Steinitz vs Morphy

If Carlsen quits chess today I'd say he peaked the five year period leading up to and including 2013, not during some later period when he might have done even better if he had continued playing. In the same way it's difficult to say that for example Fischer peaked after 1972 or that Morphy peaked after 1860.

yes I see where you are coming from. reality not conjecture, but Morphy was still active in chess up to his death as mentioned by Morphy's knowledge of Steintz's games, and his belief that Maurian was the only person who was too strong for knight odds.

In the Carlsen and Fischer examples, they were playing high level chess for longer than 18 months;)

Nice troll-fishing from the OP, who starts shooting as soon as post #3.

Morphy could have been the best as long as he wanted to...which is actually what happened. Age would have stopped him but I doubt it would have been Steinitz who beat him since they were basically the same age. Lasker would have been the young lion to beat him.

Morphy destroyed a prime aged Anderssen, Steinitz edged out an older Anderrsen 8 years later...big difference

People talk about how Steinitz game changed after '72 etc....oh yeah, Morphys game wouldnt have likewise matured...nahhhhh

Steinitz spent his whole life on chess...to Morphy it was more like amusement

Steinitz was a great player, Morphy a genius

btw im a Steinitz fan

The Dutch chess pubication, "Schaakbulletin," issues 81-2, in 1974, published a tongue-in-cheek short story by the incomparable Tim Krabbé  called  "The Strange Life and Chess Career of Pablo Murphy.  Because of some vehement negative feedback from readers [e.g. the following issue received a letter for a reader:  "Let Mr. Krabbe stop writing horrible articles like 'The Strange Life and Chess Career of Pablo Murphy'. The general public already knows little or nothing about chess history, so it is absolutely unnecessary to add the rubbish as in the aforementioned article."], it seems, Mr. Krabbé  doesn't wasnt it reprinted anywhere.

But the story tells what might have happened had Morphy lived and come out of retirement. The culmination of the story was a match between Morphy and, not Steinitz, but Lasker in 1896 (after Morphy participated in Hasting 1895 -"The six strongest players of the world won the first six prizes: 1. Pillsbury 2. Tschigorin 3. Lasker 4 Morphy tying with Tarrasch 6. Steinitz.") - during which Morphy died.

Morphy he could beat any Master in the 19th century handily at odds or with all the pieces on the board.

Morphy is many a chess player's first love. He's the romantic hero, the boy wonder who appears out of nowhere trailing glory and just as suddenly retreats into reclusive solitude and early death...

Steinitz is the crazy old man with soup in his beard -- So it's no surprise to me who is the people's choice. But if this thread proves anything it's how misunderstood and under-appreciated a figure Steinitz was.  Steinitz (1886 flavor) vs Morphy would have been an interesting showdown.  

Maybe Morphy would have beaten Steinitz in a match. Probably. But watching Morphy figure out how to play against the late Steinitz's weird and beautiful chess would have been fun -- Steinitz is author of some very strange games... he's the Hieronymous Bosch of chess imo!  Watching Morphy figure out Steinitz would have been fascinating. 

Steinitz (not Staunton) was the guy Morphy really wanted to find in 1858 -- the guy who could show Morphy a whole new way to think about chess -- unfortunately that Steinitz didn't exist until 1873 and didn't really come into his own until much later, by which time Morphy no longer cared.

Here's the game Steinitz won to become 'first world champion' against world #2 (he thought he was #1) J. Zukertort

It actually transposed to a KG as under cheesecakes.com it is listed as such

Morphy would of won the match against Steinitz. Andersser said,: "Morphy was the strongest opponent he played." Steinitz had a hard time beating Anderssen and Morphy Anderssen easy.

and the reasons for this surmisal are ??

Morphy

So, that shows he was good, but how does that show he was better? 

well tactically speaking he was 3000 we have no way of knowing what his positional strength was because he never faced Petrosian.

generational debates regarding skill are opinions.  there is an elegance in the trajectory and arc of Morphy's early career that compells us to comment 150 years after his peak.

well I mean he was obviously good, but how good we'll never know.

This isn't generational. Morphy and Steinitz were contemporaries. In fact Steinitz was older than Morphy.

no, maybe he was much much better positionally but all these crazy combinations apeared on the board

I know. I was trying to be funny, he could have easily chosen to grind his opponents out in Petrosian or Carlsen Style, but created the Positional Attacker because he saw tactics very very well.

Exactly where do you come up with this?