Paul Morphy the greatest chess player A.K.A god of chess

 Morphy is deserving of his legendary status.

I wonder what he'd think if he were alive today lol. I'm sure he never imagined he'd be remember in this way.

All I know is that I learned  his name  first among  any other old chess master's ::))

How did you arrive at that figure? 

http://chessmetrics.com/cm/CM2/PlayerProfile.asp?Params=199510SSSSS3S088959000000111000000000019610100

He'd probably think it was absurd.

Then he'd tell us that we're all wasting our time on a board game, and that we should pursue something more productive—like memorizing law books, or something.

. . . But then he'd make an anonymous account and get addicted to online blitz and bullet. :D

I arrived at this figure by knowing a bit about how strong today's grandmasters are and comparing Morphy's play to theirs. How did chessmetrics arrive at their funny numbers? Do you seriously believe guys like Zuckertort and Anderssen had the strenght of today's 2730-2750 players? They would not get a single draw out of 20 games against someone like Andreikin, Gelfand, Svidler or Rapport.

I don't want to mock the old masters, what they achieved with their limited possibilities was highly respectable. And yes, Morphy does deserve a legend status. But this needs to be put into perspective, you just cannot compare them to modern grandmasters.

True, today's players are way stronger. Mostly because of engines, and theory, and ideas that, ironically, Morphy helped create.

But even so—a 2350, back in Morphy's time—in an era of 1800s?

That'd be like finding a 3350 player today. :-O

Back in regards to the OP, I like Fischer's quote about Morphy:

"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." — Bobby Fischer

Also, Smyslov's:

"His harmonious positional understanding the pure intuition would have made Morphy a highly dangerous opponent even for any player of our times." Vassily Smyslov

Even world champions from the 20th century said that Morphy could stand against modern grandmasters.

It is what it is. From the example of Murphy we can learn that an extraordinarily talented guy who probably works a lot on chess can obtain a certain level of play (my estimation was 2350, maybe it was a little bit more, maybe it was a little bit less) in chess stone age.

Now we can basically draw two conclusions: Either Morphy was some godlike superbeing whose brainpower supercedes everything that ever was and ever will be. Or this level of play is what a highly talented person can achieve under unfavourable circumstances.

Which conclusion do you think is more rational?

Another highly speculative approach: If we put Magnus Carlsen in Morphy's shoes, would be become weaker than Morphy? Equal strenght? Stronger? Of course we cannot know the answer. But Carlsen is dominating a chess world that is filled with tens of thousands of serious tournament players. The chess world that Morphy dominated had fewer serious players than the city I live in.

True, a lot of speculation can be made. And there's no doubt that Carlsen is one of (if not the) strongest players of all time.

Though, too many dismiss Morphy because of the primitive chess era in which he lived, or the lackluster opposition he faced.

But consider Fischer—easily one of the strongest players of all time—who studied Morphy extensively. Fischer himself said it sometimes took him twenty minutes or more to find the right reply to one of Morphy's moves, as he played through his games, acting as Morphy's opponent.

If 2785 Fischer found Morphy's play challenging to face, surely Morphy was stronger than his detractors like to argue.

(I've even heard some argue that Morphy was an 1800 at best—which I find absurd. I'm 2100 and Morphy would, no doubt, crush me with ease.)

I'd certainly not call Morphy an 1800 rated player.  But I can understand people doing this, as a response to this totally overblown irrational hype that obviously exists. Putting Morphy at 1800 is no less wrong than putting him at 2800, so it might be seen as an appropriate response .

Regarding Fischer, it's indisputed that he was one of history's best chess players. But he was also butt-crazy, a lunatic, a sociopath, an antisemite, a fan of idiotic conspiracy theories. Do you think that if Murphy had been a jew, Fischer's judgement of his playing strenght would have been any kinder than it was about Lasker's?

I'm 1900 OTB, opening theory is not very important. Morphy's tactics (and ability to develop his pieces unlike his contemporaries) would easily put him above 1900.

You are a liar Yureesystem, a liar. Morphy travelled to Europe to play the strongest master there and as far as history records its the Europian Masters that were afraid to play Morphy. Steinitz is the one that refused to play Morphy and he stated that he is bussy inventing chess pieces? What a silly excuse when we  know Steinitz never declined any challenge but he declined Morphy's challenge.  Steinitz was smart, he knew he was gonna loose just like what Bobby Fischer did with karpov. It takes a  very smart fighter to know when you are paired with something that might be far more stronger or of equal strength.

get real yureesystem, do you really think morphy was scared of them

Beyond everything else, I think you are confusing Howard Staunton with Wlhelm Steinitz.

Morphy was the strongest player of his day.  His legend even during his lifetime, as well as his early sudden retirement, cast a shadow over those who came after him, deservedly or not.  To try to compare players from even comparatively close but different times is impractical. To try to compare players from different ages of chess is downright silly.  The chess Morphy played and the culture which detrmined that chess was totally alien to that even at the turn of the 20th century let alone today.   I don't know why people keep making these threads.

If Morphy were to have lived through to the present day, he would have been the best Star Wars fanfiction writer ever.

Here I have to disagree with my fav dragocorn -he would have turned it into opera. Imagine Darth doing a baritone. Wait, I don't have to.

Looking for clip .... Found it

Dragon, unicorn, fox, rat, opossum, bat, pokémon... I can't decide what I am!

Also, I think you have something there! Hopefully he'd also recognize and extensively use the amazing vocal range of R2D2, and have him star as Luke Skywalker. Mark Hamill could be given a pennywhistle and stuffed in a trash can on roller skates.