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

even with all these I'm still a nakamura fan

fine

fine

dannyhume wrote:

"... 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. ..."

The major Steinitz chess activity was in the decades AFTER 1858. The famous Steinitz world championship successes were in 1886 and later (well after the death of Anderssen).

dannyhume wrote:

"... 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. ..."

Neil McDonald wrote, "... The American's superiority [in a game against Anderssen] was in coordinating his pieces and choosing the right moment to switch to an all-out attack. ..." I don't see anything by McDonald about Morphy having an "overall understanding of chess" equal to or greater than today's players.

dannyhume wrote:

"... 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. ... 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. ..."

I don't see McDonald (or indeed any GM in the last six decades) saying that 1857-8 Morphy-opponent chess skills match those of today's players.

dannyhume wrote:

"... 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. ..."

"Varied opinions" doesn't seem to me to adequately describe the difficulty of locating (within the last six decades) GM agreement with the Fischer "ultimate endorsement".

dannyhume wrote:

"... [Morphy] had no benefit of computers, full-time coaching, scholastic tournaments, or encyclopedic repertoire or endgame books, ..."

But he did have 1857-8 opponents.

Here is an opinion from a player who was stronger than all but a handful of the members of chess.com, who drew a match for the World Championship with Botvinnik, played against World champions Fischer, Spassky, Petrosian, Smyslov and Tal and couple of hundred more of the strongest players of the 20th century, played in abouty 300 tournaments and matches in his life (compare that to Lasker with fewer than 50) and wrote one of the best chess books ever (Zurich 1953 Candidates).

When he talks about the previous century and the one before he means the 1800s and the 1700s:

Speaking of Morphy he said:  "He may have played weak opponents, but he played them like a genius"

Philidor was #1 in his time. Morphy was #1 in 1858. Steinitz was #1 in 1886. If they all played today, they could not all be #1.

That is a smart-alec comment that does not affect Bronstein's observation.  You are welcome to interpret his words completely literally rather than in the sense he obviously meant them, but you are going to have communication problems with most people if you always take their words in that way.

If past champions were magiucally brought into our time they obviously could not all be No. 1, but they could all, in Bronstein's opinion, quickly become world-class GMs, amongst the World Championship contenders.

"Here is an opinion from a player who was stronger than all but a handful of the members of chess.com, who drew a match for the World Championship with Botvinnik, played against World champions Fischer, Spassky, Petrosian, Smyslov and Tal and couple of hundred more of the strongest players of the 20th century, played in abouty 300 tournaments and matches in his life (compare that to Lasker with fewer than 50) and wrote one of the best chess books ever (Zurich 1953 Candidates)"

He was still wrong though.

The idea that a hurried study of openings and watching a tournament would be enough for players from the 1700s to compete with the best players of today is just not realistic.

ModestAndPolite wrote:

"... If past champions were magiucally brought into our time they obviously could not all be No. 1, but they could all, in Bronstein's opinion, quickly become world-class GMs, amongst the World Championship contenders."

Not quite the same as saying that Morphy would be #1.

Is it really necessary to state the very obvious, and make a big deal out of it, when it is not the most important thing?

My personal opinion (which is irrelevant, because I am not good enough at chess for anyone to take my judgement seriously) is that Morphy transported to our time would quickly become a top GM, but not necessarily (in fact probaly not) the World's best. 

I was merely trying to introduce the opinions of an all-time great player into the discussion. Bronstein played so many great players, and was so strong, that his opinion does count for something. 

I did not want to get into an argument about precisely how what he said is to be interpreted, or to try to find things to argue over in the the minutiae of how he said it.

Thank you for the quote. From the point of view of the in-progress discussion, it seemed to me to be appropriate to consider the interpretation. I do not feel that I can confidently identify observations as very obvious. Importance also does not seem to me to be an exact science. I am not sure what you mean by "make a big deal".

Transported to our days, Morphy would've been grateful to finally find some worthy competition.

He was so far ahead of the players of his time, so starved for a challenge, that chess quickly became boring for him. :\

Found another interesting quote, from another notable World Champion:

"Paul Morphy was the greatest chess player that ever lived." — Dr. Emanuel Lasker, 1905, Lasker's Chess Magazine

Recently being pressed by more important matters I’ve not been contributing to this discussion. I have chosen to spend some of what little free time I have in studying the games and events of the First American Chess Congress. One of the books I’ve been reading: “Paul Morphy the Chess Champion by Frederick Milnes Edge contains a letter that was one of the communications that attempted to set up a match between Morphy and Staunton. This letter I believe give an interesting insight on what was believed to be the proper role of chess in ones life during the mid 1800. The following a are few statements from the letter:” The best players in Europe are not chess professionals”. “ Such a being as a professional chess player does not exist in the United States”. It goes on to state that Paulsen is a Tabaco broker and list the occupations of the others who participated in the First American Chess Congress. If you think about it Staunton and Andersen both had professions other than playing chess. In light of the above it does not seem that strange that Paul Morphy would retire from chess in order to focus on establishing a law practices. This is what his family wanted, it is what society expected and Paul had always placed his studies and his profession above his chess hobby, just like the other great players of his day.

XP was wonderful. Billy is an idiot.Now I can't record my songs, cant write anything. Bill Gates is an moron 

A blunt disagreement is not going to fly. You will have to tell us why you think he was wrong if you expect us to accept your opinion over that of someone that probably knew more about chess than all the contributors to this thread put together.