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

Congrats .  How long was your layoff ? 

~8 years.

Dont know how you managed that long a layoff , I could never do it myself .  I had a few slow years in which I only played 2 or 3 OTB events and I was miserable those years ... I think I played more chess in 14 years in Portugal than I did in 25 years in the USA ... I was very active after moving across the pond . 

Any player below master can learn a lot from Morphy, sometime Morphy's ideas are very modern and I believe one game Fischer borrow heavily from Morphy and in the Sicilian defence: Najdorf variation in the poison pawn; Bobby was behind in development and look like he was going to get crush but he keep making little threats and beat his opponent. If you don't know the past how can you play chess correctly or to understand a position and evaluate it correctly. Carlsen borrow heavily from Capablanca but gives it a modern twist, look at the first match Carlsen and Anand and you can see Carlsen using Capablanca's concept to deadly effect. Here is a game Morphy just outplay his strong opponents and left Barnes completely punch-drunk. 

If Morphy is rated 2300 Elo, all the 2300 players I played NEVER play this strong; okay maybe 2400 elo those masters are just unbelieveable strong. Morphy is more in the grandmaster level and he destory his strong opponents like they were amateurs; especially his matches with, Boden ( I consider Boden much stronger than Barnes), Paulsen, Loewenthal and Anderssen.
 

The rating inflation is the hard fact, nothing to discuss (Kevin Spraggett, Victor Korchnoi). Magnus Carlsen can be compared to young Lajos Portisch, but hardly anything more. Obviously what is sufficient today to become an undisputed world champion, it wasn't enough in 1970.

All the computer science around chess means very little in real otb game.

I think todays topplayers have ca the same strenght as the previous tops, and guess that previous tops will do well in our time after getting used to the modern styles during some tournaments. 

Anand was close to Kasparov in strenght, and is close to Carlsen now, which makes me belive that a topplayer in the past could have been top today.

So, maybe Fischer, Carlsen, Kasparov, Capablanca and Morphy was more equal in strenght than we thinks.

That Fantastic Morphygame reminds me of the most fantastic Nakamuragames.

I guess Portisch strenght is more like Aronian than Carlsen, because he was not the real top, but maybe top ten for a long time.

@Polar_Bear, I completely agree, their trainers and engines (computer program) are doing the work for them, without them they would not be rated so high.

I wonder how much difference a computer can make? maybe it can be used to make a novelty-opening that is winning? Maybe computer and GM assistance in the preparations made some difference for Caruana in Sinquerfield and boostet his ratingperformance from 2900 to 3300?

@DjonniDerevnja, Morphy's games teaching you how to attack and opens lines, any player who make an effort to study Morphy's can help go up in rating. My rating shot from 1162 uscf to 2019 uscf in three years, that my testimony ( not some lazy system using computer program to go over my games) when I was seventeen I started chess but I believe is what I study is the reason I was able to improve so quickly.

During those games against players below 1750, I noticed that my training method was working.  I got into positions that were more or less what I have encountered here on chess.com  After all, the opening is not exactly totally unpredictable.   Based on that fact, I have been accustomed to different kinds of positions thanks to chess.com and when confronted with a similar position at my chess club, with more time, I knew how to react more reasonably, because I had gone through those kind of positions with the computer, so I knew off the bat what the computer more or less thought how I should play the position.  I trust a computer program over any grandmaster any day, grandmasters are humans, but the tactical prowess of a computer is limitless.

If I go up against an 1800, I will get into the same kind of positions.  After all, even 1400's try to play by book, it's not like they are just pushing pawns for no reason.  We all develop at the beginning, in a way, we're all grandmasters when it comes to the opening.

I'm pretty sure, that as I continue to become familiar with the kind of debates my openings create, I will beat 1800 rated players.

It wont help you much as long as you are still losing to 1300s .  

"Magnus Carlsen can be compared to young Lajos Portisch, but hardly anything more"

The young Portisch that was far from top ten until his 30s can be compared to the player that is #1 with a margin of 60 Elo today, aged 24, right...

My point: overall decrease (computers produce laziness and diminish imagination).

Today avg top5 level equals the 1970's #30, hence Carlsen equals Portisch. Carlsen, Aronian and Anand would be rated 2550 - 2650 in 80's in the same league as Ljubojevic, Timman or Miles, quite beyond Karpov and Kasparov.

Modern players might be generally worse in endgames, because of the timecontrols, and because we dont take a break anymore after move 40. The quality of endgames of course falls, when those moves are so heavily timerestricted.

Magnus is ok in endgames.

Anand became Gm in 1989, so he must have been just above 2500 back then. 

If you take away 130 points inflation from Magnus, he would have been ca 2730. Karpov peaked at 2780 in 1994. Maybe Magnus is like a younger Karpov? 

Could be, but I think Karpov's peak rating had some inflation too.

In the 1800s there wasn't much theory besides Fred Flinstones guide to avoiding stalemate traps.

In the 2010s, there wasn't much theory apart from the Simpsons's 101 ways to checkmate.

Have you seen the endgames these guys play? Even without adjournments, endgame technique has improved since the 1970s!  These guys are really amazing. Yeah, there have been some notable fails, but I'm constantly amazed by the wonderful technique on display.  Take a look at the endgame of Carlsen-Naiditsch (0-1) or Carlsen-Solak (1-0), both from the Olympiad lat year in Tromso, Carlsen-Aronian (Sinquefield 2014), or even Goganov-Jakovenko (Russian Cup, 2014) for just a few of the great endgames that were played last year. Oh, and check out Wojtaszek-Ding Liren (0-1) from this year's Wijk Aan Zee tournament too! 

Every tournament has fantastic endgames that are played at the very highest level even in fast time controls. These would make endgame specialists such as Smyslov, Fischer, Karpov, Speelman, Andersson proud.

Today's GMs take for granted endgame knowledge that wasn't even known in the pre-computer era.

"Anand would be rated 2550 - 2650 in 80's"

Anand was 2550+ already in the late 1980s, when he still was far from top 50, and 220 points behind #1. I guess he didn't gain much playing strength by becoming #1 and World Champion later in his career.

Their rating would probably be about in the late 1800's.