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| Feb-13-13 | | Poulsen: Actually Staunton was a very strong player at his best - maybe the strongest in world (but not uncontested). Morphy would have had a hard time beating him, when he was at his best (roughly 15 years before Morphy came to Europe). Morphy was arguable the best in world at his time, but none the less he is the most overrated player of all time. |
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Mar-16-13
 | | perfidious: <mrbasso: Staunton was just a Patzer....> Not a mere patzer, but a Patzer-guess that represents a step up, or some such rot. Your disrespect for greats both past and present is beyond the pale. Give lessons, do you? |
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Mar-16-13
 | | ray keene: interestingly at the official opening of the world championship candidates tournament in london on thursday march 14 , the president of fide in a carefully scripted speech referred to staunton as "a world champion." as john saunders has pointed out, when the fide president speaks ex-cathedra he is the infallible Pope of chess. Many years ago I compared ( in an article for the Spectator I recall) the fide president to a mediaeval Pope and the world champion to the Holy Roman emperor. A good parallel wd be Pope Gregory VII and the Holy Roman emperor Henry IV. |
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Mar-16-13
| | ray keene: during the 1840's staunton crushed st amant, horwitz and harrwitz in matches which foreshadowed in length and format the world title contests of the 1950's - 2000 or so.staunton was evidently the dominating force in the chess world at that time and until 1851 by which time anderssen had clearly overtaken him. still, staunton cd certainly be considered the champion from 1843 to 1851, which puts him on a par with capablanca, petrosian and kramnik in terms of tenure at the top! |
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| Apr-14-13 | | IndigoViolet: <How the [Staunton] Chess Set Got Its Look and Feel> http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/des... |
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| Apr-17-13 | | Dragi: With all respect to great master Staunton , he knew verywell why he avoided Morphy ...Just like Anderssen at his prime , he would be overrun by divine Paulie like some of the patzers from the local pub ... |
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| Apr-20-13 | | Conrad93: Staunton, like Fischer, was a great chess player, but a terrible man. |
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| Apr-20-13 | | talisman: when it came to Morphy, he sure knew how to duck. |
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| Apr-20-13 | | Conrad93: He was busy at the time. Staunton considered everyone else inferior. That would include Morphy, so he probably assumed that it would be a waste of time to crush a weakling. |
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| Apr-21-13 | | Conrad93: Also, Staunton was busy with a Shakespearean project at the time. He could not be bothered with a match. |
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| Apr-21-13 | | Shams: <talisman> Howard the duck? |
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| May-18-13 | | Caissanist: G.H. Diggle, in his fine account of Staunton's 1843 match with St. Amant, attributes Staunton's spotty later results to a near-fatal bout of pneumonia in October 1844, which left him with a heart condition that seems to have worsened over the years. By 1853 he was begging off even casual games with his friend Von der Lasa, because of worry about heart problems. Diggle also believes his irascible behavior in his later years was in part due to health issues. |
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Oct-01-13
 | | offramp: His frequent opponent John Cochrane has 766 games in the database to Staunton's 326. |
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| Dec-07-13 | | scheidt: The English Opening could be called the Staunton Opening as easily as the Petrov, Pirc and the Reti is called after those masters. |
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Dec-14-13
 | | Penguincw: ♔ Quote of the Day ♔
< "The habit of holding a Man in the hand, and moving it first to one square and then to another, in order to engage the assistance of the eye in deciding where it shall actually be placed, is not only annoying to the adversary but a practical infraction of the touch-and-move principle." > -Staunton
They talked pretty differently back then. |
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| Jan-02-14 | | thomastonk: <The study of openings is serviceable in forming a good player, but practice is indispensable - in other words, rules are of less value than experiments.> -- Howard Staunton, 1862. |
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Jan-16-14
| | Penguincw: ♔ Quote of the Day ♔
< "To play with correctness and skill the ends of games, is an important but a rare accomplishment, except among the magnates of the game." >
-Staunton |
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Mar-09-14
 | | FSR: Jon Crumiller, a major chess collector (and Kasparov's partner in N Short / R Vujatovic vs Kasparov / Crumiller, 2010), posted these three comments on Facebook: <<<For any Staunton fans, here's something you might enjoy. In my research-obsessive way, I acquired all 1442 weekly editions of the Illustrated London News, 1845-1874, with Staunton's columns. Then I photographed/extracted them, keyworded them, and posted everything online for free access. All you need do is download an Excel spreadsheet that has URLs to every column. There is also a keyword column for filtering, so that you can quickly home in on any relevant topic. The spreadsheet is downloadable from here: https://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=ht...>One very interesting tidbit from Staunton's ILN columns. It's generally assumed that Staunton's first mention of Morphy is in his 1857-Oct-24 column, which mentions Morphy by name, but if you use the keyword column to filter for Morphy, you'll find a *much earlier* column from 1856-Nov-01 that clearly refers to Morphy, in his response to correspondent EBC. Give it a try, for filtering practice.> I neglected to mention that he also replies to Charles Maurian in New Orleans, regarding Morphy, in that same early column. To filter, just go to the Keyword column (column B) and click on the little down-arrow, then "Text Filters...", "Contains", and then one or more keywords such as "Morphy".> |
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| Jul-06-15 | | zanzibar: <And now what was Staunton as man? An old maxim has it that we must speak nothing but good of the dead. That may be all very well for epitaph writers, whose trade it is to engrave lies on marble, but, for ourselves, we repudiate any such doctrine, considering it to be ethically unsound. Persons who wish to leave character behind them free from reproach should earn it, and failing to do so, are justly open to the censure of the living. Praise given to all is rendered to none, and is, therefore, robbery of those entitled to it. We have, therefore, very little hesitation in saying that, in our opinion, the deceased often acted, not only with signal lack of generosity, but also with gross unfairness towards those whom he disliked, or from whom he had suffered defeat, or whom he imagined likely to stand between him and the sun. His attacks upon Anderssen, Williams, Harrwitz, Lowenthal and Steinitz must ever be considered as sad misuse of his vigorous intellect, especially as they were often conducted in manner not at all consistent with truthful spirit nor were his innuendos concerning Morphy otherwise than an utterly unworthy means of petting out of an engagement, which he could have either declined with good grace at first, or afterwards have honourably asked to be released from. Nevertheless, all said and done, Staunton was, as we have often heard distinguished enemy of his say, emphatically MAN. There was nothing weak about him, and he had back bone that never curved with fear of any one. Of him may be averred, what was said of the renowned Duke of Bedford by Louis the Eleventh, when the courtiers of the latter were venting their depreciatory scoffs over the tomb of the great Englishman, There lies one, before whom, if he were still alive, the boldest amongst us would tremble."> http://books.googleusercontent.com/... London City Chess Magazine Vol 1 1875 (Aug 1874 p167-168) |
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| Jul-08-15 | | zanzibar: A little more about Staunton, and his successor as editor of <Chess Player's Chronicle>, Brien: Robert Barnett Brien (kibitz #2) |
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| Sep-21-15 | | The Kings Domain: Shame his personality left a lot to be desired; he was one of the finest Chess masters and one of its great innovators. |
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| Feb-25-16 | | zanzibar: <The only blotch on this splendid was his continual evasion of a match with ... Morphy> Ahem... and what about Lowenthal's sweep of Staunton in Birmingham 1858? |
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Feb-25-16
 | | keypusher: < zanzibar: <The only blotch on this splendid was his continual evasion of a match with ... Morphy>
Ahem... and what about Lowenthal's sweep of Staunton in Birmingham 1858?> The preceding paragraph reads:
<In the 1840s and 50s Staunton did a great deal for chess. He founded and edited "The Chess Player's Chronicle" (1841-1854), organized the first International tournament (the London (1851) knock-out format), made efforts to unify the laws of chess, wrote books and sponsored the design by Nathaniel Cook for chess pieces that has since become the standard pattern.> So I don't think they're talking about Staunton's competitive record. If they were, his competitive failure at the London tournament in 1851 was a much bigger deal than Birmingham. |
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| Feb-25-16 | | zanzibar: <keypusher> I object mostly to the absolute statement "only blotch". But in reply:
I'm aware of the paragraph just before, but playing is part of his record too. I won't contest you if you want to say London 1851 was the more major, and Birmingham, the more minor. But a blotch is a blotch.
As for his other splendid and "unblemished" record, let me ask you if the Birmingham tournament book ever appeared? And who was charged with its publication?
There are chess games forever lost to the world as a result. (And we haven't even talked about the rest of Staunton's record with the BCA) He embodied British chess at the time, but he wasn't unblemished, even ignoring his treatment of Morphy. |
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Feb-26-16
 | | ketchuplover: he will soon be in the world chess hall of fame |
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