Agreed, Djonni. We've been living in the golden age of chess in recent years. Kasparov, Kramnik, Anand and Carlsen have all been active champions. Carlsen has been particularly active, to the point of being criticised for playing too many games!
What would be the rating of a top chess player in the late 1800s today
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As you understand, I do not know enough to tell if the ancient top-players was better or worse than current Gm´s,
but one thing I totally agree is that our age is a golden age. Look at the top 100 of today. I think they would outplay the top 100 in all previous ages. The number of fantastic players is huge these days, and there are more coming up, in China, India, Norway, Russia, Usa, Germany and a lot of other places.
Rumo75 wrote:
@ Phren: Pointless yes, irrational no. Of course this is a purely philosophical question which can never be accurately answered. But being someone who has spent quite some amount of lifetime studying chess, I find this curiosity quite reasonable, how the greats of the past would score against today's players. And I don't seem to be the only one, if I remember correctly it was Nunn who looked at past tournament games to estimate the players' ratings by today's standards.
@ MorphysRevenge: In a match I would lose. For several reasons, I am way past my prime, being 40 now and having had my best results 12 years ago. My Elo today is around 2250. Of course I understand chess much better than back then, but I spoil too many good positions due too stupid oversights. Another reason is that I am not a good defender. Morphy's style would not suit me very well.
On the other hand I know FIDE-masters who I think would have good chances, there's one guy in particular that I would bet money on, although he is rated below 2350 atm. That's because he's tough as nails and hardly ever loses, even against 2600+ opposition. If they cannot breach his French, how would a person from the 19th century stand a chance?
In singular games I would surely have my chances, as I've scored full and half points against players who were certainly stronger than Morphy.
Rumo75, what is your exact current FIDE rating and what do you think the match score would be in a 10 game match vs Morphy?
pfren wrote:
Well... to answer your question:
Get a GOOD collection of Morphy games, where his opponents aren't total patzers (there are quite a few of them) and replay them. Valeri Beim's book "Morphy: A modern perspective" is an ideal source.
What do you see there?
A brilliant mind, with positional understanding way ahead of his era, who occasionally plays speculative moves, sub-par ones, bad ones, and a few blunders.
What chances would you give him in modern era chess?
I am sure that the right, and only answer, is "we don't know".
Pfren, what is your current FIDE rating and what do you think your score would be against Morphy in a 10 game match?
"despite the fact that you may not especially like Capa and Fischer, please remember that these two are widely considered the best/greatest players of all time"
Well, some prefer Kasparov or Lasker. Capa was obviously one of the greatest ever as well, but I think the case against him as greatest of the greatest is that he scored less impressive results as World Champion than some others. The four strongest events he played were: New York 1924 - 1.5 point behind Lasker, Moscow 1925 - 2 points behind Bogo, New York 1927 - clear first, title match against Alekhine - loss 3-6 in wins.
Those are not bad results, but to be counted as better than all others in the history of the game the results will have to be pretty exceptional. To me you can't get there without being the best player in the world for decades, winning several title matches, and score many tournament wins against the strongest possible opposition.
TheGreatOogieBoogie wrote:
trysts wrote:
Morphy would have been rated 2512 and Steinitz would have been rated 2531.
Steinitz had some trouble against Chigorin, Lasker (the 19th century's undisputedly best player) toppled him yet would be blown off the board by today's top class calculators. Lasker sometimes played bad moves on purpose because of psychological reasons. Top players today play psychological moves but don't gamble on a move they know is bad but rather would pick something rated +.80 instead of +1.00 if they think the second best move gives the opponent far more room to err given their disposition and style.
Steinitz was overconfident in some bad and passive positions (Soviet Middlegame Technique mentions a cable match they had and Chigorin's concrete approach was correct) disregarding dynamics sometimes. No modern player over 2000 does such a thing.
Lasker would be blown off the board by today's best?
Hmmm, I wonder what a GM would say about that statement.
Magikstone wrote:
" You guys are incredible. Morphy? Morphy? You really believe in your heart, that Morphy could beat a present day 2400? Any chess.com with a blitz rating above 1600 would easily give Morphy a serious challenge. Morphy was the best player at a time everyone was an amatuer. It's very dishonest to say Morphy could beat me with knight odds. I bet Nakamura can't even beat me if he were to be a knight down. You guys... "
You were delusional in 2015. Are you any wiser now, 9 years later?
0110001101101000 wrote:
Discogambits wrote:
The fact remains that Lasker is the longest-lived and most successful of all World Champions, as well as one of the very strongest players of all time. Therefore, even your favorite Garry comes second to the Great Emanuel when it comes to most successful World Champion of all time and being the longest in number one.
So what you're saying is:
The fact is Lasker is the longest-lived and most successful world champion. Therefore he is the most successful world champion and spent the longest time as number one.
Your insight is staggering... but in a "you've had too much to drink" sort of way.
Lasker didn't really have a strong challenger for various reasons.
the rating today of a top player in the late 1800s would be the same as the ratings of top players today.
Optimissed wrote:
the rating today of a top player in the late 1800s would be the same as the ratings of top players today.
I really think you should read “Ink Wars” by Willy Hendricks.
It is no exaggeration to say that today’s top players can do more tactics training in a single day than the best players of the 1800s did in a lifetime. The quality of play in the 1800s was significantly lower than the quality of play today. Top players routinely missed even basic tactics, and had only a rudimentary understanding of positional play.
The very best players of the 19th Century, Morphy and Steinitz, were incredible and inspirational. But their objective strength was about 2400.
Read the book!
https://www.amazon.com/Ink-War-Romanticism-versus-Modernity/dp/9493257649
I think Magnus is a great champion. He plays world chess tour, and a lot of other games and defends actively both his World nr 1 spot and tiles, both longchess and rapid. Before Team EM in Reykjavik he hired , payed by himself, Boris Gelfand to teach the Norwegian team chess.