..
When you look at all the statistics and look at every
angle Capablanca was probably the greatest player ever. His one
weakness was living the nightlife. He was a partyman.


*Statistics don't tell the whole story.*


For example, one graph may show that Capablanca outperformed all other
players over a certain period of time, but *who* chose the length of that
period, and *why* nine years, and not eight, or ten? How many games did Capa
actually play during that period, vs. the number played by others who may have
"underperformed" him? Who decided which hich games were included, and which
were not? Chessbase 2000 mega is NOT the end-all of chess databases, nor is it
without significant flaws.


Upon seeing such a ranking -- where Capablanca is (quite unusually) ranked
ahead of eveyone else -- it immediately occured to me that: 1) Capa defeated
Lasker in a match without suffering even a single loss, which makes for a
one-time massive rating gain for him, and a similar loss for Lasker. Such
"all-or-nothing" matches can distort the true picture of relative strength; 2)
Capa was barely active for several years, which "helped" him achieve nototriety
for "having lost only one game in eight years," or whatever it was. 3) It was
*Lasker's* own inactivity which "helped" Capablanca to achieve such amazing
results, before he finally lost a match the Alekhine. And Alekhine's refusal
to play Capa another match may have had a significant effect -- either way --
as well.



In sum, you need to look at more than just statistics to get the whole
picture.

Especially when those stats are derived from calculations based upon anything
other than a perfect knowledge of every result of every game ever played -- and
even here, there is the problem of determining which games were "serious"
contests, and which merely skittles.