Pre-Steinitz chess

I see Thanks!

edit: Oh, I found it! Post 10(as pointed out in post 21).

Just for the record: the game cited was a casual game between A. de Reviere and Morphy, Paris 1863, well after Morphy's ascent to the heights of 19th Century international chess. You could say he was in retirement. So what does it prove?

Morphy endgame wins:

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1055942

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1055944

I think a much more interesting excercise would be to bring an 11 y/o morphy to the future and let him develope his game with Rybka and a 1,000 volume chess libray and see where he ends up. 

Now take Carlson to 1850's New Orleans and give him 3 chess books and a few woodpusher to practice against and see if he becomes world champion by his early 20's.

apple, meet orangehonda

;p

Although Morphy's (Anderssen's even more so; I've seen quite a few of his games and he is literally all insane piece play, with tactics flying everywhere) style was on the crude side, it really did get the job done. He was really, really good with that style and today of course he would need a lot of tweaking to have any chance with modern GMs but he would still be at a respectable level, despite so many advances chess has had. He was that talented.

Carlsen would not become champion, he would complain about the system too much.

 haha your hilarious, you talk too much, how bout you try to get better in chess rather then open your mouth.

Well... eating's pretty high up there, not just in necessity but enjoyment.

All I know is Morphy would destroy me in a match, if I could draw one out of 10 I'd be thrilled.

Anyone ever play a strong natural player?  They make some odd and crude moves, and you're thinking you've got this game, but they never quite get into a losing position, and in the end there's a crazy tactic that kills you.  I played a guy like this once, I imagine Morphy would feel similar.

Interesting that Anderssen was invoked above, since his experience with Morphy was pretty telling. In round 1, Morphy had White and lost a 72 move Evans Gambit. After That, Morphy played the Ruy Lopez. Anderssen started playing the Center Counter, Sicilian and French as Black and 1. a3 as White. Against strong players, Morphy would change his style to more positional fare. Against two idiots in the opera box, he'd let loose with a series of sacrifices and be forever remembered as a player of pretty miniatures. But it was the opponents who were small.

There was this kid in college who was placed in the lowest ranked jazz band because he lacked a solid background in music theory and other essentials for placement near the top of one of nine bands.

At the time, N.T.S.U., now UNT, had the reputation of having the finest college jazz bands in the nation. It still does. Because of my prior training, and a bit of talent, I was placed in the 3rd jazz band from the top.

However, this kid had something special that set him apart from the rest of us - a tremendous amount of raw talent . All of the top players at the college would take time to visit this lowest ranked band to hear him play alto sax. His tone coupled with brilliant jazz improvisations were the envy of all. I had the higher "rating" on campus, but he was the better player.

I think that Morphy would find a way to beat all of the schooled players of today. The guy had an extra gear, just like Mozart. It doesn't happen that often in any given century when the human race is blessed with such raw talent.

 I can only give my opinion ofcourse as noone can really know but I believe Morphy would be 2600-2700 level after 100 such games.

I think people should listen to the greats like Fischer and Botvinnik on Morphy and not some teen aged b class player. I put a great deal of faith in what other chess greats have to say on such matters and not weak players.

Looking at some more Morphy games that were played against reasonably strong opponents, NOT miniatures and in more modern openings.

Here is a pretty hard fought win from the Black side of the Ruy Lopez:

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1019054

A loss from the Black side of Ruy:

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1258279

A loss from the Black side of the Petroff:

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1281901

A loss from the Black side of Queen's gambit:

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1055937

(After this game, Morphy switched to playing the Dutch against Harrwitz.)

Not sure if Morphy would be able to hold his own in the Ruy Lopez or Petroff against well-prepared modern GMs, but the last game suggests that he would probably have serious trouble against 1.d4. Harrwitz seems to have been the only one of his contemporaries who tested him with 1.d4.

Well, I said crude side, perhaps the lower end . Anderssen however I really do think of as having a crude style, he literally seems to throw his pieces at you all the time. I've seen in addition to the famous games some more random ones though I still haven't seen many of his, so maybe I'm too quick to judge. But for either of them it worked very well.

"He really introduced in practice the principle that quick development must come before beginning attacks, so that all the pieces may play."

That he did, then he would go crazy quite a bit. He's certainly somewhat more wild than today's players, though not reckless, because at high level chess it really means something for there to be an attacking game; for morphy, it would be no real surprise, even if still slightly uncommon.

Did they record a lot of "non serious" games back then, cause they don't do much of that now, right?

There must have been a gigantic release of cocaine vapors on chess.com

I agree with Realitymate, his examples prove it all, Morphy and the players around his area was nothing more than 1650. Half todays club players could go back to the late 1800 and become World champion.

It wasn't untill the 90's, late 80's that chess really started evolving, todays players are so much stronger. Just take a look at this game, this player was a world champion for 10 years between 1975-1985.

He hung a piece while still in the opening, I estimate his rating to be around 1100, give or take 100.

Tricklev: Obviously Karpov's mind was physically incapable of handling new chess theory after the introduction of the space shuttle. This increase in the relative speed attainable by humans, which of course is directly linked to increases in mental capacity and therefore chess ability, gave his younger opponents a major advantage and paved the way for modern chess giants. The question is what effect the retirement of the shuttle fleet will have for the future of chess. Perhaps this is why Carlsen has skipped this WC cycle- he is waiting for his opponents' minds to shrivel up so that he can win easily the next go around.

This is a nonsense post for several reasons. While Morphy lost the causal game that opened with the moves given in Posting #10, the posting itself was rather insidious since it left out the fact that this wasn't the entire game. In this very casual game between de Riviere, playing in Paris in 1863 after Morphy had given up public chess and only played in private to indulge his friends (he played some games with Mongredian, de Riviere and St. Leon, and perhaps with Doazan and Petroff in Paris in 1863), Morphy,uncharacteristically playing quite carelessly, fell into a fork. He possibly overlooked 10.c3 and seeing his Bishop as lost, played for development. . .  shrug. Down a piece against de Riviere, Morphy managed a forced draw, as early as move 23...Qf5+ or as late as 26...Qg6+, which undoubtably he saw, but instead, quite characteristically, tried for a win... and lost.

Here is the entire game -