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Two Eras of Chess
Posted: Tue Dec 09, 2014 1:21 pm
by Steven DuCharme
1. without ratings 2. with ratings please discuss
Re: Two Eras of Chess
Posted: Fri Dec 12, 2014 10:41 am
by Francis Fields
There was a website I saw over ten years ago that calculated historical ratings using game results. (It had Capablanca as 2805 and Alekhine 2780). In theory I believe this could be done all the way back to the dawn of chess.
Re: Two Eras of Chess
Posted: Fri Dec 12, 2014 10:52 am
by Roger de Coverly
Francis Fields wrote:There was a website I saw over ten years ago that calculated historical ratings using game results. (It had Capablanca as 2805 and Alekhine 2780). In theory I believe this could be done all the way back to the dawn of chess.
http://www.chessmetrics.com/cm/
Whilst presumably reliable for exploring the differences between players who were contemporaries, I don't think it terribly trustworthy for matching players over time. Whilst pausing the game for analysis at around move 40 helped the standard of play in late middle games and endings, I think today's players know vastly more about openings and early middlegames and endings where these have been solved by the tablebases.
Ratings (grades) were first invented in the early 1950s in the USA, Germany and UK, going international in 1970. Certainly they facilitated increases in International chess and the concept of seeded Swiss tournaments, but I don't think they changed the nature of chess so much. In more recent times, you could point to the development of database software in the mid to late 1980s or the availability of GM level analysis software from around the mid 1990s.
Re: Two Eras of Chess
Posted: Mon Dec 15, 2014 3:17 pm
by Francis Fields
How good players are from different eras is surely one of the points of a consistent rating system. The only question in my view is how good can the comparisons be over time.
Re: Two Eras of Chess
Posted: Mon Dec 15, 2014 7:09 pm
by John McKenna
I hold chess to be timeless: and if Wellsian chrono-transport (time machines) were available, I would expect performers from the court (786-809 AD) of Haroun-al-Rashid to justify their entries in the present Soviet Championships...
I was unable to discover, in recent matches, any chess that might be cellared alongside vintage Alekhine. (Gerald Abrahams 1960 The Chess Mind)
His basic justification for writing that may rest on the following -
Mir Sultan Khan (1905-66) - perhaps the greatest natural player of modern times. Born in the Punjab, he learned Indian Chess (more akin to Shatranj than modern chess) when he was nine and learned the international game in 1926. Two years later he won the All-India Championship... in 1929... he won the British Championships... In 1930 he began a brief career that included defeats of many leading players.
(Oxford Companion Hooper & Whyld)