Hello,

we are searching for your chess-idol or the best player in your opinion.
tell us - who's the best!

http://www.sboberberg.de/vereine/svb...hlag/index.htm
under The Best

or

http://www.sboberberg.de/vereine/svb...umfrage01.html

thanks for your vote (and sorry for my bad english...)
) Frank

thanks for your vote (and sorry for my bad english...)
) Frank

Your english is so bad you would think it was german.

EZoto

From: EZoto
Date: 18/11/03 23:55 GMT Standard Time
Message-id: m


thanks for your vote (and sorry for my bad english...)
) Frank

Your english is so bad you would think it was german.

EZoto


My dear Euclides,

I know you were making a joke about Frank's website.

Actually, all of the Germans I have met personally speak (and write) better
English than most English people I know.

Frank's English is just fine. Certainly, it's better than my German!

Mark

To test this, you would have to have some tournaments played in the
morning, some in the evening, and some late at night. Most tournaments
are played during the day, so it's hard to say who is the best at all
times.


--Harold Buck


"I used to rock and roll all night,
and party every day.
Then it was every other day. . . ."
-Homer J. Simpson

My dear Euclides,

I know you were making a joke about Frank's website.

It is either perfect German or terrible English.

Actually, all of the Germans I have met personally speak (and write) better
English than most English people I know.

I can see that.

Frank's English is just fine. Certainly, it's better than my German!

Then why is he apologizing for?

Mark

(Frank) wrote in message . com...

Hello,

we are searching for your chess-idol or the best
player in your opinion. tell us - who's the best!


I wish you didn't have that "idol" part. I will ignore it :-)

http://www.sboberberg.de/vereine/svb...hlag/index.htm
under The Best

or

http://www.sboberberg.de/vereine/svb...umfrage01.html

[...]
) Frank

Long live trivia!!!

I see 25 chess players on your list. They
are all great players but some of them
do not have any title to be there, not
even fractional. Indeed, several of them
are less deserving to be there then Bronstein
who was somehow ommitted (and Bronstein too
is far from being a candidate for the best
chess player ever, but at least one can try
to see him perhaps as best a way, in one or two
aspects of the game). Furthermore, I would rather
have Sultan Khan or Bent Larsen than Robert Hubner
(while again, otherwise I like and respect Hubner a lot).

****************

The very first name on your list:

Francoise Andrè Philidor (1726 - 1795)

is actually a very strong candidate for being
the greates player ever. Indeed, nobody dominated
his contemporaries for a prolonged time, as a
practival player, nor as a theoretician, as Philidor.
The only reason to hesitate about naming him the best
ever is simple: the chess world during his time was
still very yaoung and very small--just a fraction
of Europe (mostly France, England, Spain, Italy,
Portugal).

********************

The situation was already dramatically different
during the Adolf Anderssen (1818 - 1879) time.
Anderssen was among the most sympathetic players
ever. He was among the strongest tournament players
ever. But he lost convincingly to Morphy, and
later he lost against Steinitz. He was a briliant,
combinational player but his theoretical contribbutions
were not outstanding. In conclusion, with all due
respect, Anderssen is not a serious contender for
the strongest ever.

*********************

Wilhelm Steinitz (1836 - 1900), the first official
Chess World Champion is a strong candidate for
being recogniozed as the greatest. There were times
when he dominated his contemporaries without any
doubt--indeed, he had a very long streak of wins
at one time. He won both matches with the talented
Zukertort, with Anderssen, two matches with Chigorin.
He was not a likeable person, to much involved into
pityful quarrels. But from the distance of a century
or a century and a half one has to admire him.
He was always a fair fighter, giving a chance to
his most dangerous opponents.

His theoretical contribution is not second to anyone's.
Certainly he had the most profound and dramatic effect
on the whole way the chess was played. He called his
positional method "modern", and it was fair to do so.
In my mind and in the mind of hundreds of thousands
of chess player the modern era of chess starts with
Steinitz.

And still, if there is only one "the greatest", it is
not easy to award this title to Steinitz. Morphy and
Capablanca were more elegant, Rubinstein was more
profound, Zukertort and Bronstein more poetic...

Steinitz was a strong tournament player but not as
formidable as the next three champions: Lasker,
Capablanca, Alechine.

Steinitz was an obstinate man, who was trying to
prove his theories sometimes too hard, against common
sense. Hence on occasions he played some (relative)
garbage--he was not repulsed by superficiality.

While Capablanca praised Steintz's endgame skills, it
was only to put Alechine down. Otherwise I am not aware
of Steinitz as a contributor to the endgame theory or
practise.


**********

Paul Morphy was an incredible talent. He played so nice.
He was a very strong tactician but his tactical plays
most of the time seemed simple, simlply flowing from his
superb positional way of playing open games. First I learned
about Morphy's games from a nice textbook by Rochlin (in Russian).
It was in late fifties. The text was relatively free from
primitive Soviet propaganda, it had some good words also
about Western Players. Morphy's games have changed the way
I looked at chess, they have brought chess to me.

Morphy dominated others like only a very few others did,
and he was never on the receiving end. It is a greatr pity
that he didn't play for another twenty-thirty years.
POssibly he would make himself the undisputed greastest
ever but he ... didn't.

Morphy was superstrong in every phase of the game,
including endings. Steinitz has to be credited with
the theory of the positional playing (of course), but
Morphy would pick Steinitz's ideas easily, would refine
them, would avoid superficiality--he was more artistic
then Steinitz. Morphy would but he didn't. It was not his
fault, his health gave up. Nevertheless his career was
painfully short. It left us with wondering "what if".

Morphy during his active time was so young that he
played only his seniors. To me one of the most important
signs of the greatness is winning against the next
generation. Morphy didn't have such an opportunity.

***********

(to be contined or not :-)

Wlod

Please continue.Perhaps you can help Kasparov "write" Part 2 of MY Great Chess
Predecessors..Very good info Thanks

EZoto wrote:
Then why is he apologizing for?

I'm sorry -- aren't you the guy who was criticizing somebody's English a
moment ago?


Dave.

--
David Richerby Adult Cat (TM): it's like a cuddly
www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~davidr/ pet that you won't want the children
to see!

Hi Wlod,

very interesting - I hope you will continue :-)!!

regard
) Frank

On 19 Nov 2003 15:14:11 +0000 (GMT), David Richerby
wrote:

EZoto wrote:
Then why is he apologizing for?

I'm sorry -- aren't you the guy who was criticizing somebody's English a
moment ago?

Why............yes.......I was. Good one.

EZoto