I wanted your opinions.....

Originally posted by YUG0slav
why analyze a game from the 15th century? Especially when the rules are different?

can't we just analyze a game of checkers?

The rules were only slightly different--castling is the only major one.

We analyze these old games to determine the general strength of play from each era. It's just a good thing to know--why automatically discard four hundred years of pre-Steinitz theory? Surely there's some useful stuff in it.

Originally posted by Gioachino Greco
The rules were only slightly different--castling is the only major one.

We analyze these old games to determine the general strength of play from each era. It's just a good thing to know--why automatically discard four hundred years of pre-Steinitz theory? Surely there's some useful stuff in it.

Up to a point - you have to bear in mind that in those days they hadn't understood things like getting your queen out early is a surefire way of losing early. Besides, a lot of these old games were invented by El Greco to illustrate some point or other.

This isn't as ancient as all that, but it's short and illustrates that point about not getting your queen out too early quite well:

Event "?"]
[Site "London ENG"]
[Date "1842.??.??"]
[Round "19"]
[White "Cochrane, John"]
[Black "Staunton, Howard"]
[Result "0-1"]
[ECO "B20"]

1.e4 c5 2.Bc4 e6 3.Nf3 Nc6 4.e5 Nge7 5.Nc3 Ng6 6.Qe2 Nf4 7.
Qe4 g5 8.g3 d5 9.exd6 f5 0-1

Originally posted by DeepThought
Up to a point - you have to bear in mind that in those days they hadn't understood things like getting your queen out early is a surefire way of losing early. Besides, a lot of these old games were invented by El Greco to illustrate some point or other.

This isn't as ancient as all that, but it's short and illustrates that point about not getting y ...[text shortened]... 4 e6 3.Nf3 Nc6 4.e5 Nge7 5.Nc3 Ng6 6.Qe2 Nf4 7.
Qe4 g5 8.g3 d5 9.exd6 f5 0-1

That is true. But then again, I suspect that men like Morphy and Anderssen would do quite well today.