Pre-Steinitz chess

^ That's cause they burn any records of casual games today...

There's not been a superGM who missed mate in one??

Are you kidding? You think the players now are stronger? For God's sake look at this game from our current World Champion... I think the evidence is clear that today's players are no match whatsoever for the greats of yesteryear -- indeed, judging from the evidence below I think Morphy could give this Anand character at least a rook. Morphy however wouldn't stand a chance against Philidor, who would be crushed by El Greco. Ruy Lopez could beat them all in a blindfold simul. 

Yeah, it seems obvious that the best players today are struggling to keep 1400, which makes Morphy with his 1600 the strongest player as of today.

What is interesting in the Morphy game is that he didn't force a draw by repetition even though he was down a pile of material. Clearly, a different approach to the game from today's.

It was an offhand game with a friend, I don't think we should jump to any conclusions here.

Nonetheless we can gather something from the fact that he did not go on vacation at this point. A very different approach indeed...

It's quite possible he was just too used to his opponents' positions totally collapsing when the king is out like that

I wouldn't actually be sure that the blunder wasn't a sac, as the Black gets to displace the White's Queen and a pretty strong attack. (I suspect that there could have been a better follow-up.)

Well I think the problem was his queen, bishop, and king worked together nicely but he simply needed more pieces involved, but there could be a slight chance that black could have done better with the sac. He certainly has many attacking options, but white has tons of material and defensive options (black can't do it all with check so he has to give white time).

Post-Steinitz masters having bad days in serious games:

                     The great Edward Lasker losing in 14 moves

Colle was a grand master.

He wasn't a GM until 1951, but he was an acknowledged international chess master who outplayed many of other acknowledged masters of his day including Max Euwe, Koltanowski, Guenfeld,Geo. Thomas, Znosko-Borovsky, Steiner, Spielmann, Rubinstein, Menchik, Maroczy, Yates, Marshall, Bogoljubo, Pirc, Flohr, Winter, Tartakower and Sholtz among others.  Yet he blundered and resigned in 11 moves.  His opponent is irrelevant.

Hey The new video is a discussion of that unjustly famous (completely mediocre maybe a d-player might play like this in a bullet game) Opera game.

@ notlesu -- I think Edward Lasker generally isn't called "great" because it encourages confusion with the undeniably great Em. Lasker.  But he isn't referred to as the "mediocre" Ed Lasker either! 

Could one of my blunders be included in the list, with appropriate commentary ? (Something like "The incomparable Atos forced to resign on move 12 ?")

 I have.

Several players have been called the dean of American chess. Hermann Helms would first come to mind, but I'm sure I've seen Arthur Dake, Geo. Koltanowski and Arnold Denker referred to as such. It makes for a nice literary device.

Edward Lasker was indeed great, having won games from most of the other great players of his time - Reti, Marshall, Nimzo, Tartakower, Torre-Repetto, Reshevsky, Geo. Thomas, Maroczy and drew with other great players such as Alekhine, Bogoljubov and Janowski. He was also a Go aficionado, introducing his distant cousin, Emanuel, to the game -while, at the same time pursuing his career as an engineer (and inventor) along with his writing advocation (4 books on chess, 1 on chess + checkers and 1 on Go).  

How about "the Ubitquitous Atos was compelled to resign on move 12. He is not only Ubiquitous, but also Greatly Improved." ?

I improve all the time, even if I don't wanna. 

What you lack, then, is  M o t i v a t i o n