Checkmate by Castling
Morphy was born in New Orleans to a wealthy and distinguished family. He learned to play chess by simply watching games between his father and uncle. His family soon recognized the boy's talent for the game and encouraged him to play at family gatherings, and by the age of nine he was considered to be one of the best players in the city. According to his uncle, Ernest Morphy, no one formally taught Morphy how to play chess; rather, Morphy learned on his own as a young child simply from watching others play. After silently watching a lengthy game between Ernest and Alonzo, which they abandoned as drawn, young Paul surprised them by stating that Ernest should have won. His father and uncle had not realized that Paul knew the moves, let alone any chess strategy. They were even more surprised when Paul proved his claim by resetting the pieces and demonstrating the win his uncle had missed. At just twelve years of age, Morphy defeated visiting Hungarian master Johann Löwenthal in a three-game match.
This beautiful game was played when he was just 14, in the year of 1850. He checkmated his father (Judge Alonzo Morphy) by castling and astonishing fact is that he started his game without Ra1 i.e. the queenside rook (worth five points to the three of a bishop or knight and the nine of a queen). Morphy played 15. Qg4+ Kd3, 16. Qe2+ Kc2, 17. d3+ Kxc1, 18. 0-0 mate. This is a beautiful conclusion - and beauty is not to be underestimated in chess. There are rare games end with checkmate by castling.
He was phenomenal with the initiative. Time and time again we see him sacrficing a pawn or two or a piece sometimes for the initiative.
Along with this content, I feel shy to include one 60 second bullet game played by me after I achieved 2k ratings here in chess.com. In the game I also had the oppurtunity to checkmate my opponent (another +2k player in bullet) by castling queenside. I feel excited after my successful attempt to hunt my opponent's king and checkmating thereafter by castling. Everything happened so fast as it was 1 minute bullet game. So if you find many mistakes please ignore them and share this post with others if you like the main content and then my game.
Hope you enjoy this post. Stay tuned.
