<Aug-07-11
DrMAL: <ughaibu> Yes, the following people were daft too LOL.

<"Played 'a la Morphy'. What greater praise can be given?" - Savielly Tartakower

<"If the distinguishing feature of a genius is that he is far ahead compared with his epoch, then Morphy was a chess genius in the complete sense of the word." - Max Euwe

<"He played, if one can express it so, 'pure chess'." - Vasily Smyslov

<"Morphy was probably the greatest genius of them all." - Bobby Fischer

<"A popularly held theory about Paul Morphy is that if he returned to the chess world today and played our best contemporary players, he would come out the loser. Nothing is further from the truth. In a set match, Morphy would beat anybody alive today." - Bobby Fischer

<"The radiant combinations of this chess genius can be compared with the transparent music of Mozart, and his impeccable behaviour at the board and his precise observance of the chess rules, which he himself introduced, resemble the Mendeleyev Table of the elements." - Anatoly Karpov

Reshevsky, perhaps never really proved that he was ever the world's best, with the possible exception in the year 1935. Fischer thinks that Reshevsky may have been a world's best sometime during the 1940's, but was prevented from gaining the title by a collusion of the Russians. The problem with this argument is that it can be used to also say that is the reason that Paul Keres didn't become World Champion with a record far more impressive than just about any chessplayer ever.

As for Capablanca, despite having the same great natural ability as Morphy, and Reshevsky, he had many setbacks in his career, not just the loss to Alekhine. Check out his record, if you don't believe me. I think that he knew that he was nearly invincible, so he played with overconfidence and rarely studied, just as it was with Reshevsky.

Morphy, on the other hand, in my estimation would be invincible, even today. My reasons are that all World's top ten players have to spend many tens of thousands of hours either studying or playing with other very strong players to get to such a level of play. This was true of both Reshevsky and Capablanca. Morphy on the other hand, probably proved that he belonged in the top ten by the age of twelve, without ever having played anyone who was very strong. At age 12, his family brought a top ten player to their house in New Orleans to test their skill, and Morphy demolished this player with a score of either 2.5 - .5 or some accounts actually give 3 - 0. I'm guessing that the draw may have been a courtesy draw due to perhaps a late hour of play, or just simply courtesy, because Morphy probably had a family background of gentlemanly behavior.

In 1857, at age 20, Morphy beat all of the best players of the United States by huge margins with almost no experience against master players.

In 1858-59, he did the same with European players, again without much experience. His play, of course has been scrutinized now for over a hundred and fifty years, at first by his detractors looking for flaws, and then later double checked again by others who found hidden resources that other annotators such as even the great Steinitz had missed.

I personally think that Morphy's play was positionally based, not just tactical displays as many people think. I find his ability to win efficiently in simplified positions astounding. I don't think many grandmasters today could be as efficient as Morphy was, but for obvious reasons, they would never admit it.

I don't claim to be a master player, but I'm fairly good at analysis. I was a Hawaii State Open champ once, and beat two out of three grandmasters in simuls. My unofficial score in dozens of games against NMs and GMs is about 40%. Like many chessplayers, I only play seriously, off and on over a period of forty years.

In conclusion, I agree with Fischer, Morphy would beat anybody alive today, if he could come back in his prime, and was given six months to play and study with our present GMs. His ability was something akin to Mozart, he could just do something to a level no other human could do; for reasons that we don't fully understand.

One can easily see that Morphy didn't really study chess seriously and someone has used this against him. He always got very upset if someone called him a professional player, when the truth is that he only played seriously for two years out of his life of forty seven years.

But what a remarkable two years, simply troucing all of the world's best players, including then number one, Adolf Anderssen who someone has said was only an 'average player,' in 1858, (at the age of forty). Anderssen continued to dominate chess tournaments until around 1875-76, about two years before his death, from a lingering sickness that affected his play in those last two years.

Zukertort and Steinitz won matches against Anderssen when he was in his mid-fifties, and Steinitz even claims a match victory in 1866, but it is unclear if these were casual games or really a match.

Perhaps the Morphy detractor was mistaken and really meant to say Staunton was only an average master in 1858, having been soundly trounced by Anderssen and others in 1851.

All in all,Morphy learned his chess as he played his opponents which is why he started all of his matches with losses and a deficit in the score; but, once he started winning, his opponents rarely were able to take another game from Morphy.

Steinitz though possesing Morphy's games to study seemed unlikely to have had much chance against the former. All the links in the chain are not equal, neither should we assume that the latter was always stronger than the former, not that I'm suggesting that is what you intended to imply.

List of players they have in common in no particular order.

Bird, Deacon, Paulsen, Anderson, McConnell, Golmayo, Lowenthal, Barns, Owen, and De Riviere.

Morphy played 104 games with a 79% record and Steinitz played 92 games and scored 61.5% This is a rather large disparity to say the least. Considering how the first official world champion dominated and held his throne for 28 years makes the feat of his predesessor the unofficial world champion all the more impressive.