How bad were the old "GM's" really

This game was played 120 years ago today, by two patzers known as Jacques Mieses and Harry Nelson Pillsbury.  Mieses, originally from Germany, played master-level chess for over 50 years!  He was recognized as a fierce attacking player in his early years.  He was in the initial class of FIDE Grandmaster titlists, in 1950

Pillsbury plays this game flawlessly.  A true grandmaster performance in any era.  The engine identified Mieses 20th move as the fatal blunder. 

Mieses: 3 inaccuracies, 0 mistakes, 1 blunders, 51 average centipawn loss

Pillsbury: 0 inaccuracies, 0 mistakes, 0 blunders, 9 average centipawn loss

Wait....now you agree Pillsbury was a patzer !? This is why it is not possible to have a healthy debate with you.

I should have used the sarcasm tags for the dimbulbs.

[sarcasm] ... [/sarcasm]

ah, the lowest form of wit....I gave you too much credit, it is always my down fall.

I thought that was beautifully set up, Steinitz couldn't have done better this is GM class posting.

The Artists,Musicians,Scientists,Architects,Actors etc. of decades/centuries ago are just as good (even better in many cases) than their respective counterparts today.

The same applies to Chess.If you remove opening theory,Old chess masters will match any living master today.

I think the old GMs aren't as good as people here are claiming.  Look at the La Bourdonnais v. McDonnell matches.  Most of those games are utter crap.

Uh oh, here comes another ultimate authority on utter crap.

Oh, lighten up.

This looks like something from the U10 reserve section.

Three characteristics of the games played in the 1800's : 2 f4, bring the queen out as early as possible , use the king as an attacking piece or at least move him as often as possible( it is more difficult to checkmate a moving target)

JamieDelarosa wrote:

"So, who agrees with the OP that 19th century grandmasters, such as Morphy, Steinitz, Lasker, and Pillsbury, would be '1800-1999 max' players today.

None?

 Got that right!!"

After quoting JaimeDelarosa, PremiumDuck wrote:

"Well apart from that Nunn guy and one or two others it would seem I am alone. ..."

Is PremiumDuck claiming to be able to produce a quote of John Nunn expressing the view that "19th century grandmasters, such as Morphy, Steinitz, Lasker, and Pillsbury, would be '1800-1999 max' players today"? How about ANY quote of an authority identifying some specific "19th century grandmasters"?

By the way, the record currently shows the ~7-days-ago post referring to "1800-1900".

But everything ultimately ties to strategic endgames.  Let's say you're launching an attack.  Exchanges are to be expected (unless you want to cede ground and initiative to the defender) and since it's assumed the opponent will try finding a way to minimize his concessions to enter the least bad for him position possible we can say that one needs to know how to recognize his chances in strategic endgames if he is to judge his attacking and positional operations accordingly.  It isn't enough to merely create weaknesses or minimize one's own, one must know how to exploit such weaknesses and create them elsewhere to spread out the defense.

Tal's great attacking (and sometimes Laskerian purposeful bad moves for psychological reasons too) play needs to be seen in context, he wanted to maximize his opponent's weaknesses so he could mop up and convert his advantages.  Then he came up with plans and mini plans (schema, where schematic thinking comes into play.)  Combination and position play are not ends in and of themselves but rather a means to an end, and even then the schematic thinking and planning of strategic endgames are a means to an end towards theoretical endings.  

Analyzing complicated practical endgames and finding the rules and principles in them and a study of the classics is perhaps the best training advice I received.  

Nunn didn't argue that the best players of the 19th Century were Class A players. He argued that even the best players were not as good as today's best players, and they weren't even close. He didn't assign a rating level to the players of the past (except for Suechting, at "not greater than 2100" for Karlsbad), but Kenneth Regan, using a similar method to the one Nunn used in analysing the Karlsbad tournament, came up with performance levels. 

Regan, an International Master and professional statistician, demonstrated that Staunton's average rating over all his matches was 1940, that Anderssen was ~2100 strength, Morphy was ~2344, Steinitz was ~2400 and Lasker was ~2470 strength in his match against Steinitz.

The St. Petersburg 1914 tournament was the first time "Grandmasters" were officially awarded titles. In that tournament, the top four players averaged a 2575 performance level according to Regan. Those players definitely deserve to be known as Grandmasters, even by today's standard. 

Today, there are nearly 1500 GMs in the world. That's not mostly due to title inflation, it's due to the tremendous increase in chess knowledge and skill. In order to become a GM, most players need to have three norms and maintain a +2600 rating. 

All of today's GMs are standing on the shoulders of giants. 

Here's a link to one of Regan's academic papers where he rates the players of the past:

http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~regan/papers/pdf/RMH11.pdf

Thank you for the link :-)

I remember Ken Regan and the Lone Pine tournaments

The OP never said anything about "1800-1999" or "1700-1800" both of which the OP has been falsely accused of, the OP said "1800-1900"

The OP thinks if what the OP wrote was read with more attention all will make more sense.

Exactly ,thanks Jimmy