Location: Espoo, Finland.
Interests besides chess: philosophy, psychology, science in general, art (drawing especially), (military)history, THE truth (whatever that is).
In short: I'm interested in everything, but prioritizing the least trivial. (Chess is not trivial, nor is art. It's only a matter of how you perceive them.)
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My top-3 favorite players: Morphy and Capablanca, followed closely by Fischer.
For me, choosing favorites is more about the originality and efficiency of that player's style, rather than raw strength. Of course, these qualities correlate with success, but should explain my choice of players, especially of Morphy. Like Fischer, I appreciate "the light touch" over "the heavy".
---- ADDED 2012-01-14:
Lately I've also gained a great appreciation for the mind of Emanuel Lasker, though I wouldn't call his style "light". I currently believe Lasker's "maximum strength" (the maximum depth and accuracy of his judgment and plans), was actually greater than Capablanca's. But Capablanca's style was better overall because of it's greater freedom from oversights and faster pace of play, which seem more important than the maximum strength a player can reach.
This is because as the saying goes, 1 bad move can be sufficient to not only neutralizing the advantages gained from 40 perfect moves, but even to losing the game!
In summary: in a must-Win-situation I'd pick Lasker, but in a must-Not-Lose-situation I'd pick Capablanca.
For this same reason I suspect Morphy could've defeated Steinitz in a match: Steinitz's new theories enabled him to perhaps squish more accuracy out of non-open positions (whenever he wasn't too busy trying to prove his point with some very eccentric moves), but Morphy's relative lack of oversights coupled with his more balanced positional style would've probably won the match, though most likely only after a slow start, as was typical of Morphy.
Kibitzing
