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| Feb-10-12 | | brankat: <Dr.Yes> Unless it is a secret, I'm curious as to how exactly did You manage to measure the level of a Talent? <..I must again say that Morphy was greatest ever as I said before because of his natural ability,..> Natural ability doesn't make anyone "greatest" in any field of human endeavor. In chess, Reshevsky (one of Your 3 picks) is a good example of that. So is Capablanca when compared to accomplishments of Alekhine. There are numerous examples. And one constant:
they have all accomplished considerably more. |
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| Feb-10-12 | | Dr. Yes: Visayanbraindoctor - You have so many points, it's hard to answer them all at once; but I focus on Kasparov as the greatest in performance and opening preparation in your estimation....You should have added that his predecessors didn't have the endless data bases and computers to help them, not to mention a theoretical team headed by Dvoretsky. This kind of preparation was impossible in the past, but is a necessity nowadays. As for results, I'm not sure if Kasparov had as good percentages as some of his predecessors, especially Morphy and Keres. Would you mind checking? It should be mentioned that Morphy produced hundreds of games in only a year, which seems like a much quicker pace than today's GMs. |
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| Feb-10-12 | | AVRO38: What's it going to take to get chessgames.com to put an actual photo of Paul Morphy on this page? There are a number of good photos of him available. My personal favorites are the Paris 1867 shot: http://www.edochess.ca/batgirl/1Mor... and the New York 1859 Mathew Brady portrait:
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl... |
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| Feb-10-12 | | MORPHYEUS: That's easy. Buy a premium to have leverage. :) |
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| Feb-10-12 | | nanobrain: Times Democrat issue of July 11, 1884, Friday:
<DIED
MORPHY.--On Thursday, July 10, 1884. Paul Morphy, aged 47 years. Friends and acquaintances of the Morphy, Sybrandt and Fortin families are respectfully invited to attend his funeral, which will take place This Evening, at five o'clock from his late residence, No.89 Royal, between St. Louis and Conti Streets.> |
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Feb-10-12
 | | keypusher: <Bobby Fischer knew, and after doing all the research by comparing all the world champions and their contemporaries, I reluctantly came to agree. It was Paul Morphy.> Bobby Fischer also "knew" that Emanuel Lasker was a coffeehouse player, and rated him behind Tarrasch. Fischer adds nothing to your argument. You don't know who the most naturally talented chessplayer of all time is. Neither does anyone else. |
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| Feb-10-12 | | JoergWalter: <keypusher: You don't know who the most naturally talented chessplayer of all time is. Neither does anyone else.>
<talent> is the multipurpose word when other explanations fail. and <naturally talented> what does this mean? opposed to <artificially talented>?? |
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| Feb-10-12 | | acirce: The person with the biggest "natural chess talent" probably never started playing chess at all. |
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| Feb-11-12 | | Dr. Yes: To keypusher & JoergWalter. I'm going to assume that Mr. JoergWalter isn't being rhetorical, unlike some others. Natural talent or natural ability in English means a certain innate capacity that a person is born with to excel in certain skills, such as Mozart in classical music. These people excel at the chosen endeavor without too much training. This term nowadays in most often applied in sports in American English. People often speak of a 'natural' as someone who plays exceptionally well at a certain position in a team sport, or is extremely talented without training in an individual sport. For keypusher to assume that Bobby Fischer was wrong in any of his estimations would be to say that keypusher must have been a world class player, otherwise how could he expect us to take his word. It seems that too many people are taking a position from their lowly elevation where they can't see the forest, because of the trees. Examine what Bobby said from his stature as the greatest of the 20th century, and things might appear quite different. Unfortunately, Bobby speaking of Tarrasch and Lasker was speaking of an age of chess, three quarters of a century before his own, where Bobby could be a rabid reader of Shakmaty Bulletin and Informant. Pity poor Lasker, having only Bilguer's Handbook, or unreliable chess publications to use as references. He (Lasker) did better than any one else for a quarter of a century, even if his games looked coffee house to Fischer. I don't think that Fischer had any really severe criticisms of his contemporaries, which included a real bonafide 'coffee house' player; a man whom Vassily Smyslov criticized as a player whose game was merely, 'tricks.' That man, of course was the great and lovable Mikhail Tal. How could Fischer criticize a coffee house player who had beaten him four to zip in a Candidates Tournament? This man also has one of the winningest percentages of all time, despite his risk-taking. |
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| Feb-11-12 | | Dr. Yes: Mr Brankat - Your question is rhetorical since as you know, nothing can be measured precisely, and cigerette smoking has yet to be 'proven' to be harmful, unlike 'proof' in a court of law, which only requires liars' (White man speaks with forked tongue) and Indians are hung, or Blacks are electrocuted. |
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| Feb-11-12 | | King Death: <Dr. Yes> Do you really think this statement by Fischer got it right in spite of a treasure chest full of evidence that Lasker had the better career, including a world championship match won by the "coffeehouse player" +8-3=5? Lasker was such a fish. < keypusher: Bobby Fischer also "knew" that Emanuel Lasker was a coffeehouse player, and rated him behind Tarrasch....> Fischer, as great as he was made some statements that are hard to take seriously. In some ways he was as objective as they came especially when he matured at the board but look at his early games and some of his comments in print. |
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| Feb-11-12 | | King Death: < Dr. Yes: King Death, the last part of your last comments are indecipherable to me...> You put this kibitz below out there and tell somebody else that some their comments are "indecipherable"? < Dr. Yes: Mr Brankat - Your question is rhetorical since as you know, nothing can be measured precisely, and cigerette smoking has yet to be 'proven' to be harmful, unlike 'proof' in a court of law, which only requires liars' (White man speaks with forked tongue) and Indians are hung, or Blacks are electrocuted.> That's one of the best non sequiturs I've seen in my life. Where did executions come in here? |
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Feb-12-12
 | | OhioChessFan: I understood what <Dr. Yes> said and what he meant. It was a little round about but the gist was clear enough. I'm not sure if that's a good sign or not. |
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Feb-12-12
 | | HeMateMe: Does Paul have any tournaments coming up? |
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Feb-12-12
 | | harrylime: < HeMateMe: Does Paul have any tournaments coming up?> Yes. And against stronger players than your contemporary motley bunch lol |
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| Feb-12-12 | | Dr. Yes: Thanks for all the interesting comments guys. I'm glad you got the gist of what I was saying OhioChessFan. I really hate to have to write theses on subjects which give me no real benefit. To those that didn't get the point(s); I was just illustrating that rhetorical arguments involve trying to trap an opponent into too narrow a definition of words, or expanding and broadening the definition of terms that you use. Science of course uses 'proofs' that are much strickter than those used in a court of law. To say that we can't prove who was the best of all time is true in the scientific sense, but for a court of opinion, the debate is wide open. I would never accept any greatest of all time in chess as someone who came after Fischer. Chess is supposed to be an individual competition of the human mind. Today, it's a farce, where we give accolades to players who have teams of GMs, endless data bases, and super computer analysis to help rehearse games before they are officially played, but to each his own. I made these points before, which seem to be disregarded. Lastly, Fischer's comments are taken out of context. I find none of them outrageous anymore, after doing research. |
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| Feb-20-12 | | brankat: <Dr.Yes> <..arguments involve trying to trap an opponent into too narrow a definition of words,..> There should be no "opponents" around here. It's just that differences in opinions pop up now and then, which is understandable. As long as we handle it with a measure of civility. <I would never accept any greatest of all time in chess as someone who came after Fischer. Chess is supposed to be an individual competition of the human mind. Today, it's a farce, where we give accolades to players who have teams of GMs, endless data bases, and super computer analysis to help rehearse games before they are officially played> I believe there is a lot of truth in this. Still, I would seriously consider Karpov, whose very successful career took place, for the most part, before the age of computerized databases, table-bases and engines. He did receive a lot of help form his seconds, but he was still the lead man, the one that played OTB. One should also consider 12 years younger Kasparov. Up until about 1993, and those were his best years, computers were not of much help. Of course, there had been a number of excellent GMs, mostly of Karpov's generation, who perhaps wouldn't qualify to be among the greatest, but were still exceptional masters. The likes of: Beliavsky, Ljubojevic, Timman, Vaganian, Ribli, Adorian, Miles, Mecking, Cheskovsky. <Fischer's comments are taken out of context. I find none of them outrageous anymore,> I don't know which comments You are referring to. If they have to do with his estimates/opinions regarding the masters of the Past I agree. Mostly. With the exception regarding Dr.Lasker. What I also liked about Bobby's comments about these players is the fact that over the years he would, occasionally, change his opinions. As he grew, learned more and matured, he was not afraid to modify his views, which showed a high degree of intellectual honesty. I still remember some of his interviews dating back to the late 1950s'early '60s and through the sixties. How his views had changed in regards to, for example, Alekhine, Botvinnik, Tal. |
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| Feb-21-12 | | Dr. Yes: Brankat, you keep covering the same territory without presenting any evidence, so I wrote some answers, without rancor of any kind, but they were blown away again. Have a good day. |
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| Feb-21-12 | | RookFile: <What innovations? I know of no innovations in strategy by Steinitz, please enlighten me. > One example is Steinitz's idea that the king can take care of himself. Steinitz allowed far more liberties with his king than any player before him that I know of. Of course, he didn't do this just because he liked to see his king get kicked around - there was usually other compensation, such as a strong center. This is one example:
Steinitz vs Zukertort, 1886 |
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| Feb-21-12 | | ARubinstein: Believe me, it's a complete waste of time arguing with the "most talented ever" fundamentalists who act as though they can prove their case (regardless of which chess hero they adopt). All too often Morphy is their religion and Fischer their prophet. A rational, measured attitude is nowhere to be found. |
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| Feb-21-12 | | King Death: < Dr. Yes: King Death: ...Despite your obviously juvenile handle, you're probably a fun guy...> "Juvenile handle?" If you only knew. |
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| Feb-21-12 | | King Death: <ARubinstein> Of course you're right but that doesn't stop the whole orgy of "proof" from happening anyhow. It's just easier to stay clear of the whole mess. |
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| Feb-23-12 | | AVRO38: <<What innovations? I know of no innovations in strategy by Steinitz, please enlighten me. > One example is Steinitz's idea that the king can take care of himself. Steinitz allowed far more liberties with his king than any player before...> ...or since!
You failed to mention that his idea was a BAD idea, and that no master today would consider moving his king around in the opening as if it was a minor piece. A foolish idea that is discarded as soon as it appears does not constitute a contribution to chess. Show me how this unsound "idea" has influenced the modern game. Show me one modern opening that incorporates this idea. Show me one modern master that plays this way. |
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| Feb-23-12 | | TheFocus: I agree with <AVRO38> about this. It was a stupid idea. |
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| Feb-23-12 | | drnooo: Oft heard that Fischer changed his view of Lasker, oft, but how substantial was that. To date still have not seen any real lengthy words by him on the subject where he uses anything like profound, or amazing, or say the likes of Tal who called Lasker his favorite: that he could do miracles. And in the end, does it matter anyway: with or without Fischer, Lasker needs no one championing him. At their prime I suspect Lasker could well have beaten him , Lasker was probably the coolest great player ever to sit down at the board and could well have found any number of weaknesses in the man. Of all the greats come and gone he would have been my pick, at his very peak to go against Fischer at his.
If Geller could spot the weaknesses, Lasker could and would have. |
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