So the proper answer is "I think he could".
Will AlphaZero show that this generation in top level chess was a waste?
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OP,
You are right. I think today's top players try to be safe and thus avoid any spectacular play. Playing opening gambits and sharp lines have been neutralized by computer preparations. But, they don't seem to try for anything spectacular even in middle games. They are just pawn grubbers who try to win with one extra pawn.
Dec 10, 2017
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#24
Around 1600 or 1800 people try to win with 1 extra pawn.
If you think that's an advanced skill that only GMs use you're probably rated 1000 
Dec 10, 2017
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#25
Today's play is more beautiful than a 2300 rated Morphy crushing 1200 rated pieces of shit who don't even castle... but you have to be rated higher than 1200 to realize this.
And what about your rate?
Dec 10, 2017
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#27
I'm rated high enough to get 1900 on this site drunk, and high enough to know most people talking about it don't know shit.
@Vicount - I think you should read the post again. I have never said that GMs want to ignore advantages so than can draw.
I mean just what?
@Sammy-boi - saying you don't get chess because you have a low elo is about as relevant as saying you don't know anything about great songs because you can't sing very well, or don't know a great shot in tennis from one that isn't because you don't play tennis at that level. Its an infantile bit of logic.
I have seen great games of the past and they fill me with delight and then I see the boring snoozefests of this generation, gloriously full of timid, unenterprising play, always looking to be happy to sit back and wait for mistakes.
I will take an Adolf Anderssen or a Morphy or a Fischer or a Kasparov over the current computer generation any day.
Hopefully now that Alphazero has shown that you could force your way to a win even against someone playing very accurately, both with white and black, hopefully the coming generation will adopt a far more enterprising approach then this generation, and we could then have chess restored to being a game where one used to marvel with jaws dropped at the play by the top players.
Sure we get some great games like that every couple of years, but one great game every couple of years, is that something to celebrate or worry about?
Dec 10, 2017
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#30
JayeshSinhaChess wrote:
@Sammy-boi - saying you don't get chess because you have a low elo is about as relevant as saying you don't know anything about great songs because you can't sing very well,
Let me stop you right there.
Chess is fundamentally different from art. Non-artists can enjoy great works of art, be it paintings, music, or something else, but to a non-player of chess, a high level game just looks like a bunch of figurines moving around a board.
To appreciate chess you have to know something about it first.
Dec 10, 2017
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#31
JayeshSinhaChess wrote:
I will take an Adolf Anderssen or a Morphy or a Fischer or a Kasparov over the current computer generation any day.
Another beginner misconception is that Fischer was really good, therefore he must have been a great attacker.
Fischer is known as a technical virtuoso who was exceptional in endgames. He's also known as someone who had narrow but deep opening prep. He's not known for attacking or sacrificial play. In fact it's been said that chaotic positions were a weakness of his.
Rapport and Morozevich have reputations as modern players who play crazy stuff.
Dec 10, 2017
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#32
JayeshSinhaChess wrote:
Hopefully now that Alphazero has shown that you could force your way to a win even against someone playing very accurately, both with white and black, hopefully the coming generation will adopt a far more enterprising
It didn't show that.
And what you call enterprising play is just blunders.
Dec 10, 2017
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#33
But anyway, I shouldn't single you out. I'll try to stay out of these discussions.
Dec 10, 2017
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#34
NMinSixMonths wrote:
sammy_boi wrote:
JayeshSinhaChess wrote:
I will take an Adolf Anderssen or a Morphy or a Fischer or a Kasparov over the current computer generation any day.
Another beginner misconception is that Fischer was really good, therefore he must have been a great attacker.
Fischer is known as a technical virtuoso who was exceptional in endgames. He's not known for attacking or sacrificial play.
Actually, Fischer was an all around player known for being good at everything. Spassky and Fischer were the real prototype for today's players. I mean, his game of the century against Byrne was one of the greatest sacrificial games of all time. He could beat Tal, Petrosian, Smyslov and other great masters of the time all at their own game; He could out sac Tal, Out prophylaxis Petrosian, and out maneuver Smyslov. He may not be the most accurate player of all time because, just as most endeavors, humans keep improving all the time and the best players of today are likely better than Fischer, yet he was hands down farther above his competition than anyone since, for the last year of his tournament playing days.
Sure, many of the greats were all around players. Karpov was an all around player known for positional play, but of course would go for an all out attack if you gave him the chance.
Kasparov was an all around player known as a tactician and aggressor, but of course would grind you down in a technical endgame to win, if you gave him the chance.
Fischer doesn't belong in a style list with people like Andersson and Morphy, or even Kasparov.
And Donald Byrne was only a master. Let GMs play masters regularly and we'd get piles of "amazing" games where the weak master blunders and the GM finds a combination.
@SammyBoi - You have made so many posts that its impossible to keep track of what to respond to and what not to.
Chess can be understood very easily upon analysis. Even someone who may not be able to play at the level of gms (which makes two of us btw), could easily study those games and come to a good understanding of what the players were trying to do. So your argument once again relies on a very weak strwman argument, which is the 1st defence of internet debates these days.
How dare you criticise 'X', can you sing/dance/play/write/act even half as well as them? Its an argument thats neither here nor there and means nothing.
I have a very good idea of what Fischer was like and I have done video analysis on his games for a youtube channel. For instance I have done an analysis of game of 6 of his vs Spassky, which wasn't filled with flashy combinations or a great queen sacrifice or something like that. It was just Fischer move by move strengthening his position till he choked Spassky into submission, or his game against Tal, where Tal took him to school. And indeed lots of other such games have been covered.
So you don't have to 'teach' me. I have a reasonably good understanding of chess to make up my own opinions about the games. I study games, and upon analysis I see timid nothing play for the most part in today's games, while the players of the past were lesser slaves to their elos than current generation. They didn't mind going for the win instead of settling for draws.
Alphazero just showed exactly that. Stockfish didn't make a blunder or a mistake, but Alphazero won with both black and white pieces. Why you are trying to deny the outcome of the games which are there for all to see is beyond logic.
Also about enterprising chess = blunders. What?
OP, Paavo Nurmi won the 1500 and 5000 m race (establishing a new olympic record on both) the same day. Do you think he (or anyone else) could do it nowadays?
Hicham El Guerrouj could have done that a mere 15 years ago.
No. And, just in case and to be more specific, Nurmi had one hour of rest between the races.
Yes, and to be even more specific, Daniel Komen could have done that with less than an hour between races in Hechtel, Belgium on July 19, 1997, had the meet been structured that way.
Sorry, but "did" and "could have done" are not the same, could be, who knows, but anyway my point is, if there's not Evergreen at top level is because players don't allow it.
Your question was one of "could"