Paul Morphy the greatest chess player A.K.A god of chess

dannyhume  

Why on earth would Fischer's judgement of all K-K matches being fixed be any more sane than his judgement about Morphy having been stronger than anyone today? Both statements are equally chess related, and both statements are equally nuts. Almost in the league of Carlsen being a reptilian, by the way.

So Morphy came to the scene and dominated. Well, the scene was a village back then! He dominated a handful of serious chess players back then. Today we don't have a handful, today we have tens of thousands.

On the other matter, Yureesystem already explained it well, and not for the first time: Chess knowledge is only to a very small part about opening theory. The idea of Morphy just studying some lines and then being en par with grandmasters is completely ridiculous. Books have been written about pawn structures that Morphy has never seen in his life, and that need a lot of theoretical and practical learning to understand properly, not to mention on grandmaster level.

It might interest you to know that Reuben Fine (whose life was long after Morphy had died) is the source for this story, and his book contained nothing to indicate where he got the idea. It has been conjectured that Fine misremembered something that he had read.

Do you know of any GM statement in the last six decades that disputes that Morphy's 1857-8 opposition was much weaker than that of modern players?

"Misunderstood Genius" - title of a chapter from the 2014 book about Lasker by GM John Nunn

http://www.gambitbooks.com/pdfs/John_Nunn's_Chess_Course.pdf

The womens' shoes myth stemmed from a misreading of Regina Morphy Voiter's, "Life of Paul Morphy" in which she wrote:

Now we come to the room which Paul Morphy occupied, and which was separated from his mother’s by a narrow hall. Morphy’s room was always kept in perfect order, for he was very particular and neat, yet this room had a peculiar aspect and at once struck the visitor as such, for Morphy had a dozen or more pairs of shoes of all kinds which he insisted in keeping arranged in a semi-circle in the middle of the room, explaining with his sarcastic smile that in this way, he could at once lay his hands on the particular pair he desired to wear. In a huge porte-manteau he kept all his clothes which were at all times neatly pressed and creased.

5 minutes ago · Quote · #158

batgirl wrote:

kindaspongey and batgirl:
Morphy shoe fetish myth-- okay, I didn't research it, just used the phrase for effect to contrast an active chess-dominating Morphy from a long-retired reclusive Morphy.

kindaspongey:
As far as GM's statements that Morphy's opposition was weaker, I do not know, but I know that Fischer said Steinitz was great and I believe it was Neil McDonald who said Anderssen's tactical skills were as good as Morphy's.

Yureesystem and Rumo:
I 100% agree that a stronger player will beat even a good weaker player even if not versed in specific openings ... That is actual argument we have used when saying Morphy may be the greatest. He beat all types of masters of his time rather easily, didn't matter what they knew or their style. Certainly Morphy was not booked up. And yes, I think Carlsen as white would wipe the floor with any IM who has memorized ECO and uses GM Avrukh's suggested lines against the BDG (in his Quality Chess book Beating 1.d4 Sidelines).

Rumo:
As far Fischer's crazy claim about Karpov-Kasparov being fixed... That is not a judgment of the skill level or beauty of he games themselves, but merely that Fischer didn't believe those moves were made by those humans with standard time controls . Those games were analytically strong in Fischer's mind, but his own legacy was threatened and his anti-Soviet bias of course would lend him to believe that they couldn't possibly be that strong. So he was delusional about the games being fixed, but not regarding the strength of the actual moves of those games... Once again his psychology was delusional (who really came up with the moves?) but not his chess analytical skills (those are very strong moves).

As far as something like Morphy's ignorance of modern pawn structures, that is merely a offshoot of the argument of opening theory... Even Fischer said that a kid of 14 or 15 could get a strong position against Capablanca (also the greatest of all time) and be able to play the positions with less mental effort (e.g., without as much genius) in modern chess and that is why he created Chess960.

As far as Fischer and his Lasker "coffeehouse" quote... Could that be Fischer's judgment of Lasker's style of play? That is, Fischer prefers "accuracy" over "psychology" and that is part of his judgment against Lasker? Not that Lasker wasn't a genius, but that Lasker likes to play dubious lines to trip up his opponent? (I don't know, I am really asking). Also, if Fischer does prefer accuracy, then more so that is an endorsement of Morphy's skills as a chess player.

You see, what Morphy had was far greater than opening theory, pawn structures, Steinitzian elements, hypermodern theory, or encyclopedic endgame knowledge. He had the MOST FUNDAMENTAL SKILL IN CHESS of UNDERSTANDING THE GEOMETRY OF THE CHESSMEN AND CHESSBOARD with a mental agility that nobody of his time and quite possible nearly half a century later did ... That is why he dominated even the very best of he best of his day without having trained or played with them in Europe over many years and tournaments. That is why common opponents of him and Steinitz say he was clearly superior. That is why the former world champs pay their homage.

In fact my biggest question is... Have any of you heard of any GM in the last 6 decades or so claim any particular player as the greatest ever?

There are several gm's who have weighed in opinions range from Anand to Lasker. Everybody seems to have a different opinion.

Yure, you evidently want to leave out numerous aspects why Morphy  stopped playing. Some people just can't, or don't want to understand how family can supercede chess, or even other things in ones life. They were no different back then either, numerous evidently just couldn't understand it. You may learn this personally one day.

Steinitz was not part of Morphy's 1857-8 opposition.

Considering the result of the Morphy-Anderssen match, it would seem likely that Neil McDonald (or whoever) would agree that, as opposition to Morphy, Anderssen was not as good as Morphy in some respect.

One can ponder the difficulty of finding GM (or WC) agreement with the Fischer "ultimate endorsement" in the last six decades.

GM Raymond Keene has come back to this topic more than once. If I remember correctly, at one time, he favored Lasker. More recently, citing some computations of Nathan Divinsky, he has favored Kasparov. Around the time of Fischer's success, Euwe wrote a book about the question of Fischer being the greatest. There were chapters about Lasker, Capablanca, and Alekhine. No Morphy chapter.

You're fooling yourself. It's common opinion among titled players, and certainly GMs, that todays players are stronger than players 50 years ago... and much stronger than players of Morphy's time, including Morphy himself.

Obviously Morphy was a rare genius, but today we have rare genius too, and our geniuses work extremely hard plus have the benefit of 100s of years of knoweldge and experience from past masters. They don't make an impression like Morphy did because they don't play in tournaments full of patzers, they compete against the best.

People are all the time underestimating the game of chess without realizing it.

kindaspongey:
Steinitz wasn't part of Morphy's opposition, but he was part of the same generation and had some common opponents with Morphy. These common opponents could more accurately compare the two's playing ability. And Fischer acknowledged Steinitz' greatness as well.

Regarding Anderssen, of course Morphy was way stronger than him, but my point is that a lot of people simplify Morphy's dominance by saying that he was simply better at tactics and therefore any lousy 1900-2300 level player today could give Morphy a run for his money. Indeed what McDonald is saying, whether he likes it or not, is that Morphy's superiority in chess is not tactical at all, it is in fact his positional play, or better, his overall understanding of chess. McDonald's praise of Anderssen's tactics also highlights the monster skills of those romantic era players... They could calculate as well as anybody today. These are not guys who regularly drop pieces to 5-7 ply sequences.

That there are varied opinions on who thinks who is the greatest is not a big surprise, but hardly disproves anything about Morphy's status as potentially the greatest.

Binary:
You are correct...
Newer chess players have that benefit of assimilating the knowledge of the older players, and the new eventually ousts the old in competition. But the newer players also have another benefit... That the old greats actually grow old which contributes to calculation all fatigue. In this discussion, however, we are talking about a prime fast-calculating monster Morphy against a prime whoever. Botvinnik's legacy, for instance, may have suffered because of WWII, perhaps missing 10 years of his prime to show how great he was, while people judge him as less great because he struggled to get slightly more than equal against other younger great players/champions, while he was middle-aged.

The other issue is simply the genius of logic and geometry... Nobody can rightly say that in modern times we have "smarter" scientists today than 150 years ago, but we can say that modern-day scientists certainly have more knowledge. This doesn't mean that a current Nobel prize winner is a "better" scientist than one of the greats from 150 years ago. If you give a modern day scientist and an old school scientist a multiple choice test consisting of factual recall, then the modern scientist will easily win, but you give them time-independent analytical logic puzzles, now the story changes. It is the same with chess. You can burn into the memory of an IM every line of analysis ever published and they would still get crushed by A super-GM in a longer match after maybe some early losses/draws because the super-GM would adjust and play differently and make the IM rely on his/her own resources more. Is that not why Fischer wanted a longer match against Karpov?

Second, again some of this discussion comes down to what we mean when we are making these theoretical match-ups... Morphy without any prep would be at a disadvantage, of course, and you say the new geniuses have more knowledge... That I can't deny, but how quickly could Morphy have attained such knowledge in today's world when he had nothing of the sort in his time. He had no benefit of computers, full-time coaching, scholastic tournaments, or encyclopedic repertoire or endgame books, yet his genius shined, because he was like the master who crushed the experts even in openings that the experts were well-versed in, because ultimately his understanding of chess was far superior.

I will admit that there is no way to prove any of us correct in an absolute sense, but to do what he did in his era with so little of what is available today compared to his competition that played chess far more regularly against stronger competition (in Europe, compared to the US) tells me that Morphy could quite easily assimilate opening theory and modern strategy, because of his genius in terms of chess geometry and piece coordination.

Now maybe you were talking a completely unprepped Morphy against booked up modern super GM's who excel in all phases... Yes, perhaps some early wins for the super-GM based on memorized knowledge and familiarity with certain chess structures and patterns. Nonetheless, I believe the rare genius of Morphy is what would allow him to adapt in a longer match or with some token preparation into a winner against even the best of today because he did it back then when people were as smart as they are now, and ultimately chess is a game of logic and understanding.

Now who in chess has dominated like Morphy? Nobody. Capa had a run for a while, Fischer also for a while, and Kasparov+Karpov combined did for a while (though they were near equal, and Korchnoi gave Karpov a run in one of their matches). Would a 24 year old Morphy beat a 24 year old Capa beat a 24 year old Fischer beat a 24 year old Karpov beat a 24 year old Kasparov beat a 24 year old Carlsen? Unbooked? Booked? Chess960?

Here's Morphy, 12-years-old, self-taught, playing in one of his first ever documented games, against an unknown amateur.

Starting after black enters the King's Gambit Accepted, I've listed "Engine Move" in the annotations beside each move of Morphy's that matches Stockfish's top choice move.

Even as a young boy, Morphy played the entire game like a 3200-strength engine, with the exception of only a single move: move #16. There, Stockfish prefers the more subtle King to c1, rather than Morphy's aggressive exf5.

So, even at 12-years-old, back in the 1800s, after reading no chess books of any kind, and only learning how to play by watching others, (and playing only on Sundays, as restricted by his father) Morphy was, somehow, already playing like a 21st-century engine, against his dumbfounded adult opponents.

Today's players are stronger than ever, that's true. But the more I look at Morphy's games, the harder it is for me deny his exceptional talent.

Anand: "For the era in which he lived, the kind of chess he played was unbelievable."

Anderssen: "Morphy's play seemed to me like something from another world."

On the other hand we could say, yeah, he really crushed that guy who literally only used 3 pieces.

Yeah I wish I would have been that good at 12.  Heck I wish I was that good at anytime in my life. He was incredible, there is no doubting that. It is too bad he didn't live in our time, and we knew it was him. Dr. Who where are you. lol.

This is basically what I'm saying. We have players today who are just as gifted as Morphy, but because there are so many players these days (some professionals, some geniuses, and some both) that they don't stand out. They might receive coaching at an early age, and people like you might say "they're not good, they just memorized a bunch of theory."

[chess.com doesn't protect against double post]

Lol. Agreed!

Well, binary, I actually agree with you, and I would never say that memorizing openings gives a player any skill (how many opening books have I bought?), because ultimately nearly all chess games head into novel positions.

But I think that people underestimate the on-the-spot analytical abilities of old school players because they play moves that Stockfish evaluates as +0.07 instead +0.22. Then they don't understand how in a champion match Kasparov can crush another 2700+ GM who has GM seconds, a complete computer-checked repertoire, and a lifetime of professional experience, coaching, and playing. At that point, it is not about memorizing or preparation... It is chess understanding.