best players?

Quoting myself, "Also, Sergeant notes the comments he attributes to MacDonnell in 1859 and to Morphy’s sister Helena in her letter to Max Lange though it regards Morphy’s later life.  They seem consistent with the image of Morphy as loner and social outcast a notion disputed publicly by Edge but not privately."  I'm aware of what Edge proclaimed publicly and to others but privately his letters inferred something else entirely as in his letter to Fiske.  For his part, Edge seemed intent in making burnishing Morphy's luster.  I'll have to get the Sergeant book from my office regarding the woman who dismissed Morphy for being a mere chess player but it is in there.

"but privately his letters inferred something else entirely as in his letter to Fiske. "

Which other letter are you referring to?

 There Are new interesting comments here. Chess changes. Chess progress of development .Agreed. Philidor , Steinitz, Rubinstein, Tarrasch, Nimzowitsch(hypermodernism)Fischer ,all of them participated in chess evolution.

Paul Morphy lives in their play. Haw Is it possible?  Answer at the question Is simple. He overtook his time, his age. Everything that happened in chess evolution exists in his style of play erlier. I see Morphy knew even more than our grendmasters at present. I have wrtitten about. I mean ''Something for something'' and  activity. In chess as in psychology and life ''Something for smoething''. All Great People have emotional problems. It Is payment for greatness. In my opinion subjecting him psychoanalisys Does not make sense.

It Is very hard to understand so talented people like him.

On the other hand I see that contemporary psychoterapists don't understand many ideas of freud , but I don't want to write about It at the chess portal.

    What about the best players? Fischer , Capablanca, Botvinnik and many other grendmasters consider him the best player in the history  and they called  Morphy their teacher.

My Top Five consists of

1) Morphy: Because he's Morphy.  He was like the Chuck Norris of the Chess world in his time before he went bat-crap crazy

2) Alehkine:  Talented player, yet major alcoholic.  I consider drinking to be a handicap during Chess, so he gets number 2.

3) Capablanca:  Powerful player who basically dominated for I believe almost a decade, before losing his title to the infamous drunkard who precedes him on my list.  I believe he also gambled Chess in bars.

4)Tal:  His crazy, sometimes unsound sacrifices in his games have never failed to keep my interest.  Just for having the guts to play some of these ridiculously nuts moves in his games, he gets number 4.

5) Petrosian:  I'm a passive player most of the time OTB, so I like to aspire to at least create a defense as solid as what this guy did.  he gets number 5.

Here's my take at a "greatest" list. Two points: (1) I think players should be judged against their own era because the game has changed dramatically over time. (2) It's too hard to pick just "one" and I don't want to rank them, so in no particular order:

1. Morphy because he was totally dominant in his short chess career.

2. Fischer because he reached a point of dominance on his run to the world championship and because breaking the Soviet monopoly on the chess crown was no mean feat.

3. Emmanuel Lasker because he had a tremendous fighting spirit and was a dominant force in chess for decades, even when he was quite up in years.

4. Akiva Rubinstein because he was Rubinstein.

5. Kasparov and Karpov because they dominated chess as one-two for a quarter century.

6. Capablanca because he may have been the greatest natural chess talent

7. Alekhine because he named his cat "Chess." And because he was a creative genius at the board too, I guess

Lawson's biographical summary seems to fit the Fine-Jones profile of Morphy except for the dissillusionment with chess though Lawson himself was unconvinced.  Fine and Jones were steeped in the prevalent psychoanalysis of the day Freud, early Jung, Kaplan etc and provided their opinions within the framework of that model.  That usually involved placing mental disorders in a homoerotic/psychosexual framework. What Fine and Jones and what some authors --- I think Kaplan was one--- used to essay this model were comments by by Sergeant regarding the rumor (Morphy's Games of Chess pp. 25-26) which he attributed to Buck that Morphy "became enamored of a wealthy and handsone young lady.... but she scorned the idea of marrying a 'mere chess player'" which were bolstered by Steinitz's comments in an interview when the subject of Morphy was brought up, others included Morphy's relationship with his sister and mother, and with his fellow chess players.

My own reading of Morphy  based on comments from his uncle Ernest and others is that Morphy was to use the 18th Century term a "dandy"  whose  obsession with chess began at an early age and lasted well into his college years  and who studied chess far more than popular myth would have us believe. And while this alone does not make him a loner or social outcast, there's little by way of evidence that Morphy was skilled in the affairs of the heart or other social amenities beyond that which would be expected of a gentleman of his class in that era.

Mike

This may be true, but his question is purely opinion based.  Personally I like Spassky and Kasparov

I guess you also have to give a nod to Botvinnik for many of the same reasons that Lasker gets the nod: performing at the top of the chess world for an extended period. And Botvinnik had to defend his crown every three years.

I'd also give a nod to Staunton. I finished analyzing his consultation games with Reverend Owen against the team of Morphy and Barnes.  Frank Marshall was right: the play on both sides was very clear, insightful and instructive. 

The strategy and tactics used by both teams could have been made by any current GM including World Champs like Karpov or Fischer.  And one game reminded me of one played by Bronstein. 

So, I'm certain that a Staunton or Morphy would not have wiped out current GMs with the same level of dominance shown during their days at the top but certainly either Staunton or Morphy would likely have won more often against one even if they lacked any other chess theory.  Now, would Staunton or Morphy be able to challenge for the very top without an infusion of chess theory especially the end games or openings?  No.

Mike    

Capablanca addressed this subject and he was far less sanguine about Morphy's chances against the masters of his day. He did allow some undetermined improvement as Morphy absorbed new knowledge.

Add to this the advancement of modern skills and knowledge and Morphy would have more problems in our time presumably.

On the other hand Fischer's opinion of Morphy's chances in the time machine scenario is much more positive. He said that he would sometimes take half an hour to find the right response to a Morphy move, and he cited Morphy's extreme rapidity of thought.

For those reasons I like Morphy's chances if we could get him to our time when he was still quite young and somehow as motivated to play chess as he actually was.

I agree about this case for Morphy, however, how would he stand up to someone like Carlsen, Karpov, or Kasparov in a best of three series?

Given Fischer's comment as related by Goldendog, maybe Morphy's best chances would be in rapid games.

That would agree with golden dog's comment about Morphy's fast thinking. I think that that would be a logical path to victory over the newest and strongest GMs.

Alekhine wrote Defending Morphy from his Defender and was very optimistic about Morphy's chances against his contemporaries which included J.R. Capablanca and himself. 

Alekhine claimed that it would be a mistake as some had written (and this might have been a dig at Capablanca) to think that Morphy's game would not improve or consist simply of brilliant combinations against lesser opponents.  Alekhine claimed that his analyses of Morphy's play showed his brilliancy... not as Alekhine called it the cheap tactics of "pretty combinations" or some such ... but in finding the correct strategic and tactical moves leading to a favorable end game while neutralizing his opponents' moves (which was a skill that Alekhine in his letters on the book he was writing before his death attributed to Capablanca).

As Alekhine opined Morphy's problem would be the need to study the openings due to the explosion of opening theory and dispel some of his preconceived notions --- some of which as opening theory evolved were effectively played move by move by Taimanov and others in the 1970s. Besides in the Lasker-Capablanca-Alekhine era, openings might not have been that important for chess success. Capablanca wrote in the Preface of subsequent editons of My Chess Career (?) that he never studied or read a book on openings until many years after he was World Champion and found it to only confirm many of the ideas he already held but he did admit to reading and studying thousands of end games. 

Mike

Very interesting Mike!! that is so cool, and maybe Morphy did need to work on his openings... However, I admire morphy for what he was, best ever or not.

Not Botvinnik for sure. He lost more games than he won as world champ

True enough, strictly speaking of the WC match games.

He described himself as primus inter pares, so at least in that way he was realistic and modest.

But his remark about "Primus Inter Pares" was also intended to describe a permanent change in the nature of top level chess under the Soviet influence that there would be no more eras of great individuals.  It is a statement loaded with ideological subtext.  And promptly refuted by the emergence of players such as Fischer and Kasparov.  Botvinnik's positive is that he managed via his return match gimmick to be a sort of part-time amateur world champion ostensibly giving priority to his "more important" contributions of practical service to the state as an engineer and only rejoin professional chess fully when preparing for his return matches.  This erodes his record a bit and his case for all time greatness.  The negative is that there seems to have been some state directed rigging of some of his matches in particular the Bronstein match when the state would not have liked a pure jew (rather than a part jew that could be passed off as a Russian) as world champion.  It seems to me that he was a dedicated top level practioner who did his own work, work of high quality, in the openings.  Some have referred to him as the last of the amateur world champions as his successors were full time chessplayers without any significant work outside of chess notwithstanding the nominal jobs most had, same as the Soviet shamateur athletes such as their hockey team.  (From Fischer onward, all-out chess professionalism has been the norm.)  The idea was to put over the idea that the Soviet system was so superior that productive members of their society could also double as the world's greatest chessplayers and athletes performing only part time away from their important services to the state.  "Primus inter pares" was both wishful thinking and an expression of an ideology that sought to diminish the individual (unless that individual was named Joseph Stalin, that is until 1953, recall that Botvinnik had to manage the first five years of his world championship career (starting in 1948) under Stalin, and as with Shostakovich the composer, Stalin had surely noticed him).  I would not ascribe modesty and humility to that remark until properly discounting the compulsory role of Botvinnik as public figure in the Soviet system required to say things that were expected of him.  The same challenge faced by Dimitri Shostakovich, a public persona as required for survival, and a private persona of the actual artist.

I'm as contempuous of the great evil the Soviet Union represented as anyone, but I'm not prepared to completely disregard Botvinnik because he was a lap dog of the Soviet thugs.

In 1925, at the age of 14, he won a simul game against Capablanca. And there was no Soviet mischief behind Botvinnik's wins at Nottingham 1936 or AVRO 1938. He was not a fraud pretending to be a chess player; it seems clear that he was firmly in the top tier of the world elite, which at that time was the non Soviet players. Obviously we don't know what Botvinnik could have achieved outside the Soviet system, but I think you have to acknowledge that he was a great player, although it is debatable just how great.

It's somewhat ironic that I would find myself defending Botvinnik because I've never been fond of him; he really was a true believer and seems to have been quite happy in his role in promoting the Worker's Paradise. But however I feel about him as a person, I have to acknowledge he was one of the greats.