Paul Morphy is my biggest idol in chess. His games are so brilliant and beautiful. I want to play like Paul Morphy was the sentence which was said in the last days by me as I watched some videos about him. But the problem is that there are so much black´s answers exist. During Morphy´s life time nobody played the Scicilian, the french, caro kann. Only Philidor. But today I have the fear, I cannot play the evans gambit. Why? Because a lot of player plays c5, e6, c6, d5, Sf6, ...
I had played the London System and the queens gambit. But I find this openings boring when I always play them. So I need a tactical opening. I want to improve my chess.
So, to play e4 is connected with a lot of homework. I have to be able to defense against all black answers. Should I take the way from switching d4 to e4? Is this the right decision for my chess improvement? I want to read your suggestion.
All in all I am so fascinated by Paul Morphy. :)
As OP has been inactive since 2016,
"Lasker ... didn't understand positional chess." - another Fischer quote from around the same time as his Morphy comments.
Extended discussions of Morphy have been written in books by GM Franco, GM Beim, GM Ward, GM Marin, GM Bo Hansen, GM McDonald, Garry Kasparov (with Dmitry Plisetsky), and GM Gormally. Anyone see any of them express the view that we should accept Fischer's conclusion about Morphy being better than modern players? There seems to be general agreement that Morphy was, as GM Fine put it, one of the giants of chess history, but that is a long way from saying that he was better than anyone playing today.
https://www.chess.com/article/view/who-was-the-best-world-chess-champion-in-history
Fisher did not say that Morphy was better than anyone playing today. ...
"... In a set match, Morphy would beat anybody alive today. ..." - Fischer (1964)
RussBell wrote: Fisher ... did ... claim that Morphy ... could compete favorably with those players up through the era of Fisher (i.e., the mid 20th century).
My "playing today" sentence was about the apparent general 21st century agreement of GM Franco, GM Beim, GM Ward, GM Marin, GM Bo Hansen, GM McDonald, Garry Kasparov (with Dmitry Plisetsky), and GM Gormally, about Morphy being one of the giants of chess history.
RussBell wrote: … silence by others on Fisher's expressed comments does not constitute a refutation of his opinions. ...
No refutation claim was made. We can only ponder the probable reason that nobody seems to know of any of the writers endorsing Fischer's well-known conclusions.
RussBell wrote: I believe Fisher (the best player of his time) to be no less an authoritative judge of the quality of the play of his predecessors than either his contemporaries or those who preceded him, many of whom were very opinionated regarding, and not averse to criticizing, their adversaries...
Do you think that modern writers are unaware of the quality of the moves that Fischer was able to play? Does that ability necessarily imply an ability to appropriately assess players from decades ago? How many authors can you identify as saying that we should believe Fischer's conclusions about players from a century or more in the past?
First of all, regarding Fischer's assessment of Morphy - his comments were written in 1964 (i.e., Fischer's "today"). So obviously his comments cannot refer to TODAY - 2019 (this was my point).
Second, I think it is more than plausible that a World Chess Champion is no less competent than any other chess player to assess the skills of his predecessors. If we doubt the judgement of a World Champion, whose judgment should we offer in its place? And if World Champions should disagree with each other in their opinions regarding the skills of their predecessors, which point of view should we adopt as the correct one?
The real point, and the one that Fisher likely intended, was that up to the time Fisher wrote his comments (1964), Morphy was generally considered to be among the pantheon of "great" chess players of all time. Of course Fischer's statements can be debated, but which authority, up to 1964, on the subject of Morphy should we take to be preeminent. Of course, I also think that it's reasonable to conclude that the very best players since 1964 and through today (2019), would surely have to be considered the favorite in a match against the Morphy of the 1850's, for what should be obvious reasons.
Nevertheless , I'm comfortable with the following endorsements of Morphy, within the context of the era in which they were made, and the achievements and historical perspectives of the individuals who made them...
The Masters on Morphy...
https://www.chess.com/clubs/forum/view/the-masters-on-morphy