When he was still actively playing, he seemed almost unbeatable, and nobody understood why. Somehow Morphy intuitively knew when to start an attack and when he did, it magically always worked out, while other top players at that time often saw their attacks turn into nothing and would soon lose afterwards. It took a decade until an a dedicated studier of his game, Wilhelm Steinitz, figured out the logic behind it. His theory of positional play changed the way people looked at chess and meant the start of the modern chess era.
Morphy himself didn't live to see this, after quitting chess he became increasingly schizophrenic and eventually died penniless and alone.
The point was taken, see my comment below. I didn't know the context behind the quote, I understand that Morphy didn't mean it the way I took it.
Nevertheless, I think that under the general interpretation of what it means to know chess well (which is surely different from Morphy's), I stand by my idea that knowing chess well can be a positive thing.
I think so. I'm getting a lot of flak over it though :-<
> If we raise the bar to 2500+ maybe you will agree?
I can't say. I do have an acquaintance who is at ~2600 level who is also a well adapted guy. He's not a full time player anymore, though.
I have no opinion on whether chess performance at a GM level is bad for you. All I wanted to say was that you can get pretty far with chess (I think a level of 2000-2300 qualifies as pretty far for the general population) without it affecting your life negatively.
2600 rating on sites like lichess or chess24 is much more plausible, it corresponds to roughly 2150-2300 fide rating.
Yes. He's a pretty well known Australian player, not sure how active he is anymore though. Now has a full time academic career.
Edit:
After verifying on the FIDE website, I see his ranking is around 2500 now. He is a GM though.
(Two of them are from exUSSR, and the last one has a surname that sounds Chinese)
(Also, verifying the plausibility of statements by internet users is a personal hobby of mine, hope you understand)
> verifying the plausibility of statements by internet users is a personal hobby of mine, hope you understand
https://xkcd.com/386/ not sure it's the healthiest hobby, but I guess I understand.
The quote is from Paul Morphy, the best player of the 19th century. He practically invented playing chess well. And he hated it, he felt he should have become a lawyer and did something useful with his life.