The Unknown Morphy: was he really that strong?

Morphy defeated Anderssen in a match by +5 , I think that gives him great credentials . 

 Pulpofeira wrote: Unfortunately Staunton never happened to know how weak Morphy was, yure. If so, probably he wouldn't have run like the chicken he was. 

  I did not mention Staunton, Morphy would of beat Staunton in a match. Staunton was the one avoiding to play Morphy in a match. Did I say Paul Morphy was weak, no, Morphy was strong player. My question was did Morphy play all the strong European masters. And the answer is no, Paul had a chance to play Kolisch and a very improve Paulsen but Morphy refuse and instead prefer to play against weak players after 1859. It could be Morphy did want not to be view has a professional chess player, he could of play and if he beat his opponent donate to his opponent his winnning stakes. Morphy plan to play Kolisch but change his mind even though they set a date and a place to meet.

Kolisch lost 2 matches against Anderssen , the same Anderssen that Morphy crushed in a match !  nuff said  

chessmicky wrote: Oh, Grandmaster Ben Finegold, whose rating is also quite a bit higher than Macon Shibut's also regards Morphy as one of the greated players ever. 

The question is do you believe Paul Morphy was the greatest? You did not answer my question on otb rating? And how many games of Morphy did you went through? It easy to be follower and mindless and believing every quote from strong players, you have to test them and go through the games yourself and then when you are satisfy you could believe them.

Kolisch was an extremely talented player, one of the best of his time.

For some information on Kolisch you might enjoy reading Jeremy Silman's  Kolisch: Unknown Tactical Monster or even own, more biographcally oriented, The Kolisch Supplement.

Fiveofswords wrote: whats your obsession with kolish. Morphy totally dominated a bunch of people who were pretty much equally matched with all the european masters. Also your example game is retarded....he was weak positionally? i didnt see any moves that belied any positional weakness. maybe you could try to explain what his error was and show how weak you are positionally. 

Your view is simple game and you did not see any Morphy's moves that lack positional understanding. That tells me a lot about your inflate 2300 online rating and your lack of chess understanding; he fail to win against a weak player in a superior position and fail to find a proper plan. You are not even otb experts level or even1800 uscf, the comments you make. I not even going bother to ask your otb rating, your lack understand is obvious.

Morphy was undoubtedly a top player of his time.  If you were to bring him in his prime forward via time travel to modern times and have him play a modern day GM, I would guess he would be defeated in most games.  This is a normal side-effect of progress of knowledge and even technology, though, and no statement about Morphy's ability.

Incidentally, chesszen.com estimates a playing strength in the neighborhood of 2335 for Morphy based on computer analysis of his games.  For comparison, the highest rated player in history, using their computer analysis, is Kasparov (2877).

Not definitive, of course, but interesting.

http://gm.chesszen.com/

1 grain of sand is this example game we all play badly now  and again

Morphy not been positionlly sound?

Was any before the teachings of Nimzovich?

possibly

Fiveofswords wrote:you had one game. you went out to try to find the one single game that most explosed how much of a dummy morphy is. And i see nothing wrong with the game. It was just a fairly standard thing where white played logical stuff and got some pressure but black managed to play pretty well and get some counterplay. Then a draw just kinda happened. That happens sometimes. Even against weaker players. Nothing about the game suggests any weakness from morphy or his inability to 'plan'. 

What you wrote above shows your true chess ability, I estimate your otb rating to be 1500 to 1600 uscf. I know a chess player who has a 2400 online rating but his actual rating is 1500 uscf, he is like you as long he keep quiet no one knows his true strength but when he tries to discuss about chess his chess knowledge is so inadequate it shows. A real master rated 2300 would of pointed out Morphy faults, but you are totally oblivious to Morphy's mistakes. Your chess knowledge is inadequate and not to understand a position show your true strength. I don't mind if you disagree me but you are rude and insulting, I will defend myself against an idiot who attacks me. 

You give no analysis and insult players thinking you can intimidate with your inflate rating. Your true strength is 1500 to 1600 otb.

BTW there were other games Morphy lost to weak players but choose a draw instead; I didn't cherry pick his worst game.

Your lack of knowledge of past masters is obvious when you attack a very strong master Kolisch, call him a "that clown kolisch", it shows you are impulsive person, you will attack a subject without thinking it through and verify it.

Yuree, Morphy played lots of casual games and committed several mistakes just from inattention or from moving too quickly.  Morphy rarely thought longer than 5 minutes and yet sometimes his opponents would take over an hour to make a move!  Morphy would politely sit there and let them take forever but he probably blundered sometimes out of sheer boredom and frustration.  

You can say that Morphy didn't really understand positional play or closed positions (there was no King's Indian back then).  You would be wrong in my opinion, but at least there might be some justification for such an opinion.  What you can't say is that anybody played pure, open chess like Paul Morphy.  Nobody to this day has even equalled Morphy's mastery of the open game.

Morphy offered handicaps of pieces and pawns and still won brilliantly with his eyes closed!!!  When he retired NOBODY IN THE WORLD could even play him at pawn odds!  He was the BEST.  EVER.

Morphy played at a time when chess players were not as  strong as they are today. His unusual sacrifices and impeccable ability to see many moves ahead allowed him to crush his opponents with ease. If Morphy were around today he would probably lose to Carlsen and Caruana. But that is normal considering the time period change. All in all, he was a solid player whom many regard as the greatest of all time/his time.

While the gist of your comments have some merit, understand that Morphy, while generally a fast player against amateurs, didn't usually play fast in serious games.  As Prof. Anderssen wrote to Hyderbrandt v.d. Lasa, "His figuring is, in general, not of remarkable or even tiring duration: he always takes as much time as such a tireless and experienced thinker requires depending on the position, but never makes the impression of useless and tormented pressure or stress - an impression I occasionally had with Staunton."

The idea that he always played fast came from his games vs Paulsen at the 1st Amer. Chess Congress. According to Willard Fiske (writing to Prof. Geo. Allen) "Nothing can be more pleasing or graceful than the elegance of his [Morphy's] play - I mean his manner of touching the pieces and moving them and so forth. I have never seen him impatient but once. In his second game with Paulsen, after the German had taken repeatedly thirty, forty-five and fifty minutes (and in some instances over one hour) upon his moves, Morphy became so thoroughly worn out that in his haste he made what should have been his second move first and was only able to draw a won game (a splendid piece of chess that it had been up to that moment). He was so depressed at his failure to score so fine a game (although no one but me knew the effect upon his mind) that he played weakly in the two following contests and lost one of them."

So Morphy did have a tendancy to move fast that he held in check during important games, but as in the Paulsen game, Morphy rushed to move in a game vs Harrwitz and inverted his intended moves, drawing rather than winning.

No one in Morphy's time had the principles of positional chess worked out.  But it doesn't matter. Morphy was a product of his Romantic time and, as such, considered the combination the pinnacle of chess. What Morphy did understand to a degree, probably more intuitively than intellectually, was that combinations flow from superior positions.  Exactly how those positions might be acheived scientifically became the work of Steinitz much later (and Paulsen, though not to the same degree).

I was going to say the same thing as batgirl but she beat me to it,

+1

BLAH!!!!

You had 9 months... lol

But it was a really long post.

I knew an extremely talented player who went on to become a grandmaster.  I saw the game where he employed the venerable Evans Gambit and lost like a dog.  I'm pretty certain Paul Morphy won every single Evans Gambit he ever played and he would have crushed the player my grandmaster acquaintance lost to.  Why?  Because he had a supreme sense of timing and the urgency of tempo in open games.

Morphy did have extremely good results with the Evans. According to my calculations, Paul Morphy played 59 recorded Evans Gambits from both sides, some at odds, some blindfolded, winning 52, losing 3 (plus one more in consultation) and drawing 4.  In annotating the Labourdonnais-M'Donnell match, he called it "that most beautiful of openings."  However Frederick Edge wrote about Morphy's loss of the Evans Gambit to Anderssen: "Morphy was charmed with Anderssen's defence throughout, and has frequently cited it as an admirably conducted strategy. It proved to him that the Evans' is indubitably a lost game for the first player, if the defence be carefully played; inasmuch the former can never recover the gambit pawn, and the position supposed to be acquired at the outset cannot be maintained."

That's just silly.

Don't take it too seriously. He has his episodes.

OK Batgirl.

Morphy went wrong and lost a long Evans Gambit game to Anderssen, the second-best player in the world at that time.  The Anderssen who brilliantly created the Evergreen and Immortal games.  The Anderssen who got demolished 8-3 by a Morphy who was so sick at the time he could barely walk.  Steinitz managed an 8-6 match victory over an aging Anderssen.

I think Morphy would have chuckled at Steinitz's pronouncements about the laws of positional play and crushed him easily in a match had they played, but Yuree will never agree.