike about him as a person (i.e a stalinist without culture and refinement who would use the system to his own advantage when he could), is that he had tremendous courage and a very profound understanding of chess positions. His legacy in various opening schemes is tremendous. Whatever else he did, he always played fighting chess.