Is the overall quality of chess play getting better?

[OneCentStamp]

I'm speaking of chess at the Grandmaster, world championship level. Is it steadily getting better? It's generally accepted that the level of competition in physical sports has been constantly rising for the last 100 years: basketball players are getting taller and more athletic for their size, NFL offensive linemen now routinely weigh 360 not-that-fat pounds, almost 100 pounds more than just 20 years ago, and the world record for the 100 meter dash continues to trickle downward.

Does the same principle hold true for the purely mental exercise of chess? I know (I think I know) that each new generation generally posts winning records against the "old guard," but is that simply because the old guard is...well, getting old, i.e. losing their faculties, or is the game leaving them behind?

Sample questions for thought:
- If you dropped a legendary player of yesteryear - say, a prime Capablanca or Alekhine - into this year's World Chess Championship, would he be slaughtered?
- If the answer is "yes," is it because the players today are smarter and better prepared, or has the game itself evolved, in much the same way that nobody in today's NBA uses the two-handed set shot, and no NFL team runs a T formation?
- If you took one of those above-mentioned grandmasters of old and pitted him against Deep Blue like they did with Kasparov, would they probably make a similarly respectable showing? Would they be totally outclassed, losing every single game?

Educated guesses welcomed.

[Xema]

Originally Posted by OneCentStamp

- If you dropped a legendary player of yesteryear - say, a prime Capablanca or Alekhine - into this year's World Chess Championship, would he be slaughtered?

glee should soon be along to provide authoritative answers.

I'll note that one thing all heavy-duty chess players do is study high-level games. When an effective innovation appears, it - and the things that can be done against it - thus soon become known. A top-level player from a former age that was dropped into a modern tournament would be missing this knowledge and thus at a big disadvantage.

[glee]

Originally Posted by Xema

glee should soon be along to provide authoritative answers.

I'll note that one thing all heavy-duty chess players do is study high-level games. When an effective innovation appears, it - and the things that can be done against it - thus soon become known. A top-level player from a former age that was dropped into a modern tournament would be missing this knowledge and thus at a big disadvantage.

You're very kind!

And you make an important point that there is a huge amount of opening theory. I'm a Master (below International Master and Grandmaster), but even I have played 14 moves of known theory in a tournament game a few times.

I think that Fischer (who knew a lot before computer databases made millions of top games available in easy access) once said that Morphy was the greatest, but that if he came back it would take 6 months of study before he was ready to compete at the highest level.

By the way, here's an interesting Fischer story from a leading Dutch player and journalist.

[JohnT]

Originally Posted by OneCentStamp

Sample questions for thought:
- If you dropped a legendary player of yesteryear - say, a prime Capablanca or Alekhine - into this year's World Chess Championship, would he be slaughtered?
- If the answer is "yes," is it because the players today are smarter and better prepared, or has the game itself evolved, in much the same way that nobody in today's NBA uses the two-handed set shot, and no NFL team runs a T formation?
- If you took one of those above-mentioned grandmasters of old and pitted him against Deep Blue like they did with Kasparov, would they probably make a similarly respectable showing? Would they be totally outclassed, losing every single game?

Educated guesses welcomed.

How about wild-assed guesses? That's all I got, but I don't want to see this thread disappear.

1. I don't know about "slaughtered", but I would say that they're at a severe disadvantage. Not to mention the culture shock: "What do you mean I can't have my cigar during my game?!?", that sort of thing.

2. Probably that most infuriating answers: "both". The players of today have records of what Capablanca did, but Capablanca doesn't have corresponding records of what's happened to the game since you grabbed him. So today's players would be better "prepared" than Capablanca, but not necessarily "smarter".

Also there are more chess players from more regions of the globe than back in the day. More competitors spur development and evolutions of strategies. So the game has evolved beyond what they understand it to be.

And the further back in time you go, the more pronounced these disadvantages become.

3. I think the GM's of old would have a good chance against a 10 year-old computer. Seriously, I'm not even qualified to answer this. So I'm gonna say "Sure".

[OneCentStamp]

Thanks to both of you. Wild-assed guesses are always welcome in my threads.

Anyone else have any thoughts?

[Frylock]

We know a lot more about opening variations now than we did in "olden times" so on that basis alone it's likely that a player from then would get beaten in a tournament today.

That addresses your second question--it's a way of saying the game has changed since then.

I have a question to add to the OP, though. What about the quality of tactical play? For example, say we took Capablanca or Alekhine, dropped them into the year 2008, and had them play a game of Fischer Random Chess (i.e. pieces, king and queen all randomly scrambled on the back rank at the beginning of the game). In such a game, knowledge of opening variations gets you nowhere, and it's all about tactical acumen*. Is there any reason to think players today would tend to defeat grandmasters of yesteryear in such a situation?

-FrL-

*Knowledge of opening principles is still important, though. I am vaguely aware that at some point in the 20th century general opening principles went up for grabs to some extent with the introduction of "hypermodern" openings. But did the consensus concerning general opening principles change so much that it would make a serious difference in quality of play between early 20th century Grandmaster level players and late 20th century Grandmaster level players?

[glee]

Originally Posted by Frylock

I have a question to add to the OP, though. What about the quality of tactical play? For example, say we took Capablanca or Alekhine, dropped them into the year 2008, and had them play a game of Fischer Random Chess (i.e. pieces, king and queen all randomly scrambled on the back rank at the beginning of the game). In such a game, knowledge of opening variations gets you nowhere, and it's all about tactical acumen*. Is there any reason to think players today would tend to defeat grandmasters of yesteryear in such a situation?

Tactics don't just 'happen' - they arise out of build-ups or mistakes. Nevertheless you can practice spotting them.
Once again computers come to the aid of the modern player. It's easy to get a collection of (say) 10,000 positions with tactics present and play through them all.
This is incredibly useful - but relies on the database collating the information for you...

-

Originally Posted by Frylock

*Knowledge of opening principles is still important, though. I am vaguely aware that at some point in the 20th century general opening principles went up for grabs to some extent with the introduction of "hypermodern" openings. But did the consensus concerning general opening principles change so much that it would make a serious difference in quality of play between early 20th century Grandmaster level players and late 20th century Grandmaster level players?

Tarrasch was an 'orthodox' Grandmaster 100 years ago, and his standards of rapid piece development, control of the centre and castling early still count.
However there are exceptions in chess and although Nimzowitch came up with some amazing 'hypermodern ideas', you can still play 1. d4 and 2. Nf3 in top chess safely. You might only draw, but nothing bad is going to happen in the opening.

[The Controvert]

Originally Posted by glee

you can still play 1. d4 and 2. Nf3 in top chess safely. You might only draw, but nothing bad is going to happen in the opening.

Assuming you wanted to win, how many modern opening moves are possible? i.e. is d4 or e4 the only viable starts against a modern grandmaster? Is d5 or e5 the only viable responses?

[Frylock]

Originally Posted by glee

Tactics don't just 'happen' - they arise out of build-ups or mistakes. Nevertheless you can practice spotting them.

Thanks for the reply. But I can't figure out what in my post you thought the above was an appropriate response to. Could you elaborate? Where did I imply tactics just 'happen' or that they don't arise out of build-ups and mistakes? I just asked whether tactical acumen has risen over the centuries (esp. over the last century).

-FrL-

[glee]

Originally Posted by OneCentStamp

I'm speaking of chess at the Grandmaster, world championship level. Is it steadily getting better? It's generally accepted that the level of competition in physical sports has been constantly rising for the last 100 years...

I think chess is getting tougher too.
Of course it's far easier to measure physical prowess.

Originally Posted by OneCentStamp

Does the same principle hold true for the purely mental exercise of chess? I know (I think I know) that each new generation generally posts winning records against the "old guard," but is that simply because the old guard is...well, getting old, i.e. losing their faculties, or is the game leaving them behind?

Chess is a combination of preparation, concentration and will to win.
Once a player reaches his ambition (like Fischer with the World Title), it can be hard to find the motivation to work really hard just to stay at the same level.
Certainly youthful energy is great for much of chess, but experience and acquired knowledge also counts.
Roughly speaking, top players used to peak in their thirties. But now we have World Championship contenders in their twenties.
Korchnoi kept playing at high levels into his 70's, while Kamsky dropped out of chess for 7 years, but has made a spectacular comeback.
However I think these two are exceptions - both are highly dedicated to chess.

Originally Posted by OneCentStamp

Sample questions for thought:
- If you dropped a legendary player of yesteryear - say, a prime Capablanca or Alekhine - into this year's World Chess Championship, would he be slaughtered?
- If the answer is "yes," is it because the players today are smarter and better prepared, or has the game itself evolved, in much the same way that nobody in today's NBA uses the two-handed set shot, and no NFL team runs a T formation?
- If you took one of those above-mentioned grandmasters of old and pitted him against Deep Blue like they did with Kasparov, would they probably make a similarly respectable showing? Would they be totally outclassed, losing every single game?

1. See above for Fischer's opinion - even a Morphy would need time to analyse new opening theory. (I think one Capablanca - Alekhine World Championship match was almost all one opening; you can't restrict yourself to that luxury nowadays.)
They wouldn't be slaughtered, but I think they would draw almost all their games with White and lose many with Black.

2. These historical guys had incredible talent, but of course modern players have access to every move the old champions played. Plus computers can analyse every game, looking for weaknesses.
I'll risk a tennis analogy - who uses a wooden racket these days? You have to use computers to keep up in chess.

3. Playing a computer is nerve-racking.
They don't get tired or emotional. They analyse tactical situations superbly. They know all your games by heart, plus they are literally perfect in endings with only a few pieces left.
Some top players have a real 'presence' at the board. Tal, Fischer and Kasparov in particular had an 'aura', which could put make opponents nervous, which made these top players more confident etc.
Fischer mentions several times in his classic '60 Memorable Games' how he detected weakness or surprising confidence (his opponent had set a trap) at points in his games.
Playing a computer, you get no feedback at all. You simply don't have clues about how your opponent thinks the game is going.

After that introduction, you won't be surprised to hear that I think the old masters would struggle helplessly against computers.
Even the current world-class player Michael Adams got horribly crushed by Hydra:

Hydra defeated Adams by a score of 5.5 - 0.5
...
Hydra currently runs on a 64 node Xeon cluster, with a total of 64 gigabytes of RAM. It evaluates about 200,000,000 chess positions per second, roughly the same as the much older Deep Blue, but with several times more overall computing power

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydra_%28chess%29

[Bryan Ekers]

Personally, I think steroids and the designated castle rule are ruining the game.

[OneCentStamp]

Originally Posted by Bryan Ekers

Personally, I think steroids and the designated castle rule are ruining the game.

Yeah, have you seen the size of Anand's head recently? No way that guy isn't on the juice.

[Chronos]

plus they [computers] are literally perfect in endings with only a few pieces left.

Yes, but how often does a true endgame show up, nowadays? It seems like almost all games end in concession long before it gets to the point covered by endgame tables.

Some top players have a real 'presence' at the board. Tal, Fischer and Kasparov in particular had an 'aura', which could put make opponents nervous, which made these top players more confident etc.

You can say that again. I was at one of Kasparov's games versus Deep Blue. You could feel the liquid psychology just oozing off of him. Amazingly, he was even able to figure out how to use that psychological edge, despite his opponent being a computer: At one point in the game, he was rather behind on time, and needed to get some pressure off of himself. So he offered a draw. The computer, at that time, wasn't programmed to accept draws, so the decision went to the programmers. Just as Kasparov clearly predicted, they turned down the draw, but took a long time doing so, thus shifting the time pressure off of Kasparov.

[glee]

Originally Posted by Chronos

Yes, but how often does a true endgame show up, nowadays? It seems like almost all games end in concession long before it gets to the point covered by endgame tables.

Oh, we get some incredible endgames!

Here's the theoretical 2N v p win at the European Championship, the difficult R+B v R ending at the Corus event and the truly frightening World Cup game which reached a forced win (from tablebases) in 223 moves , but was agreed drawn in a mere 54 moves.

[borschevsky]

There's also the point that time controls have changed over the years, and particularly adjournments have been done away with. With less analysis time, the quality of endgame play has gone down, or so I've seen it claimed. I'm not sure that this has much to do with the strength of players from different times, but it is something those from the past might need to adjust to.

[glee]

Originally Posted by borschevsky

There's also the point that time controls have changed over the years, and particularly adjournments have been done away with. With less analysis time, the quality of endgame play has gone down, or so I've seen it claimed. I'm not sure that this has much to do with the strength of players from different times, but it is something those from the past might need to adjust to.

Yes, the game has changed precisely as you describe.

The main reason was that decades ago adjourned games could be legally analysed by teams of players for hours (or even overnight) before play resumed.
Fischer faced this problem a lot, since there were always spare Soviet GMs to help his Soviet opponents.

It's hard anyway to reconcile a single chess game which can last for 7 hours with players having meals and sleep etc, plus the tournament organisers supplying arbiters and venues for these mammoth sessions.

Fischer can claim credit for his idea of giving time increments, so players don't have massive time scrambles.