There have been many attempts to define historical players in comparative terms. In order to better understand the playing strength of these historical players, the main thrust has been to try to assign them ratings similar to those of modern players with whom we have a clearer idea of their relative strength. Arpad Elo tried to do this many years ago. Other attempts have been made in recent years including Jeff Sonas' Chessmetrics. Three more have popped up recently: Ron Edward's EDO, Mark Glickman' s Glicko and Jeremy Spinrad's Spino.

I've been looking them over and comparing them during the years just prior, though, and just after the Morphy period. Basically, I started with 1856-1862. Noticing the Morphy was still rated #1 by 3 out of 4 systems, in 1862, I decided to go further ahead another year - and Morphy was still #1 in 3 out of 4, but not the same ones. I then decided to go backwards from 1856 to the point where Morphy falls off the #1 ranking - I had totally expected him to be off in 1856. But I had to go all the way back to 1848 to get rid of Morphy. I'm not a statistician and I haven't a clue how these things are determined, but something seems askew. I took all this information and put it all together into the primitive chart below for everyone to see. To be honest, when we get to 1856, arcane players I've never heard of start appearing in the top 10 list - oh, so many surprises!