@ dpruess
It think it's easy to tell Morphy was better than a 1900 rating, you said a GM once estimated him at 1900, but I doubt a GM could tell much of a difference between 1700-2200, they'd all be about the same. I'm close to 1900 and I play many players between 1800-2000 and I can easily tell Morphy would win against this level of play.
I agree, there is no way that Morphy wouldn't easily beat a Class A player. Did the GM have a bit to drink when he said that ? I thought that Morphy's games were analyzed with strong programs (lol Execute Elo ratings didn't even exist before the 1960s) and they found him to have had a similar match up as a modern 2550-2600 GM. Even allowing for the fact that his opening repertoire was not as broad etc. surely his level must have been quite high.
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.
Are you insane? Your chess title aside, I don't think anything you've said here is defensible.
going over morphy games ive seen him make silly errors in understanding the position that I never would have made. In very sharp positions he was very good, but terrible endgame, really dreadful. I tihnk I could hold my own in a sharp position against him well enough to reach an endgame and I probably would beat him from even a slightly inferior endgame.
I think you are the most arrogant C class player I have ever come across. Astonishing !
Yeah, I really did think something was wrong with claiming Morphy is 1900. He was at least 2500 in strength, if we assume the computer analysis of his games are inaccurate.
haha schach, yes I think that's a bit closer.
Good trawling kant 1/10
Morphy would beat you blindfolded, and me too. Ofcourse you wouldnt be allowed to use your engine. You have never even beaten an A class player and you think you would stand a chance with Morphy ?!
well...i agree with dpruess, and since hes an IM and yr a lowly NM yr arrogant to question him lol
Dupress is wrong. I've been a circa 2000 player for about 28 years and I know that Morphy would beat me out of sight. How can one ignore the sheer beauty of his games or the complexity of his combinations?
TrueSkill Through Time(http://research.microsoft.com/pubs/74417/NIPS2007_0931.pdf) put Morphy as the strongest player until Botvinnik(other than a questionable rating given to Louis Eichborn.)
Kasparov called him a super-genius. Smyslov had this to say about him: “There is no doubt that for Morphy chess was an art, and for chess Morphy was a great artist. His play was captivated by freshness of thought and inexhaustible energy. He played with inspiration, without striving to penetrate into the psychology of the opponent; he played, if one can express it so, “pure chess”. His harmonious positional understanding; the pure intuition, would have made Morphy a highly dangerous opponent even for any player of our times.”
lol reb if you are even in atlanta again we need to play somewhere otb so you can stop being obessed with how terrible i am
Do you live in Atlanta ?
TrueSkill Through Time(http://research.microsoft.com/pubs/74417/NIPS2007_0931.pdf) put Morphy as the strongest player until Botvinnik(other than a questionable rating given to Louis Eichborn.)
Kasparov called him a super-genius. Smyslov had this to say about him: “There is no doubt that for Morphy chess was an art, and for chess Morphy was a great artist. His play was captivated by freshness of thought and inexhaustible energy. He played with inspiration, without striving to penetrate into the psychology of the opponent; he played, if one can express it so, “pure chess”. His harmonious positional understanding; the pure intuition, would have made Morphy a highly dangerous opponent even for any player of our times.”
I have a few problems with the evaluation "strongest until Botvinnik" ... one being the implication that Botvinnik was stronger than all his predecessors which is a pretty weighty claim.
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 they were just talented lol.
Chess historians rate Morphy around 2600 and Fischer once said that Morphy was probably the greatest genius of them all....... nuff said.
Well I may have too easily thrown Alekhine and Capa in front of Botvinnik in my mind... not exactally sure where I rate him.
I have a few problems with the evaluation "strongest until Botvinnik" ... one being the implication that Botvinnik was stronger than all his predecessors which is a pretty weighty claim.
I don't know that I'd rank Botvinnik that highly either. It would pain me to put Botvinnik above Capablanca, myself--Capablanca is my favorite player despite my moniker. I was mainly disputing the ludicrous notion that Morphy was a 1900 level player.
Chess historians rate Morphy around 2600 and Fischer once said that Morphy was probably the greatest genius of them all....... nuff said.
I don't like this Fischer quote because in my opinion it should have been obvious to Fischer that Morphy was not better than all the other world champions up to that point, I always second guess this quote which rates a fellow American at the top as a stab at the Russian's line of world champions -- whose literature surely worshiped the likes of Chigorin, Alehine, Botvinnik etc.
@baron http://www.chessville.com/misc/PsychologyofChessSkill.htm
That I think is the article you are talking about (but I'm not sure).
Yes, that has definitely been my weak point, trying to understand positional evaluation. Every chess engine, calculates positional advantages alongside tactical advantages and piece advantages.
The calculation is complex, but moving the bishop to one spot may lead to 0.87 while another 0.95, and this type of sensitive calculation is done intuitively by grandmasters.
I notice when I watch grandmasters play and speak while they play (on blitz games they play), and they think similarly to all other players (there's no genius wisdom in the way they talk, you would expect them to rapidly tell you the various advantages with precision--but instead they are like "oh if i take this, he will do this..." very simple stuff). Yet, they sometimes are not vocal about the intuitive calculations like making the choices they make (Because it's so ordinary for them).
Example "hmm, if I move the knight here, it's a good spot for it... but wait I'm just gonna move it right here that's a better spot"--- whaaaa? How did he arrive at this conclusion? (apparently rybka agrees!) To the normal player, both moves have 99% equal value!!!
@dpruess I think I might agree with that assessment. Of course some time before Steinitz, was there even such thing as elo ratings? When did that come up, so it might be that he was simply the first while ratings were "young".
I too would be curious how they got so strong. My suspicion is that most had masters teaching them or playing with them all the time. If they were the strongest they might have had a close friend who is almost as good that play with them all the time and create theories together.
This is also why you don't see Super GMs messing around on chess websites, because usually they have other super GM friends or regular IM, GM, NM friends that play them constantly and perhaps even fans who are extremely high rated that would play them the second they called.