What would be the rating of a top chess player in the late 1800s today

It's true that Knights were generally considered better than Bishops by most players at least until the last quarter of the 19th century.  Maybe they felt Knights were trickier, but they certainly had little conception about the relation between openings to endings or even to pawn structures.  As everyone knows, theory was only in it's infancy.  Even Morphy.who despised closed positions and what he called the uniteresting shuffling of pieces, generally preferred Knights, but he seemed quite aware of the power of the Bishop pair, especially in open positions.  It's very hard to compare old players to modern players. They thought about the game in an entirely different fashion.  Amateurs for the most part, inconsistency was a matter of course. We can only enjoy the beautiful, creative games produced at that time and shrug at the games we might consider amateurish today.  At least, that's how I view that era of chess, which also happens to be my favorite era.

The best players of the 1800's were like, retarded compared to a 1400 player today. 

I know because I am one. 

One interesting thing about Morphy was his ability to constantly adapt and evolve. In his more serious matches, he seemed to learn from his opponents - or perhaps learn to understand his opponents' styles and figure out how to outplay them.

Only if Morphy could adjust to using booster seats all the time and somehow get his little girl hands all the way to the eighth rank on occasion, could he be a modern master.

Yeah!!! Keep thinking Morphy is not important to our chess development, he created some of the mate patterns we use today.

Those small hands created masterpieces and you?

The prime example being his match with Daniel Harrwitz, or smugly supercilious Dan, as I like to call him. In the second game, young Paul came unstuck replying to Herr Harrwitz's d4 with d5. The next time Harrwitz opened with d4, young Paul replied with f5, and put Herr Harrwitz in his place.

I shouldn't say where my hands have been, but I had good reviews.

No computer can measure and rated the past masters games: this is why,19 century master are creators and inventors. They had to figure it out over the board  and there was little information on chess. The mate patterns we use are from the great masters of the past, their positional concepts they develop was a lot of times over the board like the minority attack and the first to use this positional concept was Steinitz. Many our attacking ideas came from past masters and even the endgame like Philidor's endgame technique. 

A  computer cannot get tired, stress and strain, it is just cold calculating machine. A 19 century master had to figure thing over the board and sometime the strain was to much, they created chess principle, beautiful mating patterns,over the borad they created positional plans and had to calculate and assess a position to their best understanding, that is stressful. They were creator and inventors and that is why their game are brilliant, there was no team of masters to helping them on their opening or no computer engine  analying their opening. They are the real chess players not copycats!! Magnus Carlsen use a lot of Capablanca's positional and endgame concepts but Capablanca had to use his natural gift to figure it out otb, these positional concepts we so value and we need to included Rubinstein too. We are much better chess players because of these chess geniuses. Have you ever see Chigorin's analysis and annotation, there are brilliant, breath-taking and astounding, this 19 century master was one of the first to develop hypermodern concepts we praise Nimzovitch for. Have you ever hear of the genius of Elijah Williams creating of some of hypermdern concept we praise Nimzovitch again; the double pawn weakness and fixing them to explore them. It is easy to discard their contribution in chess because we look at Carlsen but who should we really praise the inventor or the copycats?

Here is a game Andersssen use Elijah' William concept to deadly effect and wins a positional masterpiece!!!

Anderssen was a fast learner picking up the double pawn concept from Elijah Williams and using his attacking style to create a positional masterpiece. :)  

Dude, nowadays chess players don't become grandmasters by looking at the games of the old masters.  They do so by computer aid and coaches.  You're fondness for players of the past is amusing.

Magistone wrote: Dude, nowadays chess players don't become grandmasters by looking at the games of the old masters. They do so by computer aid and coaches. You're fondness for players of the past is amusing. 

That is why you are a B-player class and I am an expert, maybe because I study  past masters it has help my chess development and one day I will be a master. My highest otb rating was 2110 uscf and yours? And you are wrong Magnus has study a lot of past master games, that is why he is the best player in the world.

What is a 'b-player'? Are there 'a-players'? Is 'expert' in the same spectrum? What does the whole spectrum look like? 

B player

Studying the games of any player, from Morphy, to Capablanca, to Botvitnik, Fischer, to Kasparov, to Anand, and last but not least, Carlsen, wiill not help you reach master.  Studying all the different kinds of endgames in the world will not help you reach master.  If you truly want to improve your game, like I do, you will use my method.  You must understand your own style of play.  And then from there, use a computer program to see all sorts of tactical possibilities relating to the style of play you play.  No matter how many times you study Morphy, YOU, in real life will never have to go up against Morphy, or his opponents.  That is why studying chess games, anyone's chess games is a waste of time.  Because those openings that people used to play in the old days, you really think your opponents will play like that?  Chess is all about being flexible, learn who you are first, how you play, what openings you love to play, what middle game plans you love to use, and then you can evolve through trial and error.  I would like for you to become a master too, but I feel you are doing it the wrong way.

Very cool. 

Dude, coaches have learned by the theory which has been gradually developing over the years, and the old masters have contributed to most of this theory, which keeps piling up over time. Computer programs also use the past knowledge, they don't invent everything from scratch...

yes, we can see how much flexible you are... 

chyss wrote:  What is a 'b-player'? Are there 'a-players'? Is 'expert' in the same spectrum? What does the whole spectrum look like? 

A B-class is rated 1600- 1799 uscf. A class is 1800-1999 uscf and expert level is 2000-2199 uscf.

Is USCF the same as ELO? Am I an expert?! :)

Eseles wrote: