How bad were the old "GM's" really

Off topic:

The monkey experiment was once tried. After a few hours, the monkeys had defecated on the typewriters, smashed the typewriters, and used them as projectiles. There was one page that actually had letters. The "S" key had gotten stuck and had repeated for several lines before that too got broken.

Moral of the story: put monkeys and typewriters in the same room and you'll get a lot of excrement and destruction. Not that much different from what we see in these forums!

Chess players respond to your topic no differently than monkeys with typewriters ? that's disappointing.

I shat on my keyboard once after losing to a Polish Patzer which is the worst kind of patzer there is but I have never thrown anything.

Back to the first question : how good were the old Grandmasters ?

We have now over 150 posts with no complete answers, so I opened the very good book that Mike Fox and Richard James wrote, twenty-two years ago, named "The even more complete chess addict", and find on page 119 a list of names in a possible sequence of strenght, of which they themselves say that it is impossible to compare correctly and such listing is very subjective.

Anyhow, in 1993 they place Fischer and Kasparov on top, followed by Capablanca, Lasker and Alekhine.

Thereafter Botwinnik, Karpov, Ivanchuk, Tal and Smyslov, followed by Morphy, Petrosian, Keres and Gelfand.

This is 1 to 14 on that list.

Rubinstein and Tarrasch are 19 and 20, Pillsbury and Steinitz nr 23 and 24 ( and Chigorin 53...)

Apparently Capablanca, Lasker and Alekhine (and Morphy) are comparable to our Grandmasters in 1993 ( without Kramnik, Anand, Carlsen, of course )

This can give something to think about !

Thanks for your efforts Romyger , much appreciated and interesting.

If you take any relatively strong chess player (USCF 1900+) beyond move #40, (in a game that's still close to level), consider it a psychological victory for yourself.

Ditto with hypothetical clashes against the romantic chess masters, between the years 1600 and 1900.

They played (mostly) for knockout checkmates in the middlegame, using risky gambits, and wild, open, tactical positions.

Here's a simple proposition -- A USCF Expert (2000-2199 rating) transported into the distant past would likely kick quite a lot of butt, worldwide.

Until he ran into a 12-year old Paul Morphy, or some other "Chess God."

That's all this thread really asserts.  An eminently plausible narrative.  Despite the fact that it can't be "tested."

Except by a Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.   

nice twain reference!

Computers in the 80's played about 2200 rated chess by the end of the decade you are blowing smoke. 

Everyone from Steinitz onwards would be a GM if given a copy of ECO and an endgame manual and allowed to study for 6 months.

You mean 10 000 hours or ten years perhaps.

When you see something so outrageously stupid, and who has milliern on their friend's list, then the most sensible course of action is not to reply. 

Nah.  @SilentKnight meant with a copy of ECO in his lap, and Houdini running in his shoe.  Like so many people on this site.

In later life, Steinitz was so busy challenging God to a game, that he wouldn't even take notice.

says sensible thing to do is not reply ....... replies!

There are, indeed, quite a lot of slings of sorrow and outrageous fortune throughout this thread.  Goes with the territory, I suppose.

And I'm not the only one who has a problem with @Millie from Pittsburgh, my home town.  

Levitsky

i thought he said .310

Hey no fair, first of all the Levitsky link goes to stuff that happened in the 1900's which doesn't count because the Curtain of Shadow was lifted from the human psyche in 1901 and secondly with Batgirl posting here I now have to edit my profile story reference to her again .

Nice article, Batgirl! 

My one quibble is that anyone will look good if we look at the players we beat who later beat others. Levitsky was clearly master strength, but his match against Alekhine when Alekhine was not yet world class isn't really a sign that he was world class. He lost the match 7-3, but the article focuses only on Levitsky's wins. The story got really strained when you talk about the people that Levitsky beat who then went on to play better known masters. 

To help explain my quibble, I beat Michael Valvo in a rated game, who beat Plaskett, who beat Mikhail Tal! That makes me sound much better than I really am. 

Your research was fantastic! But the story oversells Levitsky's skill. 

I do love to read your articles, and look forward to reading your next ones!

Whatever potential Levitsky had remained mostly that. Even Tschigorin recognized that potential in him, but circumstances kept him from making the most of it.  I don't think I glorified him in any way (I just re-read it to see any place I might have). I gave only his wins vs Alekhine to show Levitsky at his best, but linked to the rest of the games so anyone interested could easily view them.  On the other hand the article was about him, the man pretty much only known for having been on the wrong side Marshall's most famous game, and it was partially designed to blur that image of him as just a loser by fleshing out some of the unknown.

Haha ha .. prettifed Chevies