Morphy vs. Modern GMs

Morphy is dead. If the question is, "If Morphy rose from the dead and return to the state of being he was in when he lived, how would he match up?", then I say that's a stupid question and one that is not very realistic. A better question is, "If Morphy would have been born and lived in the same time frame as Fischer, Kasparov, Anand, etc..., how would he have matched up?" Assuming he was born with the same natural chess ability today that he possessed when he lived, which he used to beat the masters of his day with such weak openings as the Kings Gambit and Evans Gambit, and the idea that he would be studying the same theory and strategy as those others named, he would probably be the World Champion and the #1 rated player.

Morphy would be playing the chess from his era, whereas a GM today, (Let's say Nakamura... U.S.A!) would be playing today's chess. With all of the new discoveries between then and now, Morphy wouldn't have too much of a chance. Of course, his opponent would have a heart attack playing a corpse, but... that's neither here nor there. 

...and newtons laws of motion hold in all cases.

Not so. They break down at relativistic speeds, and don't hold in the area governed by quantum mechanics.

Like I said, the very top players of different generations were nearly the best humanity could produce.  To think that one would necessarily dominate the other is flawed, they would all be nearly equal and it would come down to health and psychology.  That's why I take it from the "fresh out of the time machine" side of things.  If they were all born in the same year it's simply impossible to say, except for fan boys to wave their flags frantically of course

Morphy pwns

I think it is more preposterous to imagine what Morphy would be like if he were contemporary than if he were taken as he was in his era. To speculate on what he would be like is reconstructive; we have to invent a new person who really isn't Morphy. The time machine, however, is simply comparative. We are still inventing his games with modern GMs, but we at least have some factual person who existed and whose games we can look at to think about his playing style, how that would interact with modern GMs. Although both are impossible, it is more realistic to speak of the 19th century Morphy than imagine what he might be like today.

(Morphy still pwns.)

Morphy would match up, a few weeks ago I read all about him, throughout his life.

Morphy liked chess, no one plays something they don't like. It's just that he thought having a "Chess" as your LIFE, was wrong because there was no such thing as "professional chess players" at the time (who's job is to play). This is why Morphy studied other stuff, graduated with a degree etc. He simply conformed to society at the time. He did enjoy the game, but it's possible he got bored of it.

Morphy WOULD match up to GMs today. Perhaps not instantly be world champion, but he could very well be in the top 10 with a little bit of practice/training. He was a genius.

What Morphy is, is similar to a savant. He had mathematical calculation in his mind. He could calculate 7-8 moves ahead, and consider ALL the options, and ALL the variations. This is what made him good. Not because of training or studying chess, but due to pure calculation.

Much like the guy who can calculate huge numbers in his head that people thought only computers could calculate.

Morphy was a real life chess computer for his time. He probably had photographic memory, and the ability to visualize the board and pieces percisely in his head and play it through of many variations.

Probably ought to stick to chess commentary.  The 'global warming and big bang' things are pretty solid.

I wonder if you took most of todays GM's and brought them up in 19th century New Orleans with a chess board and not much else how many of them would have been able to dominate the world at chess? 

I suspect if you put a 7 year old Morphy in a house with Sunil Weermantry has his father in the mid 1990s he would be every bit as likely to end up ruling the chess world now has he did 150 years ago.

It was easy to shine in the 1800s... no one played professionally.  Any 2600+ GM today would have dominated Morphy's era the way Morphy did.

What some people are forgetting is that to us a 2500 GM's play is nearly indistinguishable to a 2800 GM's play.  Amateur's really can't tell a difference.  So I'm not sure how Morphy fans can be so sure of themselves when they say he would be the best even today, it's just tongue in cheek.

I know this isn't a serious question in the first place like would batman beat superman or something, maybe I'm taking it too seriously

The question of past greats against current greats is really an unfair one. Its like asking "Do you think those guys with bows and arrows would win against the atomic bomb in a fight?" What we know as chess today, and the level of play is totally different. The players today have benefited from the play of the old masters as well as more current thinking and technological developments. The advent of computers in chess has taken it to completely different level not seen before, and the training today would be considered unimaginable to those old timers...not to mention the developments in openings and variations in chess. Were there even professional players then? I don't think so...they were playing chess as a hobby while they pursued their doctorates etc. Today's top level GMs eat, sleep, and dream of chess. So how can we compare.

A more fair question would be "if those greats benefited from our modern day training, computers etc. how much better would they have been?"

I wasn't throwing NMs into the mix tonydal   but really can you accurately estimate a player's strength when they play 300-600 points higher than you?  I respect masters and all, but I didn't think this was very do-able.

But mostly I'm directing this at beginners who see Morphy beat a duke at the opera in 17 moves with a queen sac and think that they've just witnessed the penical of chess.  Later they read he played a blindfold simul which pretty much makes him a chess God... I've seen experts and even an "A" player play multiple blindfold games before   Yes I'm very impressed with the level of competition in his simul but anyway I'm getting off topic now.

I don't know crap about chess, but common sense should tell you that there would be no difference between Morphy's brain, and the brains around to day. Morphy probably would be about as talented as Fischer.

Oh, just as talented as Fischer... that's all, no big deal

Yes I also think Morphy had that potential, to be clearly #1 ahead of everyone.  His play in the 1800s wouldn't get him there in today's chess scene, but the way his brain handled chess, like you said, #1 isn't hard to imagine.

Rather than picturing Morphy transported to modern times and given a few months to study opening books, I imagine Morphy and any modern contender being born on the same day whether nowadays or some moment in history. The great masters I imagine as challengers to Morphy are Capablanca, Fischer and Kasparov. To concentrate on matters chesstastic, it helps me to transport our contenders (all born on the same day) to some kind of imaginary Aztec empire no-one's ever heard of and in an unspecified year these four greats will do battle for the supreme championship.

Believe it or not, Fischer and Kasparov fling up hair-raising complications, in a bit of a Tal style, but Morphy and Capablanca survive the bloodbath and always seem to emerge with enough to win. Thus the ultimate match-up is between Morphy and Capablanca. I've tossed a coin and Morphy wins!

Although he brought a lot of pressure early, and came up with opening novelties, I thought Fischer was more a solid principled player that didn't have a taste for those wild positions whose evaluations were murky.

In terms of an ancient Aztec upbringing though, where natural talent and not hard work and study would pay off most, yes, I could see Capa and Morphy being the last two standing.  But when I flipped the coin Capa won!  Hmm, maybe a sudden death play off is in order.

The march of the zombies...

I know I'd be subject to a lot of bashing from hardcore Morphy fans if I said I believe he would be around IM level today if he'd participate in a regular high level tournament with no special preparation, but maybe this would be a little easier to the eye:

I think if a strongish IM today would go back to his time, he could dominate the chess world just as he did, and he could produce brilliancies just as he did against much weaker opposition.

I think Morphy wouldn't stand a chance against the modern elite. Take Kramnik, Anand, Kasparov. Being a genious is one thing, being a genious AND having spent 8~12 hours a day for years on chess is something quite different.

I dunno about IM level -- Morphy just being 2400?  I'm no crazy Morphy fan, and certainly with no preparation he wouldn't fare well against the top, but I'm thinking by today's ratings more like 2500-2600, straight out of the time machine rating.  I know I said earlier amateur's can't tell, but even Jeff Sonas of chess metrics fame puts him in a higher league than IMs I believe.

I'm not in any position to judge his level of play by just reviewing his games ( from a personal point of view though, they don't impress me that much), but I'm trying to make a quick prediction just by superficial reasoning: I take Morphy never studied the game seriously. I also take "strongish" IMs study the game for about regular work hours, say, 6 hours a day at the very least. And this has been going on for years for a lot of them. I just find it hard to believe some genius out of the blue with no serious effort whatsoever could player a class higher than the ones who have the talent (not necessarily genius though) but put in the work too.

I don't think anyone can assess Morphy's play with elo rating, how does the chessmetrics site do that when almost all his opponents were just strong chess enthusiasts ("coffeehouse players")?

Here's a study made in the rybka forums, I'm sorry because I don't have the reference link, but it has very interesting statistics.

Morphy doesn't do a lot better than the modern 2300 rated player, and is always below the modern 2500 rated player. Given that his opponents were much, much, weaker, if here were IM standard today, he should've had a lower blunder ratio compared to them back in those times.

The study isn't comprehensive and not conclusive, but I guess it's a fairly accurate estimation. The analysis was done by Rybka 3 14 ply.

I'm very suprised Reuben Fine is so high up there. He's certainly good, but he's just behind capa and fischer in errors!

The man who gets my sympathies is Keres - I believe he's the player who has beaten the most world champions, without ever becoming one himself.

That study's also been presented as a five-part series of articles at Chessbase, with a look at top players' stat's in different areas. Very interesting.

The Rybka-study is inspired by the original paper, which was presented to ICGA in 2006. You'll find the articles over at Chessbase. Here's a link to the first one, if I remember correctly:

http://www.chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=3455