Also incredible that no one seems to understand the underlying ideoligical struggle here between Steinitz the "Generalist" and Chigorin the "Individualist", who sought to essentially almost refute many Steinitz generalisaitons such as :

- The power of the two bishops (with persistence with the Chigorin system of Bg4xf3)

- The unsoundness of going for the attack without 1st accumulating a positional advantage (thus Steinitz was going into the Evans Gambit deliberately).

It's been noted a million times. It's in the introduction to Botvinnik's 100 Selected Games, various Kotov writings, and a bunch of posts on this website. There's even Petrosian's joke about succeeding because his Soviet opponents were followers of Chigorin.

<I thought it was important to highlight that in a way Chigorin was like a very early but unrecognised "Hypermodern".>

I.e. it is like a rebellion against a Steinitzian abstraction, and that is why that game is important - and that Chigorin won it in such a high profile event.

Raymond Keene is a kibitzer on this site sometimes. It is a shame he hasn't put some kibitzing against it *on this site* against that particular game. Some games are of vast ideological importance for contextualising abstract abstractions, which then impact the evolution of chess style.

BTW What do you think of the Tao symbol analogy I made in this video:

I would say more something like this:

"Chigorin put Steinitz elements and deduced positional abstractions such as the value of the bishop pair into a more dynamic context - often finding contexts where for example the two bishops were ineffective.

In particular in this match, he often voluntarily played the immediate Bg4xf3 and playing for pressure on d4 and fast development and initiative. "

Steinitz and Chigorin did not have the luxury to investigate or train with computer resources, unlike today's Masters.

It is easy to state how many "horrible moves" were played in the past when you've got an electric Grandmaster installed on your computer to "confirm" this "truth."

I've got one too. Who doesn't? Big deal.

Historically, the most important "chess truth" is found over the board between serious men at a serious time control.

I find it difficult to accept the implication that Steinitz or Chigorin were Patzers.

It's not your project I took issue with, but rather with this conclusion about this Match here- which I recognize is not yours:

<the woeful quality of play>

<Whatthefat> made this conclusion, citing your project.

If you have an issue, take it up with him.

I find his conclusion to be both needlessly pejorative and inaccurate in the "big picture."

Using your own analogy, would anyone label the Paris 1900 athlete's running of "woeful quality" simply because Bolt's speed is so much faster?

<computer regards them to be around 2500-2300 elo>

Well, no "it" doesn't because "computer" doesn't even exist.

What you mean is "My analysis employing a chess computer(s), using the following method (fill in method here), concludes that these players are around 2500-2300 elo."

I'm not just nitpicking here for the sake of it.

Yes nobody will dispute that pretty much any engine can beat the best human players today.

With regard to "woeful"- yes, what you say is true in an absolute, and technical sense.

However, a sports writer would never use the phrase "woeful" to describe the 1900 sprint champ's performance in a million years.

Similarly, neither should a chess writer use the word "woeful" to describe Steinitz's play in this Match.

At least with respect to a computer evaluation.

Recall also that another school of evaluation (Sonas) seeks to emphasize synchronic comparison in his elo analysis.

For example, Sonas reports that Steinitz's performance at the London 1872 tournament was a <2703 elo Performance rating>.

This number would not hold up to a comparative chess engine study.

At any rate, interesting discussion thank you-

That said, all due respect to <whatthefat>.

I respect him and his many contributions to this site. I wouldn't take his comment here seriously unless I took *him* seriously.

Perhaps there has been some misunderstanding - I actually came to this conclusion after playing through all the games of this match for the first time. I had expected to see something akin to a match between IMs today, and was rather taken aback by how sloppy some of the play was, especially when compared to something like the level of play in championship matches from 1896 onwards.

I haven't done a systematic investigation comparing all the WC Matches, and I'm neither a strong player nor a strong analyst.

I have taken a good look at many of Steinitz's games prior to this Match, and many of them certainly impressed me.

However, that said, I have at present only investigated game one of this match, in which Steinitz blunders a piece, and the game, apparently out of the blue-- which is not much of an advertisement for my argument.

So I will demur to you gentlemen until I finish the whole Match here.

Part One: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-TY...

Part Two: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1-d...

Part Three: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEJ3...

Part Four: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIBK...

Part Five: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTor...

Given that this was not a world championship match, I'm not quite sure what you mean.

I know, I know...all the CG.com kibitzers will have a cow, call me a troll, etc..so predictable!

But once again, small minds cannot grasp complex subjects. So to save you the time I know what you are going to say: Steinitz beat Zukertort which means he's the world champion, and since he's playing a match it must be a world championship match. Very simple, very easy, very tidy, a small mind can understand it.