Chess in the Attic: top chess players 1982 style

Yesterday I decided to discover a vast collection of lost chess manuscripts; either that, or I was tidying the attic.

Flicking through some copies of "Chess" magazine from 1982, the headlines were hardly memorable: "Miles wins British Championship at last" seemed to be the highlight. Actually, in my chess house, 1982 will always be remembered as the year before my first appearance at the Britsh (U16 in Southport) and an unusual opening gambit from Cathy Forbes.

The July rating list caught my eye though: the top 3 were predictable enough, but Robert Hübner, a German best known for walking out of tournaments, was a surprise at number 4. The actual rating points is the most interesting though, Karpov's 2700 was good enough for 1st place in 1982, but would only get him 21st place in 2007, and Hübner's 2630 would wedge him in between Azmaiparashvili and Sutovsky in 84th spot.

Korchnoi, the elder stateman of the top 4 in 1982, but still active 25 years on, remains within 6 rating points of his 1982 figure.

Rating inflation has been talked about many times before: Rob from Tennessee uses it to argue that Paul Morphy is the greatest player of all time, although according to Wikipedia he doesn't come close.

Here's Morphy turning on the style at the Opera: