But it is impossible to compare players who lived in different times.

I often introduced the subject "tactics" to beginners with following famous game - probably most players here know it:

Paul Morphy vs Duke Karl / Count Isouard

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1233404

It is funny to see how beginners always want to take material back (like a quality) instead of searching for the checkmate.

Vlad, is asking a rhetorical question. If I said Morphy is the greatest player ever! What would most players think, like right, and what about Carlsen? Morphy is overlook because how easily he beat his contemporaries; and that is his genius and why he is great. Morphy had only three chess books and very little practice, he was allow only Sunday to play with his father, bother and uncle and before he was fifteen, he beat two masters and never lost to them. Morphy was a very gifted chess player and no trainer to guide him and no masters to help him develop and learned from but he conquer everyone and as he was playing he was learning. Chess was Morphy language and he spoke it fluently; chess was so natural to him like breathing and if he was born at the same time when Carlsen was born, Morphy would of been world champion  and not Carlsen. Morphy is best chess player ever. Vlad point is made convincingly; 

The Chess Great You've Never Heard Of: Paul Morphy. 

If ask the majority chess player who is the greatest; most would say Carlsen but they are wrong! Morphy is the most gifted and chess was too easy for him and that is why he is the greatest.

yureesystem, you really think he was the best of all time? Wow its been a long time since I studied any of his games. I guess I have something to do this afternoon.

Yeah, absolutely no scholastic player has ever heard of Morphy's opera house game...

Oh... so you're saying this Morphy guy was also an opera singer? What a talented man he was!

Well, he WAS also lawyer, but apparently not a very good one, haha.

He was in a box, listening to the opera and playing against two others in consultation.

Does a Count outrank a Duke or vice versa?

https://www.chess.com/article/view/who-was-the-best-world-chess-champion-in-history
"... Morphy became to millions ... the greatest chess master of all time. But if we examine Morphy's record and games critically, we cannot justify such extravaganza. And we are compelled to speak of it as the Morphy myth. ... [Of the 55 tournament and match games, few] can by any stretch be called brilliant. ... He could combine as well as anybody, but he also knew under what circumstances combinations were possible - and in that respect he was twenty years ahead of his time. ... [Morphy's] real abilities were hardly able to be tested. ... We do not see sustained masterpieces; rather flashes of genius. The titanic struggles of the kind we see today [Morphy] could not produce because he lacked the opposition. ... Anderssen could attack brilliantly but had an inadequate understanding of its positional basis. Morphy knew not only how to attack but also when - and that is why he won. ... Even if the myth has been destroyed, Morphy remains one of the giants of chess history. ..." - GM Reuben Fine
It is perhaps worthwhile to keep in mind that, in 1858, the chess world was so amazingly primitive that players still thought tournaments were a pretty neat idea.

What was he doing listening to opera in a box? Was he in jail? And were the two people he was playing against his cellmates?

I am not exactly an opera expert, but, as I understand it, there are these things, called boxes, where people sit to enjoy an opera performance.

I usually bring along my chess board in case the opera is rubbish.

Yes sir! I went from 1162 uscf to 2019 uscf in three years studying Morphy's games. I think Morphy is very revelant; plus his games are not boring.

Chessbase did recently produce a thing about Morphy.