Who's your favorite chess player?

Chess is played by many people. Who's your favorite player? Here are a few that might be your favorite.

magnus carlsen

@magnuscarlsen

@MagnusCarlson

i like gothamchess aka levy and bobby fischer

Mikhail Tal 

Vin Diesel 

Recently, I have become a fan of Efim Petrovich Geller. I enjoy his attacking style, and his sacrifices are usually played in a quite accurate manner, whereas Tal's sacrifices are often quite dicey.

I'm embarrassed to admit that I rarely recollect Geller. He was in the top 10 in the world for about 20 years, roughly 1950 to 1970. He had a lifetime plus score against 4 world champions: Botvinnik, Fischer, Petrosian, and Smyslov, and an even score against Tal. 

My favorite Geller anecdote concerns the Gothenburg Variation of the Najdorf. In round 14 of the 1955 Interzonal Tournament, three Soviet players were paired against 3 Argentine players: Keres-Najdorf, Spassky-Pilnik, and Geller-Panno. The Argentines had prepared an innovation that they analyzed to death, and they were convinced that the Soviet players would all be beaten. When they played the new move, the Soviet players went into deep thought. It was Geller who came up with the refutation, a brilliant sacrifice (13. Bb5). Keres and Spassky copied his moves from there, and all 3 of them won.

Despite all of that, Geller is not my favorite player. Hard to tell who really is, but Petrosian, Reshevsky, Planinc, and Gligorich are right up there, all for different reasons. For current players, it's hard not to like Carlsen, who seems like a genuinely nice guy besides being an awesome chess player.

Viktor Korchnoi.

Was still a top 100 player at age 75.

Played against the best, under difficult circumstances and  did very well,

Fair enough. I've been looking at a couple of Korchnoi's games recently, and he is quite incredible. Karpov-Korchnoi (Dortmund 1992) is a pretty great achievement for a 60 year old playing an ex-world champion two-thirds of his age.

I read His "Chess is my Life" when I was in high school.

Just remember him trying to become the best, but running into Karpov and the entire Soviet Bloc of grandmaster assistants, during a tourney.

Defecting was a feat of great fortitude, along with playing against Soviet players, even as the authorities arrested his son.

Strength, beyond measure.

Wonder if Usain is any good at speed chess?

Perhaps he plays variants?

Akiba Rubinstein. I also like Giri.

Bobby fisher :wk :wk :wk :wk

:wk

In no particular order:
Praggnanandhaa.
Andrew tang.
Eric Rosen.