Morphy today!?

Exactly!!

Look, Paul morphy wasn't even the greatest player to have lived. There is no question that Garry Kasparov is the strongest player in history, so I have a hard time seeing how Morphy could even come close to "kicking his butt."

No golf wouldn't be an exception either. I'm sure the clubs they make now are far, far superior to those on the market 50 years ago.

Just look at Phelps and his new suit that just lets him glide through the water. He's ridiculously good at swimming to be sure, but an edge like that lets you rack up the medals and break records.

Paul Morphy, lets say was resurrected somehow and given a month i bet he can come out on top defeating everyone else in the grandmaster section. his games might have been old tacticed but he never blundered and im sure he would find his way through a game with kasparov, anand, kramnik, etc.

"but he never blundered"

I'm sorry, but that's not at all accurate.

This debate is useless, you can say that one dead player is better then a living player but you can never prove it. Games are different not just because of the players but because of the time period such as ; war, famine, weather, health etc.... I sure we don't realize it but this state of time we are in will probably create some of the best players ever because people are looking for an escape from reality. This forum, interesting in it's wild theories, give us neither knowledge or truth. 

This discussion has taken a silly turn.  The question is not whether Morphy would be dominant if he were somehow transplanted into the modern era; of course, he would not be, for the simple and logical reasons already given.  The question is whether the weakness of his era should be held against him, and how much a player of Morphy's chess fluency could accomplish if he were born after the game began to be studied more seriously. 

Also, Paul211, are you being sarcastic?  I hope so.  The historical moments of all the geniuses you cite figure crucially in our retrospective appreciation of them.  Would Shakespeare have been a good writer in any other era?  Probably, but he almost certainly would not be regarded as the greatest writer in any language living or dead without the unique opportunities of Elizabethean theater.  Would Darwin be a clever biologist if he were alive today?  Probably, but if he were born long after his own most important discovery, it's not at all certain that he would have impacted history in the same way.  These things take historical accident as well as individual brilliance. 

It's the same way with Morphy.  His absolute strength simply can't be assessed because of a lack of evidence, but the question of whether Paul Morphy, the American who played in the 1850s, could give Topalov a run for his money is ridiculous and unanswerable, in the same way that Mike Tyson probably could have knocked out Rocky Marciano, but that doesn't make him a greater boxer.  It's just an accident of birth. 

Having contributed many posts to this discussion, I was going to let its increasing silliness die, but I think there are a couple more reasonable things to say.

The first is that I agree with very much of Batgirl's posts. There is an aura that surrounds Morphy that is not of his own making and largely posthumous, an aura that strips away the warts and leaves him looking much larger than life. I am reminded here of the JFK myth of "Camelot," where Americans of every generation look at the man (who, whatever his strong qualities, tried to invade Cuba, escalated the Vietnam War, and kicked off the nuclear arms race with the USSR) as some sort of demigod. There is an excellent book by Macon Shibut called "Paul Morphy and the Evolution of Modern Chess" that works to expose the Morphy myths and argue that his strength shines through despite his occasional stumbles. 

Second, I think the issue with gauging his strength relative to modern masters is complicated by the fact thatthe chess history of the past few centuries has seen a pattern of new masters rising up and demolishing the old. Philidor crushed Stamma, LaBourdonnais crushed MacDonnell, Staunton (in the match that counted) crushed St. Amant, and Morphy crushed Anderssen. It gives the impression that there was a linear improvement in chess skill through the years. And while I admit that our understanding of chess has improved during this period, I'm not sure that this progression of beatdowns is in itself convincing evidence. Anderssen, for instance, was a part-time player whose match with Morphy was crammed into a Christmas vacation; in the years after Morphy's departure, he remained exceptionally strong.

The point about openings has been raised many times, and there's certainly some validity to it; but just yesterday Game 3 of the Topalov-Kamsky match gave me some perspective on it:

Here we have the position following Topalov's ninth move. Already we are outside the main lines of the Grunfeld, but within the bounds of theory. At this juncture Kamsky replies with 9...Qxc7, a novelty. The moves that follow are head-splittingly tactical in nature, and eventually Kamsky comes up with his strong Bd7-b5 maneuver that puts Topalov on his heels. Can you really say that Morphy would have been out of his depth in such a situation, either as white or black?

A final, minor point: Endgames. I agree that the standard of endgame study has increased greatly over the past century and a half. But consider this: Morphy, as strong as he was, gave a great many games at odds to lesser (but not necessarily weak) players. As a consequence, he very often found himself a pawn or even a piece down in the endgame. That he was able to pull out so many victories in these odds contests suggests that, while he may have been "unschooled," he was an endgame player of great resilience. And that's not nothing.

Firstly, paul211, in post #50, you forgot Johann Sebastian Bach under number 5 (I'm a musician, and I can tell he's appreciated as one of the greatest geniuses in history of music, aside from being my personal favourite). Secondarily, batgirl, Morphy probably retired from chess because he didn't face a worthy opponent, so perhaps today he would devote himself to chess much more seriously. Also, Fischer said Morphy never blundered (see post #9), which doesn't make it true either, but a word of a former World Champion must be considered to a certain point. And finally, harderharderharder, geniuses make history, so the music, the poetry, the art generally speaking, and the science, as we know them today, wouldn't be the same at all without them. In these spheres of life we wouldn't arrive where we are now and advance to the point that we're at now - if it wasn't for them.

This is a perfect example.  Bach and Beethoven were seperated by about 60 years, yet the question of "who was better" is hard to answer.  Music had become much more sophisticated by the time of Beethoven, yet many people still looked to Bach as a source of inspiration and theory, and his music is still widely enjoyed to this day.

I feel the same way about Morphy.  He was clearly one of the strongest players of his time, yet Chess has changed and become more sophisticated.  We can still enjoy his contributions to the game.  Whether he could have made the jump to the modern game or not is complete speculation - I liken it to the early computer pioneers like Wozniak, Jobs or Gates not being able to recognize or function with the latest machines.  The game may have changed, and they're not the force they once were, but they're plenty capable of running circles around the common man.

" Secondarily, batgirl, Morphy probably retired from chess because he didn't face a worthy opponent, so perhaps today he would devote himself to chess much more seriously. "

No, your speculation isn't supported by anything we know about Morphy.

"Also, Fischer said Morphy never blundered (see post #9), which doesn't make it true either, but a word of a former World Champion must be considered to a certain point."

Fischer was wrong, demonstrateably so.

Here Morphy threw away a certain win and had to settle for a draw. Most people, even Fischer, would call that a blunder:

Willard Fiske wrote in the Congress Book, ""A most unfortunate slip. As soon as the second player had touched the Queen he remarked that had he taken the Knight the contest could not have been prolonged a dozen moves. And that he had the winning combination in his mind he proved by playing over the following variations immediately after the close of the game. Black's error consisted in reversing what should have been his twenty-third and twenty-fourth moves."

The game could have followed a different path if not for Morphy's unfortunate  blunder on the 23rd move.

OK, that proves he had a blunder, he could have two, or even few. Still, Fischer doesn't have to be wrong when he says Morphy was perhaps the most accurate chess player who ever lived, although computer researches said that Capablanca had the fewest mistakes and/or blunders because his moves were closest to computers' preferred moves. There's no argument that Morphy was a very accurate player and those are "Fischer's words considered to a certain point". And note that I said "Morphy probably retired from chess because he didn't face a worthy opponent", so that was actually my opinion which was influenced by several others matching.

Did Fischer actually say Morphy never blundered ? I was thinking he said Morphy "rarely" blundered" and this in spite of the fact that Morphy was a fast player, rarely taking more than a few minutes to decide on a move.

"Perhaps the most accurate player who ever lived, he would beat anybody today in a set-match. He had complete sight of the board and seldom blundered even though he moved quite rapidly. I've played over hundreds of his games and am continually surprised and entertained by his ingenuity."

This is from the web, but I think the quote in Brady's bio of Fischer reads the same.

As an interesting and viable topic to argue I like to wonder if Morphy aged 21 were transported to present time and given all the tools of the era, how would he do, eventually. I say he'd make 2600 and maybe even 2700, and I accept as a premise that he stays very "chess hungry." Or the "chess fever" Fiske wrote about when Morphy was consuming chess. Any mental illness interfering with this proposed experiment is something I leave out; I am interested in how a great talent would adapt to modern chess.

It's OK, it wasn't an offense anyway. I've read through some of your earlier posts and can tell you that we're discussing number one of your post #46, transporting Morphy with his knowledge of chess in the 1800's, because if he was born in 2000., under speculative circumstances, his style would be appropriate to the time he was born at, I believe, when he might just not be interested in chess. Again, my opinion.

Of course Morphy had talent that would be recognizable today just as is was in the 1850s. But today his talent would be far less overwhelming. One thing that first stood out about Morphy was his prodigical ability. Since Morphy there have been many players with similar prodigical ability.  You mentioned his blindfold exhibitions which were amazing at the time (though not entirely unchallenged) but which have been duplicated and exceeded many, many times since.  

What gives you the idea that Morphy quit chess due to lack of competition or because he founbd the game boring??   And what makes you believe that Staunton was the best player of that time?  For that matter, you may be interested in knowing that Morphy played two games against Staunton, though in consultation, and won both.  Staunton wrote innumerable books and edited a long-standing chess column. 

Morphy's so-called challenge to the world of Pawn and move, while only ever having been found indirectly - that is, there's been no written proof of it ever discovered - wasn't so much a challenge of audacity, but rather one of practicality and custom whereas, before Morphy would deem to play anyone even, that person would first have to demonstate his superiortiy when give odds.

Let us give Morphy the advantage of learning the game in our time not his, relieve him of the baggage of his ante-bellum culture (including the stigma of a "gentleman" playing the lowly game of chess for a living), in a world where the world championship is a better defined objective, and start him as a young and fresh genius like a real present day GM.  What makes you think that is not the formula for a new Fischer?  All the great old masters would be crushed shoved into the present day with the game and expectations of their time, for a while.  Most of them would catch up rapidly to at least super GM status if still interested.  Capablanca, Lasker and Alekhine come right to mind, I would not count out a young Steinitz either when you consider that he evolved under his own power, without literature, from the "Austrian Morphy" a sort of super Andersson clone, to the first true positional player in history, a dynamo of innovative potential.

Paul,

"and this why Staunton recoginized the best in his times would not confront Morphy, thank you for answering your own question."

I didn't have any question at all about this other than "what makes you believe that Staunton was the best player of that time?"  which isn't answered by the fact that Morphy-Barnes played and beat Staunton-Owen in two games, just as it wasn't answered by you.

"One more time, why would Morphy with his talent in chess and other fields not be able to adapt to today's style of play?"

With all due respect, have you read with comprehension anything I've written here?