Top 10 19th century players

Here is my list:

1. Emanuel Lasker
2. Mikhail Chigorin
3. Harry Pillsbury
4. Siegbert Tarrasch
5. Wilhelm Steinitz
6. Paul Morphy
7. Joseph Blackburn
8. Louis Paulsen
9. Adolf Anderssen
10. Howard Staunton

Fischer

Fischer was mid-20th. His reign as world champion was before my time though so he may as well been.  

Are you taking into account possible reincarnations?

I think Zukertot deserves to be included in your list.

Zukertort was basically a copier of Andersson. However, I owuld replace BLackburne with Zukertort.

Why is Steintz so far down the list?

Lasker

Steinitz

Morphy

Zukertort

Tarrasch

Anderssen

Staunton

Chigorin

Pillsbury

Blackburne

Zukertort didn't have the health to win most long events, but he scored some amazing results, like in London 1883, where he started out 22/23 before tiring and losing his last three but still finishing first with a huge margin, ahead of a very strong field:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_1883_chess_tournament

Yeah because arguably the most talented chess player of all time should be at 6...

Turning on the Batgirl signal...

I had a feeling I was missing someone.  He's now number 9 and Anderssen number 10. 

The others were also incredibly talented.  Keep in mind that he was among thousands of competitive players so number 6 is still incredible.  I'm going by predicted raw objective strength.  The fact he even made the list given how he played before Steinitz formulated his imbalances and how much stronger the late 19th century was still makes him outstanding.  

Because I feel that the later 19th century players on the list eventually surpassed him.  The world champion is theoretically supposed to be the strongest in the world, but the world championship is determined by match play, which is a completely different ballgame than tournament play.  Chigorin was very creative and had incredible calculation skill and was probably the first player with a firm grasp of the dynamics laying the foundation for the Russian school of chess.  

Tarrasch was the first who put Steinitz's laws into practice with a degree of consistency and refined them a great deal.  

Morphy deserves a lot of credit, his firm grasp of the open games and combinational vision are legendary, but his endgame technique isn't notable for his time and was still a relatively poor defender.  

I have looked at so many games from the 19th century and beyond and you have to keep in mind the list doesn't just include best games but average performance.  Defensive technique greatly improved in the late 19th century.  

The best,in any century he chooses.

Jesus, man, take a chill pill or start drinking decaf. The OP has looked at many games from the 19th century, he's making an informed choice and all you're throwing flames because why now? Morphy was the greatest player of his time and would've been beaten by the five players rated above him.

That chess board is set up the wrong way around.

The 19th century is a vast stretch of time. It was during that stretch, a bit in the mid-century but realized mostly after that, that the greatest progress in chess occurred since the 15th century. One has to remember that when Morphy was born in 1837, chess games were only starting to be recorded as a matter of course and chess periodicals and newspaper columns that spread these games were in their infancy.  The ability to share games of strong players greatly spurred the development of theory.  At the time Morphy renounced public or competitive chess, positional chess concepts hadn't matured since Philidor.  Morphy seems to have been the fulcrum between the coffeehouse and learned styles.  The theory in the early 19th century can't even begin to compare with that of the late 19th century and any such attempts at comparisons seem pretty futile.  Some early 19th century players were fantastic in their day - Labourdonnais, M'Donnell, Slous, Staunton, Cochrane, Buckle, Kieseritsky, Harrwitz, Grimm, Petroff, as were some who played during the transition period where we see Morphy— Anderssen, Loewenthal, Barnes, Boden, Owen, de Riviere, Kolisch, Bird, Lange, v.d. Lasa, all in relation to their time.  Later players were generally a class above due those advances in theory, understanding, shared knowledge and the proliferation of tournament play.  Paulsen grew stronger as did Anderssen (both of who spanned this transitional time almost effortlessly) and Steinitz who ushered in this later, stronger era.  This era inlcuded Zuckertort, Chigorin, Lasker and Tarrasch (a very old school player with new ideas), Blackburne, Winawer, Mackenzie, Gunsburg, Pillsbury, Showalter... there were so many and each were fantastic in their own way. Trying to narrow it down, forcing these people into a funnel to spit out a single player head and shoulders above the rest also seems futile (and pointless) to me.

For the record, Malcolm Shibut ("Paul Morphy and the Evolution of Chess") maintains that Morphy wasn't just a good engame player for his time, but probably the best endgame player of his time.  He also quite correctly notes that most of Morphy's games that actually reached an endgame resulted from initial odds, often of a piece, and so Morphy entered those games usually at a disadvantage.

"Morphy was the greatest player of his time and would've been beaten by the five players rated above him". 

   Steinitz had an even record against Adolph Anderssen. Paul Morphy's record against Anderssen was +12 -3 =2. He would have EASILY beaten Steinitz. Just FYI.

Yeah, that was a little careless of me to state. Thanks for the correction.