But how strong was he ... really?

Actually, I agree with you!

The ChessMetrics database is NOT complete. However, it IS much more reliable than just merely guessing!

For example, any chess history buff can tell you that Geza Maroczy was an extremely strong player. He won - quite a few - international tournaments, and was seriously considered as a legitimate World Championship contender. But how strong was this player, really?

Jeff Sonas shows him as the 11th strongest player who ever lived!!! (http://db.chessmetrics.com/CM2/Play...)

Now, if you would like to reject that out of hand, fine. But unless you can offer your own list of ratings ... based on 1/1000th the work that Mr. Sonas has put in ... then I would have to say that you are not interested in serious debate, only throwing around hollow and meaningless criticisms.

1.) we ARE talking about statistical analysis here. So alexmagnus charge that chessmetrics ratings for early 20th century players are not to be trusted do to incompleteness is hardly "hollow and meaningless."

2.) If you are claiming it is impossible to rate these guys reliably do to the small sampling size and incomplete data...you don't provide a "better" list

I also take it that you did not follow the general thrust of my line of reasoning.

To me it sounded like you were claiming that people who attempt to rank early 20th century players using unreliable methods are "enhancing the game as a whole" while those who questioned there system were blowing hot air.

Perhaps we just have different conceptions of what "enhancing this site" means (though to me refuting outlandish and unfounded claims by other posters is just as important as trying to figure out if Bird or Maroczy was stronger).

Scientifically, it is impossible to ACCURATELY compare players of different generations! How to compare the players of today ... who use computers and books and databases ... with the players of the 1800's?

In the end, its fun to think of questions like: "What happens when Paul Morphy plays Garry Kasparov?" (Of course you would have to find a way to have them meet on a level playing field.)

I attempt to do my comparisons in as logical and scientific a manner as possible. But in the end, its all just idle speculation.

"The obvious alternative [to Tarrasch who decided to withdraw from a match with Lasker] was to defend the title against Maroczy. Once again negotiations were started, and an agreement was reached and published in the 1905 volume of Lasker's Chess Magazine. All the chess world was eagerly looking forward to an exciting struggle between Lasker and the Hungarian grandmaster; and there was widespread disappointment when Maroczy cancelled the arrangement at the last moment."

It may have been money. Around that time it was not an easy matter to find somebody/anybody eager to "bet" against Dr.Lasker. At the time, between 1896- 1902, the score between the two was +3 -1 =2 in Dr.Lasker's favour.

Overall, Maroczy's results by 1905 pale in comparison with Lasker's.

There is an interesting observation by G.Marco made around that same time:

"It is remarkable, and deserves a special mention that the great masters, such as Pillsbury, Maroczy and Janowsky play against Lasker as though hypnotized."

<Maroczy's nature is an artistic one, at once kind and lofty. A small example: Marshall is in terrible time trouble and he, Maroczy, lets his own clock run on for an hour so that he does not have to win the game through an overstepping of the time limit.>

We would have lost a classic otherwise:

<Maróczy, the young Hungarian master, is as thin as he is tall. He does not smoke; he does not drink; he plays with evident concentration of all his faculties. He has a particular manner of moving his shoulders around and staring at the board with extraordinary intensity. As regards his play, he has a kindly, persuasive way of pressing his opponent which is altogether unusual: he seems to insist that his opponent resign; when the latter is unwilling to be persuaded, the game is generally drawn. Maróczy has many draws in his total, [...].>

Source: "La Stratégie", 15 July 1899

In a written tribute to Maróczy (http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/...), Capablanca mentions of a match between Maróczy and the then-Hungarian-champion Géza Nagy, in which Maróczy totally destroyed Nagy.

Wikipedia tells me the match ended +5-0=3, and occurred in 1927/8.

Yet I can't find any games of that match.
I only found one (1) game between them, from ChessBase's Database, dated 1924, being a 39-move draw.

Description: <He was an ample six feet of bone and skin especially skin. His skin, which hung loosely in innumerable ripples like that of a Chinese Shar-Pei dog, seemed roomy enough to accommodate two people of his size. Though as a young man he tried but failed to grow a mustache, he did manage to accumulate a surfeit of black hair, which silvered a bit toward the end of his life. Mary Bain, whose guest Maróczy was for a while in New York, remembers the day he had his hair cut; a memorable occasion merely because it was so rare. He had small, deep-set eyes that sparkled with energy, prominent cheekbones, a broad mouth, and a mighty set of teeth that must have been the despair of dentists. His cadaverous frame was fortunately supported by a pair of enormous feet, which, despite his old-fashioned clothes that ballooned like sails, kept him upright in the strongest wind. He moved very slowly, and talked even more slowly, especially in such difficult languages as German and English. He thought exclusively in Hungarian, and although he struggled hard to make the complicated linguistic switches, he always sounded Hungarian. Playing bridge, he never won the "rabber," as did Bogoljubow, but always the "rebbey.">

Regarding the WC match against Dr. Lasker: <That plan emerged soon after the tournament at Cambridge Springs 1904. New York chess circles tried to raise the money for the match stakes, but failed. In time, Maróczy was grateful both for the effort and for its failure. He realized that Lasker would have been too much for him he had always felt handicapped when facing a heavy smoker.>

Regarding the pause he made and the comeback after WW2: <Maróczy was forced to live in exile for some seven years. Somehow he had become compromised during the Communist revolution that shook Hungary in 1919. To imagine Maróczy as a revolutionary, and a Communist one at that, is completely ridiculous. He would never knowingly break the law or abet any kind of law-breaking. The only explanation for his difficult situation is that he must have fallen into some sort of political trap, perhaps by signing a petition the portent of which he failed to appreciate. He was naive enough to have done that.