Paul Morphy vs. Sultan Khan

who was the stronger player?

khan beat capablanca and was considered to be greater then him

Is this a serious question?

Bobby Fischer said it best:

A popularly held theory about Paul Morphy is that if he returned to the chess world today and played our best contemporary players, he would come out the loser. Nothing is further from the truth. In a set match, Morphy would beat anybody alive today... Morphy was perhaps the most accurate chess player who ever lived. He had complete sight of the board and never blundered, in spite of the fact that he played quite rapidly, rarely taking more than five minutes to decide a move. Perhaps his only weakness was in closed games like the Dutch Defense. But even then, he was usually victorious because of his resourcefulness."

and

"Morphy, I think everyone agrees, was probably the greatest genius of them all."

but sultan khan beat capablanca....

Fischer was wrong about many things, but rarely as wrong as about that.

to be fair their was probably alot of racist prejudice that khan never got a chance to go for wcc

fabelhaft wrote:

MrEdCollins wrote:

Bobby Fischer said it best:...Morphy would beat anybody alive today...

Fischer was wrong about many things, but rarely as wrong as about that.

Oddly enough I think he was completely accurate on this one and is one of the few things I agree with Fischer on

I don't think the chess Morphy played in the 1850s can be compared to what Tal and Fischer did in the 1960s, such comparisons are always unfair to the older players but the difference is huge.

Yeah I agree, but Morphy was different, there is a reason his games are used to teach people

I  beat my mate Nick the Greek, who beat Watu Kobese, Who beat Peter Leko, who beat Kramnik who beat alsmost everybody.

Guess I'm better than I thought.

Fischer was right. Morphy had an amazing ability to understand and learn from his mistakes. He would learn these few positional tricks modern grandmasters use in 1-3 games and then beat them all. Like he did in his match vs Harrwitz. He possessed skills no today's player has. Carlsen is about Harrwitz's level in this regard, but neither Morphy's nor Anderssen's.

It kinda fascinates me how some ignorant amateurs dare to claim classic chess masters were weaker than modern. Classic masters (Morphy, Chigorin, Tarrasch, Marshall, Schlechter) made clear moves with planning and economy, modern masters play often quite clumsily. Moreover classic players played much more brilliant games. Therefore I conclude classic masters were stronger.

Obviously.

But to go back to the OP's original question... you can't compare players from different eras.

It is easy to admire Morphy; particularly easy for a fellow countryman who needs to raise the profile of chess there; and who shares some of Morphy's more odd qualities.

Depends. Are you talking about open or closed games?

Khan used play chess in Indian style where the rules were different. As an example the pawn in Modern Chess may move two sqaures on the first move, but in Indian style it is always 1 square. Pawn will promote to any piece once they reach the eighth rank in Modern chess but in Indian style it will promote the piece to which the file belongs. Like a pawn on the Bishop's file will promote always to bishop. Question of en passant does not arise. King may move once like the Knight. The difference in rules may sound simple but it is not easy to adapt.

Khan used to play in Indian style lifelong. After being introduced to Modern chess rules he gave it a try (for about 5 years) and the results were outstanding. To compare Paul Morphy with Khan we also needed to see how Paul played chess in Indian style and how easily he could have adapted it but it did not happen.

I am sure that the Modern Chess masters like Paul or Fisher would have struggled against local masters due to differce in rules. Instead of Queening a pawn, you would probably be "Knighting" a pawn.

In short you cannot compare the two. Personally I struggle when playing the other style and have given up playing the Indian style. I have felt that the Indian style chess is very "slow" compared to Modern chess.

Khan was the greatest Indian style chess player who did extraordinarily well when introduced to Modern Chess tournaments. But none of the Modern chess masters gave a hand to Indian style chess.

Another point you should consider Khan was completely illiteratre. This gave him a huge setback as he was not able to read and "study" the chess games played by the then masters.