The most overrated chess player of all time
SillyPants
Who do you think is the most over-rated chess player of all time? As
far as criteria is concerned, I'm talking about how they compared to
other players of their times, not absolute playing strength.
If we were to rate the players that are considered to be among the
greatest chess players of all time, as measured by the standards of how
well they fared against the top players of their day, I am of the
opinion that Paul Morphy is undoubtedly the most over-rated of all
time.
Let's take a look at his career. He won the U.S. Championship at a
time when the level of chess in America was far below that of Europe.
Then, he went to Europe and sought out hand-picked lower-tier masters.
In early 1858, the eight best chess players in the world we
1. Serafino Dubois
2. Jules de Rivere
3. J. Budzinky
4. Robert Brien
5. Henry Bird
6. Ernst Falkbeer
7. Czaikowsky
8. John Schulten
Who does Paul Morphy want to play against? He harrassed Howard
Staunton, Daniel Harrwitz, and Adolf Anderssen into playing matches
against him at inopportune times for all of them. None of those three
were among the 50 best chessplayers in the world at the time. Anyone
who doubts this can verify it on www.chessmetrics.com. Why did Paul
Morphy play a match against Harrwitz instead of Czaikowsky or Adolf
Anderssen instead of J. Budzinsky? Not only did Paul Morphy inflate
his rating by playing patzers, he didn't even build that high of a
rating in the perspective of the all-time greats. He merely built his
reputation on the flashiness of his play, not results. His flashy play
may have looked good against nobodies like Harrwitz and Anderssen,
except it would certainly have failed against anyone on the list
above.
A player's rating is compiled against his opponents. It is a measure
of how he compares to his contemporaries. Paul Morphy's peak rating was
2743. There were players with more success, based on the actual
dominance they displayed during their primes regarding actual results,
that do not receive anywhere near the notariety that Paul Morphy does.
For example, Gideon Stahlberg had a peak rating of 2762. Why is Paul
Moprhy rated higher on most people's lists of all-time greats than
Gideon Stahlberg?
Even putting aside the argument of players actual skill improving
over time, Paul Morphy still doesn't deserve to be considered among the
top 100 chessplayers of all time, even if we do look at it in terms of
how player's compared to other players of their day.
--
SillyPants
The Historian
SillyPants wrote:
> Who do you think is the most over-rated chess player of all time?
SillyPants the troll.
pjd...@aol.com
site. Hardly, a troll!! I didn't realize that Morphy's opponents were
of such poor calibre. Of course, chess ratings then were hardly what
they are in more modern times system wise. I also wonder if American
players were that much inferior to those of Europe at the time
Anders Thulin
> In early 1858, the eight best chess players in the world we
Why is this list significant? Surely, what matters is Morphy's
list of the best players: he would have sought out players on his
top list. Or, if you consider him a few notches more devious, the
players on the lists of the people he was trying to impress.
> Who does Paul Morphy want to play against? He harrassed Howard
> Staunton, Daniel Harrwitz, and Adolf Anderssen into playing matches
> against him at inopportune times for all of them. None of those three
> were among the 50 best chessplayers in the world at the time. Anyone
> who doubts this can verify it on www.chessmetrics.com.
Be careful about inviting verification.
Chessmetrics ranks Harrwitz (at least for the moment) as top player
from 1853 to February, 1856, after which Dubois takes first rank.
Harrwitz remains on the top-five list until September 1858. (See the
monthly top-five list for 1850-1860).
Anderssen can easily be found on the same diagram, though it seems that
no ranking has been assigned for the period mid-1853 to mid-1858.
That probably means he was not on the top-50 list, as you say, for this
period but this would be due to absence of data, not due to being a poor
player.
Staunton is also on the list, but seems to lack a ranking after 1856.
This would not be a factor for the chess world at the time: he would
still be considered as strong as his latest rank, much as Bobby Fischer
remained on everyone's mental ranking lists for years after he stopped
playing.
What top-50 list are you referring to?
> Even putting aside the argument of players actual skill improving
> over time, Paul Morphy still doesn't deserve to be considered among the
> top 100 chessplayers of all time, even if we do look at it in terms of
> how player's compared to other players of their day.
But as you seem to trust Chessmetrics on the question where Morphy's
opponents were, why don't you trust Chessmetrics on this question as well?
You better explain, or the question may be asked if you are not selecting
your data to fit your conclusion?
On Chessmetrics' 1-year peak list, Morphy is number 66, on 2-year peak list
also 66, and on the 3-year peak number 84.
What all-time top-100 list do you refer to? Those involving a longer
time at the top?
--
Anders Thulin ath*algonet.se http://www.algonet.se/~ath
Taylor Kingston
SillyPants wrote:
> In early 1858, the eight best chess players in the world were
> 1. Serafino Dubois
> 2. Jules de Rivere
> 3. J. Budzinky
> 4. Robert Brien
> 5. Henry Bird
> 6. Ernst Falkbeer
> 7. Czaikowsky
> 8. John Schulten
The idea that John Schulten, of all people, was superior in 1858 to
Anderssen, Paulsen, Harrwitz, Barnes, and Loewenthal, to name only
some, seems patently absurd. In a series of offhand games in late 1857,
Morphy beat Schulten 23-1, probably the worst drubbing anyone ever
suffered at Morphy's hands over more than a few games.
Budzinsky at #3 seems even more suspect. Circa 1858-59, Morphy beat
him 7-0 at even strength and +5 -1 =1 at pawn and move. And if he
really was #3, this would seem to ratify Morphy as #1 very strongly. He
also beat de Riviere +6 -1 =1 around that time.
> Who does Paul Morphy want to play against? He harrassed Howard
> Staunton, Daniel Harrwitz, and Adolf Anderssen into playing matches
> against him at inopportune times for all of them.
Two points: (1) Staunton did not play a match with Morphy, and (2) in
no sense were Harrwitz or Anderssen "harassed."
> None of those three
> were among the 50 best chessplayers in the world at the time. Anyone
> who doubts this can verify it on www.chessmetrics.com.
I would suggest you have an imperfect understanding of the
Chessmetrics data.
Alan OBrien
news:SillyPan...@chessbanter.com...
>
> Who do you think is the most over-rated chess player of all time?
That is a fascinating idea.
Most of the games we play through nowadays seem brilliant. But perhaps
Morphy's famous games are the equivalent of a Kasparov v Joe Schmo simul in
our own age.
I actually think he had a very strong game. Steinitz thought so too. I
haven't seen much criticism of his play from Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine or
Botvinnik.
Karpov - or Gik - devoted a chapter to his game v Bird. And surely Bronstein
has said something about him?
Rob
Taylor Kingston wrote:
> SillyPants wrote:
> > In early 1858, the eight best chess players in the world were
>
> > 1. Serafino Dubois
> > 2. Jules de Rivere
> > 3. J. Budzinky
> > 4. Robert Brien
> > 5. Henry Bird
> > 6. Ernst Falkbeer
> > 7. Czaikowsky
> > 8. John Schulten
>
> The idea that John Schulten, of all people, was superior in 1858 to
> Anderssen, Paulsen, Harrwitz, Barnes, and Loewenthal, to name only
> some, seems patently absurd.
> In a series of offhand games in late 1857,
> Morphy beat Schulten 23-1, probably the worst drubbing anyone ever
> suffered at Morphy's hands over more than a few games.
Good point. Here is one of those games . Morphy redeces Schulten to
"duffer's status" with this game.
Rob
John Townsend
appear not to be the most obvious choices!
I have a feeling that Morphy had things a bit cushy in 1858 in the sense
that there were no really great players at that moment, himself excepted.
Players are usually at their peak around the age of 30. Seen this way, his
victories over the 48-year-old Lowenthal and the 40-year-old Anderssen are
not especially convincing, and of the two Lowenthal seems to have retained
his form better. Perhaps Morphy's best performance was against the
35-year-old Harrwitz, and he might have won more convincingly but for a slow
start, for which there seem to have been genuine physical reasons.
However, I believe these three were among the strongest players of the day -
who was any better? - and, therefore, by his collective achievement of
defeating all three in turn Morphy showed that he was the strongest player
alive at that moment.
Best wishes,
John Townsend
Howard Staunton research project:
http://www.johntownsend.demon.co.uk/page7.html
jeremy.p...@vanderbilt.edu
exception of Dubois) clearly a ridiculous list of top players in 1858
indicates that you are not understanding the chessmetrics site. I
believe the list you are looking at is only the list of players for
which the site rates games in the previous year. The fact that
Anderssen had no rated games does not make him suddenly weaker.
If I look at a ratings program I once used, my top list after 1857 (if
I do not take future results into account) looks like Harrwitz,
Dubois,Anderssen as the top players active in the past few years, with
Lasa,Petroff,Staunton on the list if you include people active since
1850. This list is highly debatable, but it is clearly closer to a list
of top players than the list you cite. If you look at results of the
time which led to the chessmetrics ratings, you will see how silly it
is to call these the top players at the time.
Morphy beat all the top players he could lay his hands on. Lasa was
unavailable. He was invited to Russia, but that is a long trip to ask
him to make; Petroff would have made an interesting opponent. I do not
understand why people did not consider Dubois as a potential opponent .
Other people were mentioned, but Morphy beat the leading contenders he
played so badly that he has the first claim to be the top player in the
world that is hard to argue with. If you are looking for over-rated
players more objectively from this time period, you might try Saint
Amant.
Jerry Spinrad
Taylor Kingston
jeremy.p...@vanderbilt.edu wrote:
> The fact that the list of top players you give is (with the possible
> exception of Dubois) clearly a ridiculous list of top players in 1858
> indicates that you are not understanding the chessmetrics site.
Second that.
> i believe the list you are looking at is only the list of players for
> which the site rates games in the previous year. The fact that
> Anderssen had no rated games does not make him suddenly weaker.
>
> If I look at a ratings program I once used, my top list after 1857 (if
> I do not take future results into account) looks like Harrwitz,
> Dubois,Anderssen as the top players active in the past few years, with
> Lasa,Petroff,Staunton on the list if you include people active since
> 1850. This list is highly debatable, but it is clearly closer to a list
> of top players than the list you cite. If you look at results of the
> time which led to the chessmetrics ratings, you will see how silly it
> is to call these the top players at the time.
>
> Morphy beat all the top players he could lay his hands on. Lasa was
> unavailable. He was invited to Russia, but that is a long trip to ask
> him to make; Petroff would have made an interesting opponent. I do not
> understand why people did not consider Dubois as a potential opponent.
An interesting question. He had some reputation by that time. The
OCTC says he won about 2/3 of an informal series with Wyvill in Rome in
1845, and did about as well against Riviere in Paris circa 1855. Yet
Lawson's "Pride and Sorrow" has only one mention of Dubois, and that is
not in connection with Morphy, but in an 1891 article by Steinitz about
the Deacon hoax.
Dubois would probably have made a halfway-decent opponent for Morphy
circa 1858-59; he finished 5th at London 1862, behind Anderssen,
Paulsen, Owen and MacDonnell, just ahead of Steinitz, beating Paulsen
in their individual game. Right after that he lost a match to Steinitz
+3 -5 =1. However, the OC indicates he was probably not as strong he
might seem, "for when he met Wyvill, Riviere, and Steinitz none was yet
at his full strength."
If Dubois was considered by Morphy and/or Edge as a possible
opponent, travel complications might have interfered. It seems Dubois
did not like to leave Italy much, and Morphy may not have had time to
go there. But that is just a guess.
SillyPants
"The fact that the list of top players you give is (with the possible
exception of Dubois) clearly a ridiculous list of top players in 1858
indicates that you are not understanding the chessmetrics site."
Take a look at the the rating list for January 1858 on
www.chessmetrics.com.
1. Serafino Dubois - 2629
2. Jules de Riviere - 2546
3. J. Budzinski - 2530
4. Robert Brien - 2463
5. Henry Bird - 2462
6. Ernst Falkbeer - 2444
7. Czaikowsky - 2443
8. John Schulten 2421
--
SillyPants
David Richerby
Since you have such high regard for the chessmetrics.com ratings
lists, why not have a look at December 1858? In brackets, I've put
the number of games Morphy played against the opponent in 1858 and the
result, according to chessgames.com.
1. Morphy 2688
2. Loewenthal 2597 (16, +9-5=2)
3. Anderssen 2570 (17, +12-3=2)
4. Janssens 2542
5. Falkbeer 2520
6. Campbell 2515
7. Harrwitz 2504 ( 9, +5-3=1)
9. de Riviere 2502 ( 4, +4-0=0, plus a win against a de Riviere
10. Barnes 2489 ( 9, +7-2=0) \ and Journoud, consulting)
So, Morphy slaughtered five of the other top-ten players +37-13=5 in
1858. This hardly supports your claims that Morphy avoided strong
players when in Europe or that he performed badly against those he did
play. (There may well be other games that Morphy played in 1858 that
aren't in this database.)
One thing you have to be very careful about with chessmetrics.com is
that the ratings there include a factor for activity. This, to me,
seems to be very dubious because the effect of inactivity on a
player's strength depends entirely on what they do during that time.
According to chessmetrics.com, spending a year away from tournaments
training hard and beating Kasparov +100-0=0 in a match that isn't in
the database has exactly the same effect on a player's strength as
spending a year away from tournaments drinking moonshine through a
funnel.
This seems to me to be a fundamental problem with the whole
chessmetrics.com approach. Sonas is trying to use performance to
measure strength but strength can depend on things other than
performance. For example, if I were to bribe a bunch of GMs to lose
against me, my performance would be much higher than my strength;
conversely, if I were to take time off and bribe a bunch of GMs to
teach me lots about chess, my strength would be much higher than my
performance.
Dave.
--
David Richerby Voodoo Atlas (TM): it's like a map of
www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~davidr/ the world that has mystical powers!
jeremy.p...@vanderbilt.edu
who you claim is the number 8 player in the world, recent results would
seem to be
1856: Riviere-Schulten 7-1
1857: Morphy-Schulten 23-1
Schulten also played in a monster tournament in Paris in 1856, and was
said to have played successfully with Perrin and Stanley in 1857
He is not remotely comparable to Loewenthal, Harrwitz, or Anderssen,
Boden, Paulsen, or many other players beaten by Morphy.
There are numerous quotes from the time talking about top players, and
outside of Dubois (and a quote talking about how Riviere may now be the
top French player, which is not at all certain at this time), the
players discussed look nothing like the ones you name. If you look at
Sonas' charts for longer periods, Anderssen is above these players for
the entire time period. This is like looking at a monthly rating list
and concluding that anyone not on it is not among the top players in
the group.
Jerry Spinrad
ggd...@pacbell.net
greatest Chessplayers in known Chess history about Paul Morphy.
You may see the following quotes (some of them hyperlinked) and others
at:
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Paul_Morphy
* "I consider Mr. Morphy the finest chess player who ever existed.
He is far superior to any now living, and would doubtless have beaten
Labourdonnais himself. In all his games with me, he has not only
played, in every instance, the exact move, but the most exact. He never
makes a mistake; but, if his adversary commits the slightest error, he
is lost." ~ Adolf Anderssen, quoted by Frederick Edge in 1859
* "...Morphy was stronger than anyone he played with, including
Anderssen" ~ Wilhelm Steinitz, International Chess Magazine 1885.
* "Paul Morphy was the greatest chess player that ever lived...no
one ever was so far superior to the players of his time" ~ Dr. Emanuel
Lasker, Lasker's Chess Magazine of January 1905, p.127 (
http://www.100bestwebsites.org/lcm-jan1905.htm )
* "In Paul Morphy the spirit of La Bourdonnais had arisen anew,
only more vigorous, firmer, prouder... Morphy discovered that the
brilliant move of the master is essentially conditional not on a sudden
and inexplicable realisation, but on the placing of the pieces on the
board. He introduced the rule: brilliant moves and deep winning
manoeuvres are possible only in those positions where the opponent can
be opposed with an abundance of active energy... From the very first
moves Morphy aimed to disclose the internal energy located in his
pieces. It was suddenly revealed that they possess far greater dynamism
than the opponent's forces." ~ Emanuel Lasker
* "Morphy's principal strength does not rest upon his power of
combination but in his position play and his general style....Beginning
with la Bourdonnais to the present, and including Lasker, we find that
the greatest stylist has been Morphy. Whence the reason, although it
might not be the only one, why he is generally considered the greatest
of all." ~ José Raúl Capablanca, in Pablo Morphy by V. F. Coria and
L. Palau.
* "Reviewing the history of chess from La Bourdonnais to the
masters of our day right up to Lasker, we discover that the greatest
stylist was Morphy. He did not look for complicated combinations, but
he also did not avoid them, which really is the correct way of
playing... His main strength lay not in his combinative gift, but in
his positional play and general style. Morphy gained most of his wins
by playing directly and simply, and it is this simple and logical
method that constitutes the true brilliance of his play, if it is
considered from the viewpoint of the great masters." ~ José Raúl
Capablanca
* "[I play in] the style of Morphy, they say, and if it is true
that the goddess of fortune has endowed me with his talent, the result
[of the match with Emanuel Lasker] will not be in doubt. The
magnificent American master had the most extraordinary brain that
anybody has ever had for chess. Technique, strategy, tactics, knowledge
which is inconceivable for us; all that was possessed by Morphy
fifty-four years ago." ~ José Raúl Capablanca
* "How much more vivid, more rich does the figure of Morphy appear
before us, how much clearer does the secret of his success and charm
become, if we transfer ourselves in our thoughts to that era when he
lived and created, if we take the trouble to study, only a little, his
contemporaries! Then...in London and in particular in Paris, where the
traditions of Philidor were still alive, where the immortal creations
of La Bourdonnais and McDonnell were still in the memory, at that time,
finally, when Anderssen was alive, and with brilliance alone it was
hardly possible to surprise anyone. The strength, the invincible
strength of Morphy- this was the reason for his success and the
guarantee of his immortality!" ~ Alexander Alekhine
* "...Morphy, the master of all phases of the game, stronger than
any of his opponents, even the strongest of them..." ~ Alexander
Alekhine, in Shakmatny Vestnik, January 15, 1914
* "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
* "To this day Morphy is an unsurpassed master of the open games.
Just how great was his significance is evident from the fact that after
Morphy nothing substantially new has been created in this field. Every
player- from beginner to master- should in this praxis return again and
again to the games of the American genius." ~ Mikhail Botvinnik
* "There is no doubt that for Morphy chess was an art, and for
chess Morphy was a great artist. His play was captivated by freshness
of thought and inexhaustible energy. He played with inspiration,
without striving to penetrate into the psychology of the opponent; he
played, if one can express it so, "pure chess". His harmonious
positional understanding; the pure intuition, would have made Morphy a
highly dangerous opponent even for any player of our times." ~ Vassily
Smyslov
* "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... Morphy was perhaps the
most accurate chess player who ever lived. He had complete sight of the
board and never blundered, in spite of the fact that he played quite
rapidly, rarely taking more than five minutes to decide a move. Perhaps
his only weakness was in closed games like the Dutch Defense. But even
then, he was usually victorious because of his resourcefulness." ~
Bobby Fischer
* "Morphy, I think everyone agrees, was probably the greatest
genius of them all." ~ Bobby Fischer, 1992
* "We also remember the brilliant flight of the American
super-genius Paul Morphy, who in a couple of years (1857-59) conquered
both the New and the Old Worlds. He revealed a thunderous blend of
pragmatism, aggression and accurate calculation to the world --
qualities that enabled America to accomplish a powerful spurt in the
second half of the 19th century." ~ Garry Kasparov (2003). On My Great
Predecessors. Gloucester Publishers plc. Vol. 1, p. 6. ISBN 1857443306.
* "What was the secret of Morphy's invincibility? I think it was a
combination of a unique natural talent and brilliant erudition. His
play was the next, more mature stage in the development of chess.
Morphy had a well-developed 'feeling for position', and therefore he
can be confidently regarded as the 'first swallow' - the prototype of
the strong 20th century grandmaster." ~ Garry Kasparov (2003). On My
Great Predecessors. Gloucester Publishers plc. Vol. 1, p. 43. ISBN
1857443306.
* "Morphy was the first positional player who, unlike his Romantic
rivals, understood the strategic basis for attack. He wrote nothing
more than a few game notes and played fewer than seventy-five serious
games. But his exploitation of open lines prepared the way for
Steinitz's scientific treatment of closed positions and the era of
modern chess." ~ Richard Réti
* "After the passage of a century, Morphy still remains the most
glamorous figure that has ever appeared in the chess world." ~ Edward
Lasker (in The Adventure of Chess, 2nd Edition, New York, 1959)
* "La Bourdonnais [a great player, b. 1795 - d. 1840] died young in
London, and the goddess of Chess, Caissa, very much grieved, mourned
for him and forgot to inspire the masters with her sunny look. A dreary
time then came over the Chess world. The masters played a dry style,
without enthusiasm, without imagination, without force, and the Chess
fraternity was full of the wrangles of the mediocrities. It is true,
the goddess soon repaired her omission. She flirted - Goddess! pardon
me this vulgar expression, but the coarse human language does not know
the shades of meaning such as undoubtedly you would be able to express
by means of Chess pieces - she flirted, I beg to say, with the
English historian [and renowned authority on Shakespeare, whose name
has been given to the style of Chess pieces we now use] Staunton and
prevailed upon him to organize in 1851 an international chess
tournament in London, during the great International Exposition of that
year. And then - fickle Goddess - she gave her love to a young
mathematician, the German Anderssen, and inspired him to superb
combinations. And then -- oh the weakness of her - she spied with her
great sunny eye in far distant Louisiana a boy, highly talented; she
forgot all about Anderssen, guided the steps of the young American,
fell in love with him, introduced him to the world and said
triumphantly: "Here is the young Paul Morphy, stronger and greater
than master ever was." And the world listened and applauded and cried
"Hurrah for Paul Morphy, the King of Chess!"
In Paul Morphy the spirit of La Bourdonnais had arisen anew, only more
vigorous, firmer, prouder. He never formed columns of Pawns for the
purpose of assaulting a firm position as Philidor had taught, he always
fought in the centre, only a few Pawns in front, and if he needed the
lines open, he sacrificed even these few advanced posts. Should the
adversary make use of Philidor's maxims, Morphy's pieces occupied
the gaps in the oncoming mass of Pawns and opened up an attack, so as
to leave the enemy no time for slow, methodical maneuvering. Paul
Morphy fought; on good days and on bad days, he loved the contest, the
hard, sharp, just struggle, which despises petted favourites and breeds
heroes.
But then the Civil War broke out in the United States and broke the
heart and mind of Morphy.
...When Paul Morphy, despairing of Life, renounced Chess, Caissa fell
into deep mourning and into dreary thoughts. To the masters who had
come to ask her for a smile she listened absent-mindedly, as a mother
would to her children after her favourite had died. Therefore, the
games of the masters of that period are planless; the great models of
the past are known, and the masters try to follow them and to equal
them, but they do not succeed. The masters give themselves over to
reflection. One of them reflects a long time and intensely on Paul
Morphy, and gratefully Caissa encourages him; and the greatest landmark
in the history of Chess is reached: William Steinitz announces the
principles of strategy, the result of inspired thought and
imagination...
...Principles, though dwelling in the realm of thought, are rooted in
Life. There are so many thoughts which have no roots and these are more
glittering and more seducive [sic] than the sound ones. Therefore, in
order to distinguish between the true and the false principles,
Steinitz had to dig deep to lay bare the roots of the art possessed by
Morphy. And when Steinitz after hard work had bared these roots, he
said to the world: Here is the idea of Chess which has given vitality
to the game since its invention in the centuries long past. Listen to
me and do not judge rashly, for it is something great, and it
overpowers me...
... The world would have benefitted if it had given Steinitz a chance.
He was a thinker worthy of a seat in the halls of a University...And I
who vanquished him must see to it that his great achievement, his
theories should find justice, and I must avenge the wrongs he
suffered..." ~ former world chess champion Dr. Emanuel Lasker (1925 (in
German), Dover edition (in English): 1960). Lasker's Manual of Chess.
Dover Publications, p. 186-7. ISBN 0486206408.
--
Brett
Bishop Berkeley's Phantasmagorical Chess Site
http://www.bbbbbb.org/
Anders Thulin
> Perhaps it would be worthwhile to consider the opinions of some of the
> greatest Chessplayers in known Chess history about Paul Morphy.
If the thesis is that Morphy is overrated, one of the first questions
to answer is surely 'by whom?' The simplest answer would be 'those who
raise him to the skies' ... i.e. precisely the people you cite. If they
are already suspected of overrating Morphy, why take them for authorities?
> Labourdonnais himself. In all his games with me, he has not only
> played, in every instance, the exact move, but the most exact. He never
> makes a mistake; but, if his adversary commits the slightest error, he
> is lost."
This seems testable -- is Anderssen correct? If there can be found one
single example to the contrary, Anderssen is either mistaken, or expressing
an opinion about Morphy that should not be taken to be literally true.
(See below for the problem of detecting hidden rhetoric.)
> * "...Morphy was stronger than anyone he played with, including
> Anderssen" ~ Wilhelm Steinitz, International Chess Magazine 1885.
This is also testable -- I have little doubt that it is true.
> * "Paul Morphy was the greatest chess player that ever lived...no
> one ever was so far superior to the players of his time"
This also seems testable.
> * "In Paul Morphy the spirit of La Bourdonnais had arisen anew,
> only more vigorous, firmer, prouder... Morphy discovered that the
> brilliant move of the master is essentially conditional not on a sudden
> and inexplicable realisation, but on the placing of the pieces on the
> board. He introduced the rule: brilliant moves and deep winning
> manoeuvres are possible only in those positions where the opponent can
> be opposed with an abundance of active energy... From the very first
> moves Morphy aimed to disclose the internal energy located in his
> pieces. It was suddenly revealed that they possess far greater dynamism
> than the opponent's forces." ~ Emanuel Lasker
This cannot be tested ... it's praise. 'Morphy heap good' dressed in
rather flowery and impressive language. 'energy' ... 'dynamism' ...
should do rather well for buzzword bingo, I think.
> * "To this day Morphy is an unsurpassed master of the open games.
> Just how great was his significance is evident from the fact that after
> Morphy nothing substantially new has been created in this field. Every
> player- from beginner to master- should in this praxis return again and
> again to the games of the American genius." ~ Mikhail Botvinnik
Botvinnik's logic is not at all clear: he only says that after Morphy
little new has appeared, but he does not clearly say that it was Morphy who
created or developed those ... things, elements he is speaking of. A
reasonable assumption is that he is indeed making that claim -- and that
should be possible to test to some extent. What 'new' has appeared, say,
from the 1400s, and how much of it can be ascribed to Morphy? (Hasn't
someone already done that? Could be an interesting field of study otherwise.)
Botvinnik's statement *would* be equally true if Philidor developed many of
those 'things' ... it would still be true (though misleading) to say that
little new has been created since Morphy's time. But we might as well
say that little new in chess has been created since Wordsworth or Scott.
> ...When Paul Morphy, despairing of Life, renounced Chess, Caissa fell
> into deep mourning and into dreary thoughts.
Good example of rhetoric: the purpose of the text is not so much to
communicate a fact, as to communicate an opinion. It's rather overblown,
more suitable for a memorial where the audience already is know to agree
with the general tenor of the statement -- a rather accepted convention
in the 1800s. Less elaborate praise would be less easy to detect ... so
how much of the other statements is only praise in less colourful guise?
That is rather close to the original statement: how much said about
Morphy is true, and how much is just praise?
Wlodzimierz Holsztynski (Wlod)
> Who does Paul Morphy want to play against? He harrassed Howard
> Staunton, Daniel Harrwitz, and Adolf Anderssen into playing matches
> against him at inopportune times for all of them. None of those three
> were among the 50 best chessplayers in the world at the time.
Aril Fool is on Aril 1 not on April 30.
Please, verify this information from
verifiable sources and you'll see that
I am right!
it > Anyone who doubts this can verify
> it on www.chessmetrics.com.
I am responding really to this mentioning
of the chessmetric site. I've written a few
times in the past but let me repeat it again:
chessmetrics is a beautiful piece of software,
has a wonderful user interface, etc. But
it is wrong in the most important way.
It's evaluation of chessplayers often
(and I mean OFTEN) doesn't make sense.
The deviations are not striking enough
to many of you but if you were looking
more closely that you would see my point.
It does not make sense to quote chessmetrics
rankings seriously.
Regards,
Wlod
Chess One
<ggd...@pacbell.net> wrote in message
news:1146957872.5...@v46g2000cwv.googlegroups.com...
Perhaps it would be worthwhile to consider the opinions of some of the
greatest Chessplayers in known Chess history about Paul Morphy.
You may see the following quotes (some of them hyperlinked) and others
at:
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Paul_Morphy
***One of the more interesting quotations on the Wiki~site is this one, from
a letter to Fiske in 1863
"I am more strongly confirmed than ever in the belief that the time
devoted to chess is literally frittered away."
*** I have a couple of questions about Morphy, one in respect of his own
time, and one from ours: (1) Why was he so good? - Simple questions are
often the most difficult to answer, and here we have someone who, although
has the advantage a hundred years of modern-chess knowledge, moved by his
own efforts into some new realm of it - which is not much explained
anywhere, and is also not predicatable. How do we 'explain' Morphy's genius?
A second question is (2) our modern appreciation of what Morphy wrote to
Fiske. Its said that game playing is a highly evolved aspect of any culture,
and as substitution for actual conflicts, of obvious value in the culture
and between cultures, and game playing is also a good tool in the modelling
activity of simulators and so on. Remove any financial effect of playing the
game, to reveal the impact of the second question: "Is our appreciation of
chess different now than it was then?"
Phil Innes
John Townsend
speaking of Morphy in superlative terms, but it would be a lot more
convincing if someone other than Edge were quoting Anderssen! According to
the German master, Lange, Anderssen, when interviewed, was much less
impressed by Morphy. For example, when asked whether Morphy's "play in
general struck him as better than his own", Anderssen replied "... I never,
even in my dreams, believed Morphy my superior in play ...". (See "Chess
Praxis", p. 501-2)
So, it depends whether you believe Edge or Lange. No contest, I would have
thought!
Regards,
David Richerby
> ggd...@pacbell.net wrote:
>> "In all his games with me, he has not only
>> played, in every instance, the exact move, but the most exact. He never
>> makes a mistake; but, if his adversary commits the slightest error, he
>
> This seems testable -- is Anderssen correct?
Clearly not: Morphy lost games to Anderssen himself.
>> * "...Morphy was stronger than anyone he played with, including
>> Anderssen" ~ Wilhelm Steinitz, International Chess Magazine 1885.
>
> This is also testable -- I have little doubt that it is true.
I'm not convinced that this can be tested: it's notoriously hard to
quantify `chess strength'.
>> * "Paul Morphy was the greatest chess player that ever lived...no
>> one ever was so far superior to the players of his time"
>
> This also seems testable.
Again, I don't think so.
Dave.
--
David Richerby Pickled Umbrella (TM): it's like
www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~davidr/ an umbrella but it's preserved in
vinegar!
Ako...@aol.com
games using one of the top of the line chess engines. Anderssen played
amazingly brilliant combinations but was often unsound. Morphy was
extremely accurate in his play, based on hundreds of Morphy games I
analyzed over the years.
Morphy's role in chess history is something like Newton's role in
science or Aristotle's role in formal logic, they basically brought
light to the world in their areas, which were formerly in darkness. If
they hadn't appeared, we might all still be lost in intellectual
darkness. It wasn't inevitable that Morphy's discoveries had to be
made, chess might have died out as a game instead, and nothing of what
he discovered might ever have become known.
Anders Thulin
> Morphy's role in chess history is something like Newton's role in
> science or Aristotle's role in formal logic, they basically brought
> light to the world in their areas, which were formerly in darkness.
Newton made discoveries ... Aristotle invented theory of categories ...
but what did Morphy discover or invent? Can you give me an example?
To me, Morphy seems more like Roger Bannister with the Miracle Mile.
No discovery, no invention, but performance on a level a notch above
what was expected.
Of course, if Bannister hadn't made the Mile, someone else would have
made it, only somewhat later. So if Morphy hadn't played chess, it seems
reasonable to expect that the next wunderkind would just have made a greater
splash in the chess world. Capablanca, for instance.
David Richerby
> Morphy's role in chess history is something like Newton's role in
> science or Aristotle's role in formal logic, they basically brought
> light to the world in their areas, which were formerly in darkness.
My feeling (as a logician) is that you overstate Aristotle's role but
that's definitely off-topic. To be brief, nothing much happened in
logic for over two thousand years after Aristotle and very little in
logic, as currently studied, much resembles anything Aristotle would
recognize.
Dave.
--
David Richerby Beefy Tool (TM): it's like a hammer
www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~davidr/ that's made from a cow!
Ako...@aol.com
testable using the strong chess engines we have today. Morphy played
extremely accurately, noone in chess history played that accurately
before Morphy came along. Anyone who cares to can see for himself if he
chooses to look. I spent 30 years analyzing the games from that period,
at least the last 10 years using a chess engine. Morphy had a new way
of seeing the board that noone else had had previously. Its easy to see
what he saw after he showed us the way, but its hard to come up with
that new way of seeing things. Archimedes had the main ideas behind the
calculus, but after he died noone saw what he saw until Newton came
along many centuries later. It is the genius of the individual with a
new way of seeing or a new idea that makes the difference, the mass of
humanity is sunk in the most profound ignorance as a rule,
characterized by delusional thinking reinforced by the rest of the mass
also sharing in that same delusional thinking.
o1nemi...@gmail.com
Quadibloc
> The idea that John Schulten, of all people, was superior in 1858 to
> Anderssen, Paulsen, Harrwitz, Barnes, and Loewenthal, to name only
> some, seems patently absurd.
Anderssen and Staunton were grossly overrated as well. Clearly this is revisionist
history.
John Savard