Steinitz vs Morphy

I wonder what the tell for a noob busted being caught out looks like?

why not? you already ran away from me once.

Bobby Fischer also called Morphy the greatest chess player and said he would "Crush any master alive today ina match" (this was in the late 60's I think)

But after seeing Fischers top 10 list, and his reasons, i wouldnt put a lot of confidence in his opinions anyway.

Ok, we know who this is now.

While it's undoubedly true that Morphy was head and shoulders above his contemporaries,  it's not fair to refer to the best players of an era as patzers.  By that reasoning, Capablanca or Fischer were patzers compared to current chess computers.   When an individual is able to rise so far above his contemporaries, it can only be that he had a genius for seeing what others weren't yet able to see and imagine in a way no else imagined before.  He didn't beat his contemporaries because they were weak, for they were the strongest for that stage of chess develoment, but because he was stronger than that stage of development.  Part of the reason behind Steinitz' study into chess principles was an effort to explain what Morphy understood almost naturally.

Well said. Not that you ever deliver anything but...

Botvinnik blindfolded vs. Morphy. 

Look at how Anderssen crush Steinitz with a brilliant sacrifice.

White: Adolf Anderssen vs. Black: Wilhelm Steinitz   Match 1866

Anderssen play the Evans gambit against Steinitz and against Morphy Ruy Lopez or Anderssen opening 1.a3.

 Oop! I meant to write 34...Nxf7 35.Qxg8 mate.

You really don't get the point, do you ?

I'm sure 3000+ computers agree with my "tactics" of ...Nxe5 as Black in the next position. It doesn't mean I'm a genius - just that my patzer opponent made a stupid move that I could easily punish.

EDIT : and oh, of course, Morphy's combinations were much more high-class than this one... But no IM today would miss them. I just simplified the point.

Batgirl's argument is full of excellent details, but boils down to one of belief in Morphy being able to improve his game. 

In the 1880s, Steinitz was playing objectively better games than Morphy did. Steinitz' style was something that Morphy rarely faced, and when he did, Morphy did not perform particularly well. 

When Adolph Anderssen started playing quiet games (1.a3) against Morphy, his scores improved. Morphy's endgames were not up to the same standard as the rest of his game, but Steinitz improved as the game wore on. 

Kenneth Regan analysed the moves made by Morphy and compared them to how Steinitz played in the  mid 1880s. 

Morphy may have been able to improve his play, but during his career, he was about a 2343 player. Steinitz in the mid 1880s was posting 2400+ performances. It would have been close, but Steinitz did indeed learn from Morphy and was better in 1883 than Morphy was against Anderssen.

Morphy played far more brilliantly than his contemporaries. If Steinitz dared to play an open game as Black against Morphy, he may well have lost. But by the mid 1880s, Steinitz' command of the endgame would have given him the edge in a match. 

Yes, Morphy may have been able to improve beyond the level he was at when he retired. But we will never know. He retired! Based on the level of his play in the games that do exist, Steinitz surpassed Morphy about 20 years after Morphy gave up chess. That in itself is a testament to the greatness of Morphy.

Here's a link to Regan's analysis of play:

http://www.cse.buffalo.edu/~regan/papers/pdf/Reg12IPRs.pdf

"When Adolph Anderssen started playing quiet games (1.a3) against Morphy, his scores improved."
Not really. out of the 11 games, Anderssen won game 1 (an Evan's Gambit) and game 10 (the fourth Anderssen's Opening of the match). Games 2 and 8 were drawns. So, as the match proceeded, Anderssen's results remained completely constant.

"Morphy's endgames were not up to the same standard as the rest of his game"
Morphy's endgames, at that time, were considered masterful, as Max Lange called them. Many of his contemporaries, such as Lowenthal, praised his end-game technique or calculation.   But, probably by today's standard, since endgame knowledge have advanced considerably more than tactics, they might seem deficient. Morphy and others of that era generally favored Knights over Bishops, but, as Beim noted, when Morphy went into endgames with a Bishop vs. a Knight, his technique was "outstanding."

Morphy's play may or may not have evolved had he continued and confronted ever stronger players, but, as you said there is no reason to dismiss the likelihood though we'll never know.  I don't trust in the least historical ratings such as Sonas or Elo might have applied to historical players. One could just as easily point to the Edo historical ratings (for which there several very good reasons to trust more)  which assigns Morphy a 2800 rating at his peak vs. Steinitz' 2776.

No, batgirl, there is a critical difference between Sonas and the methods of Regan. Sonas compares results, Regan compares the quality of the moves themselves. Sonas' method considers very weak players to have been masters and then rates the best players based on their ability to beat those weak players. That is why Morphy's rating is so high in Sonas' system.

Edit: The Edo system makes the same mistake.

The Edo ratings are interesting, but I see no reason to trust it more than Sonas' or Regan's methods.

From the Edo site:

"The Bradley-Terry algorithm produces a set of numbers that are not in the familiar range of chess ratings, where 2200 is master level, and 2700 is world championship level. The scale is not really fixed, since the method can only estimate rating differences between players, not absolute ratings. Thus, adding 100 points or 1000 to everyone's rating changes nothing, as far as the method goes, since the differences between ratings remain the same. Thus, we have to apply an offset to the numbers produced by the iteration to get them into the right range. This is in a sense arbitrary and may seem immaterial, but it is important to make a reasonable choice here for the adjustment step (see below)."

So the Edo rating system is self-fulfilling. World champions of the past are assumed to be ~2700 strength. They "apply an offset" to get them into the "right range". 

If you look at the graphs, the lowest rating in the Edo system for that period is +2400!

http://www.edochess.ca/Edo.explanation.html

Elos today are based on results, not some computer analysis so why should historical ratings be judged differently?   Such a way of understanding players, particularly those pre-20th century (actually pre-tournament or pre-professional era), fails to take into consideration the nature of chess in the 19th century which was very different from the nature once winning became the prime reason for playing. Actually, in Edo ratings, opponents aren't all given equal weight, no more than opponent's today are treated equally, so weak players aren't factored in the same a strong players.

"If you look at the graphs, the lowest rating in the Edo system for that period is +2400!"
I don't understand where this comes from or what you mean.

The assignment of base elo of 2700 for the highest level of players was indeed arbitrary, but so is the assignment of, say 1200, for unrated players here. It all balances out through playing (or through using games played). 

My contention isn't that one method should be trusted more or less than others, though some do aspire to operate more in the spirit of the period, and certainly not that the reults should be used to compare players of different eras, but that each one of these methods is just an indicator to give us insight, not conclusions.

Giving a 2700+ to Steinitz is just plain silly.  Maybe he was compared to his peers but ratings should be judged off playing strength so people have the best idea as to their understanding.  Ivanchuk (or anyone 2600+) would destroy Steinitz 6-0 so such an estimation like stated before is rediculous. 

http://gm.chesszen.com/

Obviously the featured GMs need more games uploaded here for better accuracy (Carlsen should be 2900+) but Morphy is given as a 2300s. 

Edwards, the creator of the Edo system, admits that the ratings of players in the 1860s was higher than in the following decades. Edo explicitly admits that his system cannot be used to compare players from different eras.

"We have to accept that we cannot detect whether there is, for example, an overall gradual rise in the strength of the entire chess-playing world over the years. But we can aspire to assess strength in relation to the overall level of chess ability of the time, or even some kind of innate chess-playing ability, rather than expertise in actual play, which depends on how much chess knowledge is available in a given era of history."

His rating system is self-fulfilling. If you carefully read Edwards' explanations, he admits to lowering Steinitz' rating (he also lowered Zukertort's rating), to using casual and even odds games and he admits that there were very few players rated under 2200 before 1860 but that more than half the players in 1900 were rated under 2200. All this points to a bias that would elevate someone playing in the 1850s compared to someone playing in 1900. 

I see absolutely no reason to trust his information over other more established ratings systems. I do appreciate the honesty and openness with which Edwards explains his rating system, and I appreciate the difficulty of creating a rating system with so few ratable games. But there are just too many problems to be able to compare Morphy and Steinitz using the Edo system.

That is why Regan's method, which uses the quality of the moves themselves rather than games, is so persuasive. There are enough extant moves by Morphy and others to rate accurately. Regam has shown that his method compares well with today's rating system, and he has shown that it is possible to use his system to compare players from different historical periods.

"That is why Regan's method, which uses the quality of the moves themselves rather than games, is so persuasive. There are enough extant moves by Morphy and others to rate accurately. He has shown that his method compares well with today's rating system, and he has shown that it is possible to use his system to compare players from different historical periods."

That the objective quality of play increases over time seems almost obvious.  That using objective data to compare players, even players from the same era (who are rated through results anyway) but far more so players of different eras, seems not just unfair but rather quizzical to me.  Why not objectively compare Max Planc to Stephen Hawking or John L. Sullivan to  Mike Tyson?

This came from a cursory glance at Edwards' home page. I found it ridiculous that he claimed Kolisch to be a +2700 strength player, and I thought he was claiming every player was +2400. He was merely claiming that every one of the players in that graph was +2400.

Source: http://www.edochess.ca/index.htm

Batgirl, your bias is that Morphy was the greatest player ever, despite evidence to the contrary.

Edit:

Yes, my bias is that the quality of chess has improved over time. This is supported by evidence such as the writings of chess historians, chess theoreticians, and statisticians. Max Euwe's excellent book The Development of Chess Style discusses the major improvements we have made in chess since the days of Morphy. And many others (Lars Bo Hansen, for example), have continued in Euwe's tradition. 

Physics is not a competitive sport the way chess is. Jesse Owens is one of my all-time favorite athletes, but his best time is no match for Usain Bolt. 

I'm rather insulted by such a statement.  Show me one instance where I've ever made such a claim.