Chessopera wrote (~6 hours ago):
… Morphy could play blindfold chess against 10 players. …
How many specific examples of such an event, can Chessopera identify?
Paul Morphy the number one chess genius
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Wow
NM ghost_of_pushwood wrote (~1 hour ago):
I still say it was that sinister Morphy watch!
At midnight?
Chessopera wrote (~3 hours ago):
… While Morphy played blindfold chess against a dozen professional chess players, ...
When? Where?
Chessopera wrote (~3 hours ago):
Any IM and GM level chess player knows what it means to beat players such as Paulsen, Harrwitz, Anderssen, Henry Bird, Lowenthal, Blackburn and ...
"Blackburn"? When? Where?
... Were Harwitz, Anderssen, Staunton, Bird, Blackburn, Ripley, Lowenthal etc weak? These are the best chess players in history and all with an ELO rating of above 2600. ... Morphy is best known for his positional understanding of chess as well as being a tactical genius. In fact, many of the positional principles such as rapid development, control of centre before attacking and the principle of two weakness etc were introduced by Morphy. ... When asked who was the greatest chess talent, Fischer ... his answer was Morphy. …
"Lasker ... didn't understand positional chess." - another Fischer quote from around the same time as his Morphy comments.
Extended discussions of Morphy have been written in books by GM Franco, GM Beim, GM Ward, GM Marin, GM Bo Hansen, GM McDonald, Garry Kasparov (with Dmitry Plisetsky), and GM Gormally. Anyone see any of them express the view that we should accept Fischer's conclusion about Morphy? There seems to be general agreement that Morphy was, as GM Fine put it, one of the giants of chess history, but that is a long way from saying that he was better than anyone playing today.
Carlsen-2961 Kramnik-2868 Kasparov-2816 Fischer-2775 Anand-2759 Karpov-2698 Capablanca-2664 Tal-2636 Spassky-2619 Smyslov-2618 Botvinnik-2602 Euwe-2547 Alekhine-2547 Petrosian-2543 Lasker-2498 Morphy-2409 Steinitz-2323
https://www.chess.com/article/view/who-was-the-best-world-chess-champion-in-history
"... Morphy became to millions ... the greatest chess master of all time. But if we examine Morphy's record and games critically, we cannot justify such extravaganza. And we are compelled to speak of it as the Morphy myth. ... [Of the 55 tournament and match games, few] can by any stretch be called brilliant. ... He could combine as well as anybody, but he also knew under what circumstances combinations were possible - and in that respect he was twenty years ahead of his time. ... [Morphy's] real abilities were hardly able to be tested. ... We do not see sustained masterpieces; rather flashes of genius. The titanic struggles of the kind we see today [Morphy] could not produce because he lacked the opposition. ... Anderssen could attack brilliantly but had an inadequate understanding of its positional basis. Morphy knew not only how to attack but also when - and that is why he won. ... Even if the myth has been destroyed, Morphy remains one of the giants of chess history. ..." - GM Reuben Fine
It is perhaps worthwhile to keep in mind that, in 1858, the chess world was so amazingly primitive that players still thought tournaments were a pretty neat idea.
"... It was due to [Morphy's] principles of development that he had, in most cases, at the outset a better development than his opponent. As soon, however, as these principles of Morphy's had become the common property of all chess players it was difficult to wrest an advantage in an open game. ... the next problem with which players were confronted ... was to discover principles upon which close positions could be dealt with. To have discovered such principles, deeper and more numerous as they were than those relating to development in open positions, is due to Steinitz. ..." - Richard Reti (1923)