Paul Morphy's Rating>2638

Given that Morphy quit playing chess in his own day (for a lawyer career in which he wasn't terribly successful), it's difficult to see how he would submit to the lifestyle and training regime of a modern top GM.

Are you aware that Morphy, at 19, was one of the most booked-up players in the world? (He was fluent in four or five languages and had studied chess material in all of them.) Like Capablanca, Morphy was a prodigy, but unlike Capablanca, Morphy had a ferocious appetite for chess study. Why Morphy quit chess is a mystery, but as far as I know it had nothing to do with a reluctance to study, and there's no reason to think he'd have had any trouble with the training regimen of a contemporary GM. There's every reason to think he'd be a theory monster, like Kasparov.

Fischer's remark in 62' about Morphy kicking butt if he were alive today has never been disputed by anyone I know of.

Then again, I've never read any great player who agreed with it.

I do recall an ex world champion, Soviet Grandmaster, who agreed with him. Kasparov talked about Fischer's statement in an interview at ChessCafe when he was promoting his book "My Great Predecessors" in 2003 (Its still there, check it out) . When asked what he thought of Fischer's statement Kasparov said---When Fischer made the statement it was probably true. Holy cow! The only elite player I've heard comment on the Fischer statement agrees with Fischer!

Since Kasparav point-blankly agreeing with Fischer on this point would seem to disavow the entire point of his series of books,  I went to Chess Cafe ,  read through every interview with Kasparov published there and failed to find a since reference to the above. Perhaps you could provide a citation and/or quote?  What I did find that remotely corresponds seems to agree that Kasparov sees past players as unable to sustain int today's chess world:

. . . every weak grandmaster knows more about chess than Fischer thirty years ago. Clearly, not because their [they're ?] geniuses, they simply have access to computer database. Click, click, click, click and you have all the games and you can study. Maybe you are not studying but you have access to that. So Fischer could be miles ahead of his contemporaries because he was a genius and  he could find new ways. But facing somebody from the future he will be really behind.. . .  and the same would be Fischer playing Botvinnik, or Botvinnik playing Steinitz, because you could see that every generation has been bringing new ideas to the game of chess. And that’s why the size of the commentaries has been increasing.
I discovered even when I wrote my first articles for Welt am Sontag, I couldn’t deal with that. The same style, the same number of words, more lines. Games are more complicated. And I think the old champions couldn’t cope with that. Yes, you could talk about giving them time to study, but then it would not be Fischer. It would be a player with the Fischer talent but named Karpov or Kasparov because that’s… you would wind up comparing their talent.

Botvinnik also said Morphy would do well today.

Where exactly did Botvinnik say this??

how much would philidor be rated at his peak

 I'm curious as to how these numbers were determined. I think Morphy was one of the best player the game has ever seen but determining ratings for older players (before) the rating system was introduced is somewhat controversial; arguments usually start after such declaration.

I will paraphrase what I remember of the article

There is  a two-part article containing the 2003 interview of Kasparav by Hannon Russel concerning his My Great Predecessors, Part 1. There's no mention of Morphy as a present-day threat in the entire interview  So, do the comments by Kasparov exist only in your memory?

Batgirl, I didnt quite understand your comments on Botvinnik-

umm, those were Kasparov's comments, not mine.

It has been about 40 years since I read Botvinnik's statment about Paul Morphy.  But I believe it was in the Dover Book Botvinnik: 100 Selected Games.  There was a small article about The Russian and Soviet School of Chess.  I believe in that article Botvinnik commented about how Morphy would do today.

It must have been some other book. 40 years is a long time to remember accurately. I have trouble with 40 minutes.

In the 1960 Dover ed. of Botvinnik: 100 Selected Games (in English), the only mention of Morphy is on page 12 :
If there was anyone among western players who took a different attitude to chess and devoted all his powers to it, it was probably Paul Morphy (1837-1884), if we are able to accept his contemporaries' testimony.  But we must not forget that Morphy played in competitions only during a short period of two years.

Morphy is covered in Part 1.

But as I said, I read all the interviews.  It wasn't in any of them.

But feel free to quote the passage.

Napolean could never have possibly learned about how to deploy nuclear weapons because there was none at the tim! On the other hand, the rules of chess haven't really changed at all for the last couple of centuries. Also, according to my previous history teacher, the size of the human brain has not significantly increased for the last two millenium. So the only reason why we can't really compare chess palyers of different generations is because of the lack of resources in certain points in time and the lack of leisure time. It's really hard to imagine how chess players could really make a living back then.

What if you were able to devote all your time (and his) to train/teach him for one year? 

Talk about a student with potential...

Here's something to think about:

If we are looking at a player's dominance in his time, look at Fischer! Correct me if I'm wrong but he was 50 points or so ahead of his competition.

Fischer did not get nearly the results that Morphy did from a statistical point of view. So if we're looking at relativity Morphy would surpass Kaspy in terms of aFIDE rating.

Actually, the pool of "pro" players back in 1800 would be so small that it would be tough getting a FIDE rating over 2300 lol.

Or I guess you mean in terms of being ahead of the field.  But to compare to Kasparov or Fischer in terms of dominance is a bit humorous... kind of like my dominance at a pre-school chess club... sure I'm ahead of the field, but is it really that impressive?

In terms of dominance over a high quality pool of players, Kasparov and Fischer far ouclass Morphy... of course.

So then how many of these people during the 1850s-60s would be at GM strength (not GM rating) today? Give them a year to catch up on openings and theory and they'd probably be 2600-2700 right?

There were no chess professionals in Morphy's time, they all made their living in other ways. Steinitz was the first chess professional, and not terribly successful financially.

Steinitz was the first chess professional

Well, Atos, there were, for example,  Greco, Philidor, Deschapelles, Bourdonnais, Schlumberger, Staunton, Kieseritsky, Harrwitz- all of whom made either a substantial amount of their income, or all their income for a period of time, from chess. I would call them all chess professionals.

In the original post I show credible links to where I found the information.

im kinda convinced I just wanted you to show proof of your information.

Fischer's last thoughts on the subject:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EuxVOgrEig&p=4B5A320303371446&playnext=1&index=19

Like comparing Fangio with Schumacher......it doesn't compute.