yeah you could certainly look at track and field and tell that things have changed. however for training I can attest that grass is the way to go in terms of runing surface.

Did you just say that the Polgar sister have no talent?

Morphy, given his temperament, may not have even cared to participate in chess as it's practiced today and might have directed his intellect towards other areas completely.  The real difference between now and then, beyond the database of theory and practice, is the perception of chess.  This is one reason why chess was mostly the avocation, the recreation, of gentlemen (and ladies), but seldom the vocation.  Today's chess requires aspiring masters to enslave themselves to Mistress Caissa.  Morphy preferred to just flirt with her.

No he prefered the one knight (bad pun) stand then abandon her because he wanted to be a lawyer. now if we could get him in the same situation ready to be admited to the bar but too young that might work...

. . .and also make Lazlo's accomplishment appear greater. . .

you cannot be great at something unless you have at least some talent. every Great military strategist had talent. every great football (American and European) has tallent. Every great chess player has talent. without it they wouldn't be great. you can calculate every move. but to instinctively know which moves you should focus on takes not only a knowledge of principles but talent and instinct for the game.

Check out the YouTube video where Alexandra Kosteniuk beats Judit (not Judith) Polgar in blitz. Very, very pretty endgame - and not just because A. Kosteniuk is one of the players!

Hard work can defeat talent.

Even if we play chess for more than twice the years Kasparov played, it's simply impossible to par him. Talent means a thousand years of toils of skill learning, King Amshu Verma said. Both A Kos~ and J Pol~ are talented. Blitz doesnt show the true strenght, not even in the engines!

I've never read the actual interview where this is supposed to have been said, but it is often claimed that Kasparov said that the Polgar sisters were just like "trained dogs", and that Nigel Short after this referred to Judit Polgar as "Lassie".

Morphy was a player who "got it" during his time. However today he would have major problems dealing with the Sicilian, The French Defense, Caro Khan,  Kings Indian, and I could name many more openings.

Even given time to study these openings--he very likely would be out of his element.

After being here via time machine for one year--his playing strength would be approximately 2373. 

I once read that Judit Polgar has an IQ of 170 (or was it 180?).  Even if she has "no talent", she has some capacity to excel in this boardgame where others cannot.

In an age where chess has lost its romance to a large degree, and moved more towards a memorization-table, hyper-modern style, we should be mindful of Paul's seemingly eidetic memory. This would seem to bode well for him for two reasons.

1. He would have the capacity to be on par with the great students and masters playing today.

2. He would be able to couple this leveling of the playing field with his creative ability to move a game away from book moves to get the true mettle of his opponent.

And as someone who believed that match play was the only way to really measure a player's strength, he would have the benefit of "learning" how his opponent held up once moved out of their comfort lines.

He was a master at this. Figuring out his opponent's weaknesses and exploiting them. Once out in open water, he would likely manipulate the games to his advantage.

Of course this is a theoretical transposition of second hand knowledge of the hero from New Orleans, but it stands to reason that he would find a way to make his opponents play "his" game, even in this modern age.

But to someone else's point (Sarah Beth's?), he most probably would not have been interested in the sport in today's culture. He endulged as a recreation that fit into his mildly aristocratic society. He'd be too busy figuring out how to cure cancer or something.

...ryan

Laszlo's comments and "accomplishments" make no sense, because children shouldn't be pushed into something like that to begin with. For what purpose? To let everyone know how great you are? But if anyone could do it, then how does it prove anything?! 

Like Fischer said "what is the point?" Even Fischer's comments that chess is now ridiculous and a game of memory make a lot more sense and are more coherent than Laszlo's bizarre experiment which was borderline child abuse.