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Yes, good stuff, Paul. Did your research include Amos Burn - not a British champion, of course, but I have always thought that he was a fairly useful performer. Of course, he might struggle without being able to smoke his pipe.Nick Burrows wrote: ↑Fri Feb 12, 2021 11:17 amVery interesting post Paul, thanks.Paul Cooksey wrote: ↑Fri Feb 12, 2021 7:55 am
I think Blackburne was probably better than me. But I am not absolutely sure. His best games are fantastic, his worst poor. I suspect I would get good positions against him and then get blown away tactically.
Atkins is the first player I am sure was better than me, based on maybe 10 hours playing through his games with the computer running and thinking "could I have found that?". Although for a given value of sure. Nunn's point that to know how well someone plays you need to know how strong their opponents were means I am not absolutely sure. I would need help from AlphaZero.
(PS when I started I thought I might be better than Alexander. I'd like to apologise to his ghost for my hubris...)
Similarly, in the intro to Quality Chess' excellent version of 'My System', Aagaard says that Nimzowitsch was definitely better than him.
In the thread linked to above there's mention of using the matching of the moves in old games with those of the best modern computer engines, but it was said to be too early to come to any real conclusions. Well more than 10 years have elapsed since then so go figure.Keith Arkell wrote: ↑Mon Apr 20, 2009 12:44 pmYou get a better idea of Alekhine's playing strength if you select eg 10 of his games at random,rather than his very best efforts.I have never denied that he was talented.He just didn't have the information of today.
Of course those players gave all of us inspiration in our youth.I enjoyed Capa's best games and eg Rubenstein's R+P endings.
However,I don't think it unreasonable to suggest that,in the context of a world which is speeding up all the time,and in which we are advancing so rapidly in other areas,the level of play in chess has risen...
It's also easy to see just by playing through the games that something magical happened to chess soon after the days of Alekhine and Capablanca.Capa was saying that chess had become sterile,or words to that effect,and along came the likes of Botvinnik,then Keres and then Bronstein,and introduced rich new ideas in eg the Kings Indian.
Anyway,I already rested my case. It is obviously unfair to measure the overall strength of past players with today's players.There is no comparison objectively speaking.This games of this Suechting,rated 28 in the World prove that.Call him 2559 if you like,but if he played like he did back then today he would get slaughtered.I strongly doubt that he would even maintain 2100...except one detail:He would of course improve! He would quickly learn from us.You see this debate isn't about talent,it is about information and knowledge.
Berger was playing in the Interzonal by virtue of winning the qualification place from the south east Asia zone. Qualifying for the Interzonal was one of the routes to an IM title. In 1969 even a high score in a European Zonal was enough for that title as David Levy demonstrated.John McKenna wrote: ↑Sat Feb 13, 2021 6:12 pmIn the 1964 Interzonal Larsen demolished Bela Berger, who he called, "the inexperienced Australian master" (at the time about 33 y.o.) in only 25 moves, but Berger (now a 90 y.o.) seems to have made IM at some point in time!?
David Sedgwick wrote: ↑Mon Feb 15, 2021 11:35 pm"It is quite clear that the Karlsbad [1911] players were far more prone to severe errors than contemporary players."
Compare and contrast the following two blunders:
W: Kf3, Ra4; B: Kg6, Rf5, Pf6: 1. Rf4??, Kg5; 0-1 Spielmann v Duras, Karlsbad 1907
W: Kg3, Rg4: B: Kg6, Rg5, Pf6: 1.Rxg5??, Kxg5; 2. Kf3, Kf5; 3. Kf2, Kf4; 0-1 Vachier-Lagrave v Radjabov, Opera Euro Rapid 2021
Thank you for the diagrams, John.
OK, might as well include what GM Matt Turner had to say about them in the thread "Re: Opera Euro Rapid..."
viewtopic.php?f=31&t=11502&start=15#p260920Matthew Turner wrote: ↑Tue Feb 16, 2021 4:08 pmWhilst these look similar, I think the Karlsbad mistake is much more understandable.
Spielmann (the player a pawn down) initiated an exchange of Rooks which would have led to the simple draw and just missed the King move
In the MVL example, it is the player who is a pawn ahead who initiates the exchange, so what did MVL think Radjabov was up to? With 19 minutes left you would have thought he would give it some consideration and even a moment's thought leads to the conclusion that the immediate exchange loses.