Greatest chess player tournament

The Game Room
,
22

ISTM that many posters have addressed this point in the form of hypothesizing Morphy’s natural skills but with the added advantage of modern chess analysis. But I’m not sure that gets to the answer.

Because ISTM that being able to up one’s game via analysis of a zillion other games etc, is itself a skill, which is not necessarily distributed evenly. And it’s possible that Morphy, even if he had been afforded the opportunity to do so, would not have excelled at that aspect of chess to the extent that he excelled in natural talent. If that’s the case, then he might have lost to any modern great, even if he had the same advantages.

In sum, it’s possible that if you took Morphy and brought him to the modern age of chess, and gave him the same chess history and computer analysis etc. to study, that he would still lose to the likes of Kasparov. But at the same time, if you took Kasparov and brought him back to Morphy’s time, thus removing the benefits of chess history etc., that he would lose to Morphy.

Essentially, the game changed over time in a way which might advantage or disadvantage people with different skillsets.

23

That’s interesting – it puts Morphy’s ELO at 2408 according to that analysis (which is full of caveats, as said.) So not quite grandmaster level, but it does jibe with my intuition that many grandmasters today would beat him. Kramnik ahead of Kasparov is a little surprising, but I definitely could see it. I’m perhaps a little surprised that Fischer clocked in at #4. I thought Vishy would have placed above him, but it’s very very close. (2775 vs 2759).

So, going by those ELO ratings, using the pairings in the OP, for those interested, the probabilities would be according to the chess.com analysis:

Fischer vs Alekhine: single games, Fischer wins 64% of the time, Alekhine wins 6% of the time. Draws 30%

Karpov vs Morphy: singles game (with who gets white randomized), Karpov wins 73%, Morphy 5%, draws 22%

Kasparov vs Morphy: single game, Kasparov wins 86%, Morphy 2%, draw 12%

Carlsen vs Alekhine: single game, Carlsen 86%, Alekhine 1%, draw 12%

Carlsen vs Kasparov: single game, Carlsen 46%, Kasparov 8%, draw 46%

That’s just going by estimated ELO ratings based on Chess.com’s analysis. It doesn’t account for styles of play, psychological factors, and that sort of stuff. And remember, that’s for single game. Extend the amount of games and you will see those win percentages increase significantly.