He surpassed Deschappelles in games, causing his teacher to seek retirement. He then beat both Lewis and Cochrane (the two top players in England at the time), and later went on to defeat MacDonnell in a gigantic marathon series of matches.

The men who have the best claim to being world champions in all but name would probably be:

GIOACHINO GRECO (defeated Morano, then toured Europe and beat the strongest players he could find--given the narrow scope of chess at the time, this is as close to dominance as you can get)

PHILIDOR (beat Stamma, one of the best players in England, and dominated both his French and English rivals....in several cases Philidor was past his prime during these matches).

DE LA BOURDONNAIS (For reasons stated above; Deschappelles' case is a bit more nebulous, considering his penchant for odds and his lack of a great opponent on his resume).

STAUNTON (defeated Saint-Amant in a match; also has wins over Popert, Horwitz, Harrwitz)

ANDERSSEN (defeated Staunton and a large pool of other opposition during the 1851 international tournament; he went on to play fairly dominantly in tournament chess afterward)

MORPHY (defeated Anderssen, and held wins over the entire field of chess masters--including Harrwitz, Boden, Barnes, Lowenthal, Bird, de Riviere, Paulsen, etc.)

Regarding your list of pre-official world champions:

I would take Staunton off the list, he really was never that great of a player, and his genius lay more in self-promotion than chess.

Also, while Goacchino Greco was certainly the first author to analyse chess with any seriousness, its almost certain that most of his games were composed, so it's hard to rate his skill as a player.

I agree that Greco is debateable. His writings alone are not sufficient grounds for a world championship claim--just as Carrera, Polerio, Lopez, Damiano, etc. cannot be regarded as world champions.

What distinguishes Greco is the fact that he travelled around Europe playing the best players and defeating them. His chess skill is also well-documented (in sharp contrast to his predecessors). While it is definitely possible that the games are composed, it is equally true that Greco could certainly have played them if he composed them.

I take the fact that Greco was dominant in his home city, in his travels across Europe, and against Morano to be the closest anybody could come to the "strongest player" title in the 1600's.

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http://www.ancientchess.com/pages/0...

It's a rather pleasing style, I think! I wonder if this is true?

The "Selenus" style (shown on the page above) is also quite appealing, in my opinion.

Main site:

http://www.ancientchess.com/

(: Bishop Berkeley :)