Borislav Ivanov.
And they accuse him of cheating, even though they have made all sorts of careful checks, and could not prove anything! Yes, maybe he is the world's strongest chess player, and we just refuse to accept it.
Borislav Ivanov.
And they accuse him of cheating, even though they have made all sorts of careful checks, and could not prove anything! Yes, maybe he is the world's strongest chess player, and we just refuse to accept it.
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? 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.
Borislav Ivanov.
And they accuse him of cheating, even though they have made all sorts of careful checks, and could not prove anything! Yes, maybe he is the world's strongest chess player, and we just refuse to accept it.
Umm. "They" not only proved Ivanov was cheating, they, that is, FIDE, banned him.
... 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.
And who is the giant of chess history playing today? Magnus "The Drawing Master" Carlsen?
@blackKaweah Morphy isn't even a GM strength. There has been a study done on all his games. And the conclusion was that hes's 2300-2400 ELO strength. He was playing amateurs most of his life.
@blackKaweah Morphy isn't even a GM strength. There has been a study done on all his games. And the conclusion was that hes's 2300-2400 ELO strength. He was playing amateurs most of his life.
Is Magnus Carlsen giving odds in blindfold simuls?
@BlackKaweah The amount of drawn games at the top is a testament of how strong and close in strength those players are. It's not like Murphy playing Joe the plumber back in 1850s.
The case against Capablanca would be that he lost the title 3-6 in wins the first time he tried to defend it, and failed to win some of the few strong events he played as title holder (New York 1924 and Moscow 1925).
Ask top 10 rated players, and they will all say the greatest players of all time is Garry Kasparov. Would you please stop it with Capablanca and Murphy nonsense? Thank you.
It's not like Murphy playing Joe the plumber back in 1850s.
Lowenthal, Meek, Paulsen, Boden, Bird, Lowe, Mongredien, Saint-Amant, Harrwitz, Anderssen and de Riviere were hardly Joe The Plumber.
The only way Carlsen can get a win is by playing a plumber
There's a difference between greatest and best.
The argument over who is the best (human player) of all time boils down to a battle between Kasparov (2851) and Carlsen (2882).
The argument over who was the greatest is determined by whatever criteria the poster wishes to consider and is both more interesting and less provable.
If Kasparov is the greatest player of all time why did he lose a match to Kramnik without even winning a single game?
"... Morphy became to millions ... the greatest chess master of all time. But if we examine Morphy's record and games critically, we cannot justify such extravaganza. And we are compelled to speak of it as the Morphy myth. ... [Of the 55 tournament and match games, few] can by any stretch be called brilliant. ... He could combine as well as anybody, but he also knew under what circumstances combinations were possible - and in that respect he was twenty years ahead of his time. ... [Morphy's] real abilities were hardly able to be tested. ... We do not see sustained masterpieces; rather flashes of genius. The titanic struggles of the kind we see today [Morphy] could not produce because he lacked the opposition. ... Anderssen could attack brilliantly but had an inadequate understanding of its positional basis. Morphy knew not only how to attack but also when - and that is why he won. ... Even if the myth has been destroyed, Morphy remains one of the giants of chess history. ..." - GM Reuben Fine
If Kasparov is the greatest player of all time why did he lose a match to Kramnik without even winning a single game?
Because the greatest players played a lot and had a bad result once in a while? And assessing their greatness is easier by looking at all their results rather than the worst one they had in their career?
Morphy could have been the greatest chess player in history - Fischer thought so - but I think that he played so long ago that we have no hope to compare him accurately to modern players.
Fischer, at the height of his powers, was far ahead of Botvinnik, Tal, and Petrosian - who weren't exactly slouches. Since then, no one has been so isolated at the very top, so far ahead of anyone else.
Thus, it's hard for me to believe that Karpov, Kasparov, Anand or Carlsen could really be better chess players than he was. If anything, after the fall of the Soviet Union, one would expect that the standard of Chess play would have declined without any major countries aggressively supporting the game.
But while only a few players can afford a chess coach or trainer, a second, and so on, these days we don't just have chess computers - we have ones that are not just toys, but play at Grandmaster strength. Maybe the top Grandmasters of today are playing better Chess than Fischer ever did - even if, were he alive and youthful again, and had access to such tools, so would he.
There is really no way to be totally sure about this, although studies in rating inflation have been made.