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

Smyslovfan, sorry about my endgameinaccurasies. It was my chessteacher that told me what I said, that endgames were worse now than before, but he probably must have been thinking about players around his own level, and that level is 1900.

Well, if you read curmudgeons like Korchnoi, you would think that nobody can play chess as well as Korchnoi played. But Korchnoi is famous for berating everyone not named Korchnoi. Of course Korchnoi will say that chess is poorer because he's not playing anymore. He has publicly berated the skills of every world champion since Fischer.

I detest the endgame. A well-played game should be practically decided in the middlegame.  -  David Janowski        

Kids on the way up tends to be underated. Magnus, Fabiano and Anish are very young, with full speed ahead. That underrating compensates some of the inflation.

Thread of the year candidate.

Just because there's rating inflation doesn't mean current players would be crushed by older players. Computers sure do help, but there is no evidence that taking away computers would render the current top players weaker.

ok let's take the computers away and see!

millionairesdaugher wrote:

 ok let's take the computers away and see!   

Migikstone wrote:                            

i wonder why batgirl likes chess history so much...

you're in for it now pal! you crossed the thin red line!

and you have a blonde fetish.

reality really does exists inside your head, Sivalinga.

It is funny how players below masters discard the relevants of past master games. One can learn more from a Morphy's games than any modern day GMs, the reason is past players will make the same mistakes as a amateur and a amateurs can learn to exploit these opportunities in their games. A modern GMs defend so well and they use more advance techniques to win their game like Carlsen; a past master at times did not defend well and succomb to the pressure and lost: games like W: Capablanca and B: Yates in rook and pawn endgame where it was a draw but Yates lost because it was not familar with proper technique. Steinitz and Zukertort match, because Steinitz superior positional understanding  defeated Zukertort. Polugaevsky once comment on how Runbinstein's ideas help him win a game easily. Fischer use Steinitz opening ideas and played it in a modern way. Carlsen borrowing heavily from Capablanca. Fischer using Anderssen attacking idea to his advantge, or Fischer using Morphy concept to win brilliant game in the Sicilian,  Najdorf variation in the poisoned pawn. So past masters are relevant to helping us become better players. 

   Here is a game from Morphy I believe be helpful to any player. 

Studying Morphy games will you play better and you can add his concepts to your game no matter what opening you played.

Lol, future generations of chess players will not even know who Fischer was.  The past is useless.  Our future generations will not look at Morphy's games, they will look at more recent games.

And I thought chess was immune to stupidity - then I discovered chess.com threads . . .

Malarkey. 

Here's a list of complete games that Lars Bo Hansen used in his chapter on the Romantics of Chess (the period before Steinitz) in his excellent book, Improve Your Chess by Learning from the Champions:

von Bruel-Philidor (1783) 

Smith-Philidor (Blindfold) 1790

Anderssen-Mayet (1851)

Anderssen-Zukertort (1869)

Morphy-Duke of Brunswick and Count Isouard (The Opera Box Game) 1858

Harrwitz-Morphy (Match game 3, 1858)

Morphy-Harrwitz (m 4 1858)

And then he gives a section that he calls, "Romanticism in Modern Chess". This is the section that destroys yureesystem's argument:

Kasparov-Karpv (Wch. m 14 1990)

Kasparov-I. Sokolov (Yerevan Ol. 1996)

Kasparov-Anand (Riga 1995)

Kasparov-Piket (Amsterdam 1995) 

Topalov-Kramnik (Linares 1999)

Here's just one comment from Hansen's book:

And here's a game that also illustrates the same lessons that the great Romantic games demonstrated (the notes are mine in this case):

It is entirely possible to use the games of today's GMs to teach the same lessons that the old masters demonstrated in their great games. 

There are two good reasons for using the games of the old masters:

a) everybody knows those games

and 

b) the games of the old masters are easier to find, and to find good annotations.

In other words, the games of the old masters are more convenient, but a good teacher can find many excellent examples in the games of modern GMs. It just takes some effort to look for them.

I do believe that studying the classics is important. But there are many ways to learn to play the game properly. 

Take a look at these two games and decide which is better for teaching someone who has never seen either one how to make this attack work:

And this one:

Smyslovfan, about Magnus, I dont think he has a uniform style. Is he positional? Is he a sacrifising attacker? He masters a lot of styles, and that huge span is making him very difficult to beat.

Djonni, I agree that today's top players have a universal style. Carlsen has been known to crush opponents such as Nakamura with brutal tactical onslaughts. But what has set Carlsen apart from the rest is his incredible technical ability. He has beaten some of the very best players in the world from positions that others would have agreed were dead draws. That's why so many amateurs consider his chess to be "boring". He is at his most dangerous when nothing seems to be happening.

Well, there's a strong connection between stamina and technical ability. Capablanca's technique abandoned him in his match with Alekhine. Kasparov argued that it was because he was not used to amount of pressure that Alekhine put Capa under. And Capa had adjournments! So, I won't disagree that stamina is important. But that's part of what makes great technique, being able to play well when tired. 

Adjournments will never happen again in tournament chess, for excellent reasons. So that's a moot point.