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

We should be paying batgirl for her articles.

Magikstone, you make a lot of sense when you're not stoned.

This is the guy who wants to pay Batgirl for her articles. 

That's not just weed he is smokin'

yeah! that's what I call a campfire!

He ran out of weed because SilentKnight5 got into it.

Magikstone wrote:

It may seem somewhat late to respond to this, but there is this mean practice of buying a CM title for someone you don't like. So he either has to make Elo 2300 or people will point fingers and laugh at him for the rest of his chess life.

I played against a large number of grandmasters in my life and although I usually lost, I also had a few nice successes against some well-known guys. I usually post-mortem analyse with them, and I work with a 2550+ grandmaster in order to counterbalance the aging process.

Based on my experiencing how vastly strong even most weaker grandmasters are, I cannot see a player from the 18th century successfully competing against them. They lacked knowledge. They lacked understanding. And most importantly, they lacked strong opposition. There were games posted like La Bourdonnais vs. McDonnell and (if I remember correctly) Anderssen-Steinitz to prove how strong old masters were. I'm sorry, but if these games prove anything, it's the opposite. In the first white makes the obvious positional mistake a4, handing over square b4 to black without gaining anything return. Black returns the favour by funnily pushing his f-pawn to f4, terribly exposing himself on the e-file and asking for a checkmate. Which La Bourdonnais delivered. The other game between maybe the best two players of its time saw black going into a Benoni structure with Na5 and Bc7. Not really a surprise that you get checkmated when you basically play two pieces down.

Yes, no doubt Morphy was a genius, playing the chess he played in his time. But it would be ignorant and respectless to modern grandmasters to think that he would beat them. They are miles ahead in knowledge, understanding and experience.

FM Rumo75. Most people on these discussion threads don't think that Morphy, as he played in the 1860s, would beat modern GMs. Though I think he would give weaker GMs and IMs a surprisingly tough fight. But some morons like to think he only had the strength of a class player by today's standards. Somewhere on this thread someone opined that a modern 1900 player could easily beat Chigorin. LOL. It would be on odd experience playing someone like Morphy or Chigorin. They would be relatively indifferent to positional considerations any modern amateur would have in mind. But the tactical alertness would be that of a strong GM. Hard to say how that mix would work out to a modern rating. But anyone under IM strength who thinks they could beat them is, in my opinion, delusional.

FM Rumo75 wrote:

Is FIDE really that corrupt that you can gift random people a CM title?!  Even I'm not skilled enough to make CM (yet?), I know since 2200's over the Internet are challenging, and real deal 2200's are surely more difficult.  And GM Prep: Calculation pushes my evaluation and calculation abilities. 

I looked at one of the games Rumo referenced and yes it looks like we have come quite a long way since then. 

I have to admit that this is more of a joke. CMs in Germany have a certain reputation of being show-offs, as it's not considered a real title by many, but rather a way for FIDE to make money. Of course FIDE 2200 is nothing to laugh at. Certainly better than either of the guys in the game you reposted ;).

Here's one clear benefit of the FM title. 

I could have written exactly what FM Rumo wrote, and yuree and others would still argue I'm not showing Morphy and the players of the past their due respect.  

Oh, wait. I did write almost exactly what you wrote several times, and yuree disagreed quite strongly with me. 

Thank you, Rumo, for making the post. I agree with you. I too have played GMs, not as many as you have, but I too respect them. The GMs I've played are absolute beasts. Perhaps Steinitz at his best could have played with the 2500 rated players, but today's 2600+ rated GMs are just too much for anyone who doesn't play and study chess full time.

During the Reykiavik Open (2015) which was relayed live on chess.com/tv, i managed to ask some questions to some GMs that participated there, through the wonderful host WIM Fiona Steil-Antoni :))

Part of my question to GM David Navara was if it's worth studying the games of great chess players of past ages. He replied that of course one should study their games - but not all of them! - only the good ones! 

I think Smyslovfan could write exactly what Carlsen or Nakamura would write, but get disagreed with because he is not Carlsen or Nakamura (yes, Smyslovfan could well be that good, in his own mind),

Candidate Master has that "You're almost a master, just keep at it!" feel to it.  

Yep.

No, I know my limitations. I've beaten GMs in blitz (and lost a lot more), but in standard, all I can say is that I earned a bit of respect in fighting losses against a few of them. I have scored some nice games against IMs and FMs in official standard games tho. 

GMs are special.

You're better than I realized Smyslovfan!

Good to know, you have my respect, I was a bit worried you were just head butting the noobs.

In fact, they're Grand !