In your opinion, what country has the most strong players?

For me RUSSIAN.

I really do not think there is much debate here. I just looked at the top 50 active fide rated players. 16 out fo 50 wer from the russia or the ukraine. Only guy the US has is nakamura. Yes Russians dominate chess. No big surprise there.

The US also has Gata Kamsky, Alexander Onischuk, and Alex Shabalov in the top 100. Gata Kamsky is one of the best players in the world, former top 3.

All russian defects. Just proving more the point. Russians dominate.

Alex Shabalov isn't a Russian defect. And it doesn't matter if they're defects or not, they're American. Gata Kamsky has lived in the U.S. from a pretty young age.

shabalov was born in latvia and studied with tal. He did come to the US as a child. Ok the US imports a lof of good russian players. I am not going to argue whether they should count as representing us chess or not. We would go in circles on that one.

Latvia is not Russian. Russia = Russian, Latvia = Latvian. That said, I agree. The strongest U.S. player that's actually American is probably Larry Christiansen.

give me a break. Pioneer place. Shirov tal shabalov. Latvia is part of russian chess culture. Do not be ridiculous. And I can even argue latvia is part of russia.

yeah I really like larry christensens games. Fun. I do not understand them +any better than I understand Tal's but fun.

actually I better now ever try to do that that would really piss off the latvians here who were under forced Soviet control from the 40 to the 80s? pretty much the cold ware years general guess -but yes maybe the golden years of russian chess well apart from fischer. Thank you fischer.

Originally posted by onehandgann
give me a break. Pioneer place. Shirov tal shabalov. Latvia is part of russian chess culture. Do not be ridiculous. And I can even argue latvia is part of russia.

Originally posted by caissad4
Your ignorance and arrogance about Baltic peoples is insulting.
My mothers' family came to the US from Lithuania and I grew up listening to first hand accounts of the wanton murders and destruction committed by Russians against all the Baltic countries. All Baltic languages and cultures pre-date Russia.
The Soviet Union was not exclusively Russian. I gues ...[text shortened]... do not know the difference.
Tal was Latvian not Russian.
Petrosian was Armenian not Russian.

exactly what I was worried about. Just trying to say that latvia was part of russian chess culture many russians in latvia and lot of russian culture there because of the occupation. I do not deny the history and violence. Sorry if offended anyone.

or maybe I should say soviet chess culture the history instead of russian. I don' know. The occupation and then independence well it makes it kind of confusing for idiots like me how to labels thing in any kind of "correct" way.

And what team did Tal and Petrosian play on for example. Did Tal play for the latvians and Petresion for the armenians or did they play on the the same soviet team? See what I am getting at? grew up in the same soviet chess culture. Am I wrong in thinking that?

Originally posted by onehandgann
or maybe I should say soviet chess culture the history instead of russian. I don' know. The occupation and then independence well it makes it kind of confusing for idiots like me how to labels thing in any kind of "correct" way.

And what team did Tal and Petrosian play on for example. Did Tal play for the latvians and Petresion for the armenians o ...[text shortened]... what I am getting at? grew up in the same soviet chess culture. Am I wrong in thinking that?