50 Ways to Name your Masters

Google-The closet Grandmaster it  is a blog .( Josh Waitzkin on apr)His Chessmaster cd's have help me Improve alot and they still do.

 Ricardo_Morro said, "Marshall I include because he was one of the five original Grandmasters (along with Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine, and Tchigorin)." The last had passed away. You mean Tarrasch.

I stand corrected. Tarrasch it was.

"Relevant to this forum is Capablanca discussing Morphy and others"

 

Thanks for the link.

 

I have to take exception with Capa's assertion that Morphy "never played isolated games for amusement."   Even though Anderssen made a similar observation: "With us, the exertion that a game requires is only a matter of distraction, and lasts only as long as the game gives us pleasure; with him, it is a sacred duty.With us, the exertion that a game requires is only a matter of distraction, and lasts only as long as the game gives us pleasure; with him, it is a sacred duty." [see]

Morphy regarded chess as a pasttime and a distraction, anything BUT a sacred duty. In actual play, he generally put forth little effort and often made questionable Tal-like moves that may have lacked soundness but were extremely hard for his opponents to answer over the board. He tended to exert no more effort than was required to win, and sometimes lost because of this laziness particularly in the early games in matches or in series.  Part of Morphy's strength lay in his supreme confidence in his ability to eventually succeed in any game as well as in his powerful calculating abilities.

 

 

Capa also said, "Players of the time thought that violent attacks against the king and other combinations of this kind were the only things worthy of consideration. It may be said that they began by making combinations from the first move, without paying sufficient attention to the question of development, about which Morphy was extremely careful."

 

Morphy never made unwarranted attacks for the same reason he never fell for traps. He understood the defense as well as the attack and waited until his attack would be overwhelming, not by guesswork, but by calculation - this involved by necessity the positional understanding which Capa wrote about.

 

 

"Marshall I include because he was one of the five original Grandmasters " 

I'm not sure Tzar Nicholas' opinion should be a deciding factor.

 

"Pillsbury I include because of his surprise 1895 victory at Hastings over Europe's finest. "

After that phenomenal start, his tournament results, while good, weren't exactly impressive. Then he died.  I'm not sure what to make of Pillsbury.

 

"Fine and Reshevsky, I include because both were leading World Championship contenders whose chances at the top were largely destroyed by World War Two."

Fine's strongest showing was in 1948; Reshevsky, in 1952. Both were the strongest players in the world at some point or other, yet never made it to the world championship. I'm not sure WWII had anything to do with it. They're on the bubble.

 

Réti was always an extremely strong player but never quite in the word champion league (similar to Marshall). His importance would lie in his hypermodern concepts, in his two books and in his chess problems. Tartakower had better results, wrote 3 books and also helped develop hypermodernism.

 

Thanks for the long explanation of the doubling cube. It hurts to have to say I didn't understand any of it. I even googled the term for something that would help clarify it in my mind, and I use that term loosely, but everything I found baffles me equally. The main problem with the internet is that there's no one around to hit me over the head with a brick. While I still don't understand exactly how it works, I can appreciate the implications of using a doubling cube in chess. That reminds me of the fact that at one time chess was often played in conjunction with dice and the dice added a gambling aspect to the game. Since many religions frowned on, and banned, gambling, the continued existance of chess in those cultures necessitated disassociating the game from the gambling aspect and the use of dice mostly disappeared.  I've never understood exactly how the dice were used in those ancient chess games. Do you suppose the dice were actually doubling cubes?

Let's include Tartakower, too.

Relevance of World War II to Fine & Reshevsky: the war and immediate post-war disorder made it impossible for anyone from a crop of leading players to get a match with Alekhine under the pre-FIDE system (or nonsystem). That's almost ten years of championship limbo. Once FIDE took control, Western players had a hard time against Soviet collusion. Re: Czar Nicholas and Marshall--I think he was acting under good advice. His choices were were dictated by the top five finishers in the big tournament these guys were in Russia for. Question remains, whether Fine, Reshevsky, Marshall, and Pillsbury, all Americans in whose favor I am understandably biased, are in or out, who else do you put in the fifty? I count twenty-some, almost half the places left for which no one has mentioned any candidates. Elsewhere on the site Charousek and Marocszy have gotten mentions. Gligoric and Najdorf have had their names come up. I am dubious about these. Batgirl?

In response to batgirl and andy, don't forget that Morphy played during the romantic era of chess, and he played to crowd as much as he played his opponent.

 

WWII prevented any chance of a WC match - but Keres, as winner of AVRO, was the challenger-to-be anyway. However, since Keres only won in a play-off after tying with Fine in the tournament, Fine was invited to play in the 1948 championship tournament that resulted after Alekine died. Fine declined the offer, for whatever the real reason might have been. So WWII didn't destroy his chances but just changed the scenario. Reshevsky's international record wasn't as good as Fine's. I'm not sure Reshevsky ever had a realistic chance of becoming WC. Reshevsky's main selling points are his prodigical talent and his longetivity. While I'm not convinced Fine is a shoe-in, I do agree that in chosing the top 50, he is a very likely member. Reshevsky, less so.

 

I know why the Tzar proclaimed the so-called 5 grandmasters, I just don't think it has a lot of meaning. Marshall's score of 1 win and 2 draws in 8 games isn't too convincing. While Marshall is a favorite player of mine, easily in my personal top 20, if results are a criterion, then he couldn't be in the top 50 of all time; but if other factors are pertinent, then he might. It's all arguable, I think.

 

Maroczy - and Janowski - were both incredibly strong in their time. Najdorf was too. Gligoric was a bit uneven.

 

Maybe it would be best to simply come up with a list of potential candidates, rather than trying to figure this all out helter-skelter, and apply some order to that list?

 

 

don't forget that Morphy played during the romantic era of chess, and he played to crowd as much as he played his opponent.

 

I'm not sure what that means.

I'm with you, Batgirl. Why don't we compile a list of 100 nominees and then cut it down to 50?

Suppose we took Bill Wall's list of 100 linked earlier in this forum as a starting point?

Where is Mr. Wall's list?

Batgirl said, "Fine's strongest showing was in 1948." Some readers may not realize that is a candidate-typo and 1938 was meant. Whichever player was the strongest at any one time is clouded by the lack of matches.  When players had to make a living or advance in their careers outside of chess, such as Tarrasch, they had to decline opportunities. Others lost chances due to not being able to get financial support or due to war, such as Rubinstein and Shirov. Alekhine would not give Capablanca a rematch and then World War II came and he did not defend again. Instead of the champion, FIDE has controlled the title. This along with Russian influence long prevented the selection and match process from being as fair as fans would hope. If Keres could not get a fair shake, how could others? Capablanca made the same observations about Russian collusion that Fischer would later. In this century we have seen a FIDE Championship held in Tripoli, Libya. The result was players such as Gelfand were excluded. I had already pointed that out to Campomanes, who attended a meeting at the US Senior Ch in Florida in 2004. He claimed Libya was not going to bar Gelfand. I noted that claim was doubtful, especially since family and seconds would be kept out. Gelfand recently tied with Kramnik one point behind Anand in the latest championship. Talent and opportunity are not always present at the same time.

I understand the vagaries of title matches and challenges.  

 

"Batgirl said, "Fine's strongest showing was in 1948." Some readers may not realize that is a candidate-typo and 1938 was meant. "

No, this was no typo. I'm referring to the impromptu NY International tournament held from December 23, 1948 to January 2, 1949, organized by Sidney Kenton, vp of the Manhattan Chess Club. The participants were: Reuben Fine, Max Euwe, Miguel Najdorf, Herman Steiner, George Kramer, Isaac Kashdan, Arthur Bisguier, Arnold Denker, Herman Pilnik and Israel Horowitz. (Gideon Stahlberg was supposed to play but couldn't, and was replaced by Herman Pilnik). Fine won 8 out of 9, far ahead of second place Najdork (6.5/9). This is considered Fine's all-time highest performance.

batgirl wrote: Where is Mr. Wall's list?

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 Link is on response #4 on this topic.

I see. I am more impressed with Fine's first place tie against the field in AVRO 1938.

Ricardo_Morro wrote:

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 Link is on response #4 on this topic.

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Thanks. I just opened it. I don't think my list will reflect Mr. Wall's all that closely.

 

At least, with all WC's included, that comprises the first 19 slots by my count:

 

Wilhelm Steinitz
Emanuel Lasker
José Raúl Capablanca
Alexander Alekhine
Max Euwe
Alexander Alekhine
Mikhail Botvinnik
Vasily Smyslov
Mikhail Tal
Tigran Petrosian
Boris Spassky
Robert J. Fischer
Anatoly Karpov
Garry Kasparov
Alexander Khalifman
Viswanathan Anand
Ruslan Ponomariov
Rustam Kasimdzhanov
Veselin Topalov

 

I would think we can trace the unofficial line back to Philidor:

 

Francois André Danican Philidor
Alexandre Deschapelles
Louis de la Bourdonnais
Howard Staunton
Adolf Anderssen
Paul Morphy

 

...and complete the first 25 members.

 

Bill Wall's list of 100 has all the names on it that have been tossed around in this thread as candidates for top 50 with a few exceptions. Wall does not include the early champions Staunton or Anderssen; does not include Sultan Khan or Carlsen mentioned in #21; does not include Janowski, mentioned by Batgirl; and does not mention Charousek, who only entered this discussion because his name was brought up as one of the all-time greats in another thread. So we could agree to exclude Sultan Khan and Carlsen, whose names were brought up as a couple of those with the greatest "natural" ability rather than on grounds of overall strength or significance; exclude Charousek unless some objection is heard; include Staunton, Anderssen, and Janowski, which gives us 103 to choose from. I'm happy because my American guys besides Fischer, Fine, Reshevsky, even Pillsbury, and even Marshall steaming in last at number 100, made Wall's list.

Now: who do we throw out to bring the list down to 50?

I think we could include without much controversy not only the World Champions, but also their notable challengers, which would bring in Zuckertort, Tarrasch, Schlecter, Bogulyubov, Keres, Bronstein, Korchnoi, Short, Leko, and who am I missing? If we indeed admit all the spate of recent FIDE champions, this will leave not a great number of places to fill to round out the fifty. Some other names like Nimzovitch and Rubinstein are bound to be included by acclamation. After that the choices get tougher.