Paul Morphy

Paul Charles Morphy (June 22, 1837 - July 10, 1884), "The Pride and Sorrow of Chess," is considered to have been the greatest chess master of his time, and was an unofficial World Champion. Some chess grandmasters consider Morphy to have been the greatest chessplayer who has ever lived.

Morphy's chess play

Today many amateurs think of Morphy as a dazzling combinative player, who excelled in sacrificing his Queen and checkmating his opponent a few brilliant moves later. One reason for this impression is that chess books like to reprint his flashy games. There are games where he did do this, but it wasn't the basis of his chess style. In fact, the masters of his day considered his style to be on the conservative side compared to some of the flashy older masters like La Bourdonnais and even Anderssen.

Related Topics:
Combinative - La Bourdonnais

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Morphy can be and generally is considered the first modern player. If his games do not look modern, it is because he didn't need the sort of slow positional systems that modern grandmasters use, or that Staunton, Paulsen, and later Steinitz developed. His opponents hadn't yet mastered the open game, so he played it against them and he preferred open positions because they brought quick success. He played open games almost to perfection, but he also could handle any sort of position, having a complete grasp of chess that was years ahead of his time. Morphy was such a player who intuitively knew what was best, and in this regard he was much like Capablanca. He was, like Capablanca, a child prodigy; he played fast and he was hard to beat. Löwenthal and Anderssen both later remarked that he was indeed hard to beat since he knew how to defend and would draw or even win games despite getting into bad positions. At the same time, he was deadly when given a promising position. Anderssen especially complained of this, saying that one false move against Morphy and one may as well resign. Morphy would win his won games, but if he made an error, it was still a long, hard process trying to beat him, and more likely than not the game would still go to him in the end. "I win my games in seventy moves but Mr. Morphy wins his in twenty, but that is only natural..." Anderssen moaned, explaining his poor results against Morphy. Anderssen was perhaps grateful that he did get a 70 move win, as he didn't get many wins of any kind against Morphy.

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Of Morphy's 59 "serious" games ? those played in matches and the 1857 New York tournament ? he won 42, drew 9, and lost 8.

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