I don't know, but would imagine, that in that era, there were a few cities, such as Paris and London, where a serious chess player would need to go to compete.
I would also imagine that players back then also had a more distinctly unique style, as sharing ideas was not as easy.
I don't know, but would imagine, that in that era, there were a few cities, such as Paris and London, where a serious chess player would need to go to compete.
I would also imagine that players back then also had a more distinctly unique style, as sharing ideas was not as easy.
I bet you're right. I think that's why many experts before 1930s, had very tactical openings, gambit openings, and different styles---usually very aggressive and attacking.
Nowadays, all the super GMs seem to play similarly, and they are all aware of the best openings and it's just a matter of the slightest tactical or positional difference that wins/loses a game.
Which leads me to think, I wonder how a super GM today, would match up to an old pre-1900s master in the past...
You're looking back at pre 1900 at a handful of good players and wondering if today we can't cut it? Just like hundreds of years ago only a small percentage of players are very strong, there were of course thousands of people who played in the 19th century nobody has ever heard of.
It's interesting to me that today's WC aren't better than some of the champs from past centuries... my thought on that is those people were close to the absolute best a human mind can be at chess so regardless of what kinds of resources a player like that may have today such as databases, their play is not noticeably better.
Oh, I guess you're talking only pre 1900 -- no, none of those players could compete with a super GM of today's standards... imo anyway. Morphy was what, 2500-2600? Maybe not even that high, not that he didn't have the potential.
Orange, yes of course a small percentage. But that's the thing, how could they have been at maximum capacity back then?
Compare today's population of 6.8 billion, to the population of 1850, 1.26 billion.
This means that out of that small population, there was still a % of great masters. And as you pointed out, that they were just as good as today's super GMs??
How are we sure of this? Perhaps with the amount of openings and theories a super GM knows--they might make someone great back then look like a total amateur?
I used to think there were very few chess books and magazines and chess columns during that period, but when I started listing all the chess books and magazines available to those who could afford it, it turns out there were a lot of chess sources. By 1800 there were about 100 chess books and magazines in print. By 1850, the number was over 400 books and magazines in print with over 5,000 master game published by then. By 1900 there were over 2,000 books and magazines in print, not counting all the chess columns in newspapers and hundreds of chess clubs. You can go to google books and download over 1,800 chess books and magazines printed from the1500s to the early 1900s. When I started looking at the openings of players like Morphy and Anderssen and Staunton and Steinitz, they all came from opening books published before they played their games. You can track opening theory directly from the opening books published during that time or opening surveys in the latest chess magazines of the time. Morphy had access to a lot of chess literature during his active days and was familiar with the games of players he met. He made notes in his own chess books as to a good game or not, etc and published his own chess column for a brief period, going over classic games before his time.
Here is a sampling of chess books from Google (lots of 19th century books and magazines) as well as other chess books and sources that are free for download.
http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AiF9ULO9hJY3dHNpR2RIYk5MRXdMSnpsYTlVV0NuTGc&hl=en
I think the unfortunate aspect of modern chess is that it has become less of an art, and more of a science. Not that artistry still does not exist, but engines and excessive opening theory has made it more robotic.
Oh, I guess you're talking only pre 1900 -- no, none of those players could compete with a super GM of today's standards... imo anyway. Morphy was what, 2500-2600? Maybe not even that high, not that he didn't have the potential.
Yes, exactly what I think.
My question is though, regardless, how did they get so strong? How did they learn / train themselves? How were they able to play even at the strength or greater than the worst GM of today's standards?
They must have had some way to train themselves, unless they are all just born with such powers in their visual cortex that they can see a lot of moves and calculate very easily...
I think the unfortunate aspect of modern chess is that it has become less of an art, and more of a science. Not that artistry still does not exist, but engines and excessive opening theory has made it more robotic.
Perhaps it has. But it's still an art---it's not a science. But like all sports/skill-based games, at the top levels, in everything, it becomes a matter of science.
If it was a science, you can turn any person into a super GM with a team of Soviet grandmasters... lol. (You would imagine a bunch of super rich people becoming super GMs)
As you said, there were a lot of chess books back then. So you may be saying that, well, the best players back then, became best players, because they were well-read... right?
Today our access to knowledge is more convenient, but the day to day grind of learning I don't see as different. Back then I'd imagine, as said earlier, you'd probably have to move to a chess center like Paris or NY to be around strong players. In those days you might take your game(s), write up some analysis, and publish it -- peers kept up with each other and so even though it may take a while someone else may refute your analysis and let you know you were wrong. You'd still have to drill tactics, develop your endgame, keep up with openings, etc.
I'd say by definition, even if they had to work very very hard to get the title, all GMs have a talent for chess. Your average person can't make it regardless of the training. So yes masters of the 19th century were gifted, but I don't think they were automatically masters either, and while the convenience wasn't there, the day to day learning was otherwise the same.
(Sigh) As usual, modern technology and information overload is being over-rated. Point one: brains have not improved, not in the last 30,000 years. Those old-timers had brains just as good as ours, and they did not have the constant distractions of media, etc. Chess is the game of an era that had time to think, not merely to react to stimuli. Point two: chess, like music and mathematics, is something that spawns prodigies. Presumably, we have much better musical instruments and musical training and musical resources today than ever before: why don't we have any composers as good as Mozart? I laugh. Point three: chess skill is largely gained by two things, by study and by playing. And most of this is done with a board of 64 squares and a handful of wooden pieces. Hi tech not necessary, any more than the Egyptians needed heavy equipment with internal combustion engines to build the pyramids. If we can boast more and perhaps slightly more skillful grandmasters today, it is because they stand on the shoulders of giants.
They ate their greens and went to bed early. Mum knows best.
(Sigh) As usual, modern technology and information overload is being over-rated. Point one: brains have not improved, not in the last 30,000 years. Those old-timers had brains just as good as ours, and they did not have the constant distractions of media, etc. Chess is the game of an era that had time to think, not merely to react to stimuli. Point two: chess, like music and mathematics, is something that spawns prodigies. Presumably, we have much better musical instruments and musical training and musical resources today than ever before: why don't we have any composers as good as Mozart? I laugh. Point three: chess skill is largely gained by two things, by study and by playing. And most of this is done with a board of 64 squares and a handful of wooden pieces. Hi tech not necessary, any more than the Egyptians needed heavy equipment with internal combustion engines to build the pyramids. If we can boast more and perhaps slightly more skillful grandmasters today, it is because they stand on the shoulders of giants.
This makes the point very nicely and succinctly. No further comment necessary!
Ricardo_Morro said:
Presumably, we have much better musical instruments and musical training and musical resources today than ever before: why don't we have any composers as good as Mozart?
Forgive me for digressing from the chess framework, but I feel the above presumption is mistaken. Firstly, the classical musical instruments manufactured today have nothing over those that were produced over the last few hundred years. Secondly, musical training since (at least) the Middle Ages consisted of copying masterworks by hand and studying under recognized masters. The latter is still employed, although most students today study in a group framework which is undoubtedly inferior to the private tutoring of yore.
Thirdly, I don't agree that we haven't had composers as "good" as Mozart. Several relatively modern composers certainly match Mozart for technical facility, such as Igor Stravinsky, Arnold Schoenberg and Aaron Copeland, and far surpass him as innovators. Whether you understand/appreciate their creations is another matter - a matter of education. The public at large still receives its "musical education" through the tonality system which flourished from about 1600 to 1900, and finds it extremely difficult to even listen to, let alone appreciate, the works of the great 20th century composers.
If we can boast more and perhaps slightly more skillful grandmasters today, it is because they stand on the shoulders of giants
Of course. That would also be true of the great musical composers since the Middle Ages. But that doesn't detract from their greatness.
Hi-tech may not be necessary but it certainly does help.While the Egyptians may have needed thousands of slaves with decades of work, with machines and less of a work force they can do it in less time. --------there enlies my point.
With such technologies, how is it that an average joe cannot achieve Mastery of chess without years and years of studying? How is it with such limited technology and limited books that a boy of 9 like Paul Morphy, could defeat strong players (or was their strength overestimated)?
We have databases full of games, thousands of articles on chess, databases of 50,000+ tactics problems, and yet, I bet it still takes just as long to become a master compared to how long it took back then.
My theory is that the greats of chess back then, required master-level teachers that were able to get them to that level. I don't think someone simply studying chess on a wooden board in the 1800s with limited books and limited opponents could achieve master level alone. (Similar to how all great composers HAVE to train under a master; as a fine arts professor told me "You can't just learn this stuff on your own " (though few geniuses can, and pioneered it)).
Don't sigh again...
Yes, they had secret coaches from Mars.
....and a special talent not owned by too many.
Agreed, you can't make a silk purse from a pig's ear.
It is not too difficult to see 3 moves ahead in chess.
4 is possible and beyond you need to be a very good player, though they, the great players do not necessarily analyze 10 moves ahead I think.
They rather have what I call a gestalt approach, they see the whole board, recognize positions, make a plan and carry it out and know above all when to make the right move and what the outcome is.
I agree with this. I wish I still had the link, I recently read a very interesting article that said that grandmaster level players don't necessarily calculate deeper(in terms of number of moves) than say a strong club or low level master player, but instead they have far superior pattern recognition. They can quickly look at a board and see both tactical motifs and positional imbalances. Because of this, some grandmasters actually calculate less than lower level players, as they are able to quickly discard lines that lead to inferior positions.
Also, keep in mind that there are only certain positions where you can deeply calculate. I think it was Reti who once wrote that when asked how many moves ahead he looks, he said "usually, one." You can only really calculate deeply when there is a small number of forced responses, otherwise the tree of possible positions quickly explodes to a huge number.
Back to someone like Morphy, he was simply born with an amazing talent for this kind of thinking. People often wonder what he could have done if born in modern times, with modern training methods, becuase he was vastly ahead of his contemporaries with relatively little formal training.
To a lesser extent I am reminded of Capablanca. I was viewing a dvd by Gary Kasparov lately in which he was talking about QGD openings, and he mentioned Capa's match against Frank Marshal. Marshal was one of the leading players in the U.S. at the time. Capa utterly crushed him, Marshal did not win a single game in their match. And Capablanca did it (according to Kasparov) without extensive opening prep work. He simply saw so much more clearly into the positional aspects of the game than Marshal did that Marshal simply couldn't compete.
My general answer would be: they didn't. There were very few "master-level" (as defined by being able to reach a 2200 elo in modern tournament play) players before 1900. A handful perhaps, with Steinitz being perhaps the first in history.
Even Morphy was not that strong probably. One strong Grandmaster who I heard discuss him said that he was about 1900 level.
(this whole topic is very debatable; in my opinion, which I'm not very confident in:) With our current technology, access to information, strong opponents, and coaches, we have 9 year old kids who would win against the best players in the world in 1860-70. And yes, modern players definitely stand on the shoulders of the work of geniuses of the past. But we have climbed considerably.
As to how 19th century players managed to get as good as they did: I'd be curious to learn more about how they did it. I've heard of the chess cafes in large European cities, but as far as I know, Morphy for example was already stronger than those players when he arrived there to face them. How did he get so good?
I was reading up on the history of Paul Morphy, who at 9 years old was already beating professional chess players.
I began to wonder, without computers, so few books, and low communications (so hard to find good players to play)---how did these masters before the year 1900, ever become such genius players?
Were they all geniuses? Did they all have powerful teachers ? Did they simply obsess over the board and play themselves and develop theories? Did they have a lot of pre-1900 expert chess books?
Even further, how did those world champions before the 1700s ever get so good?
Are we just a dumber generation that with all the books, tactics trainers, computers, and unlimited amount of opponents--that some of us can't even get past 1700?