Beating Paul Morphy With His Own Moves

Paul Morphy ruled the mid-1800 chess era. In 1846, he became the best chess player in New Orleans when he was only nine years old. When he was 12, he went and dueled Johann Lowenthal, who was currently #15 in the world and beat him three times. And when he turned 20 years old, he became the Chess Champion of The United States. 

He later decided that the USA was too easy for chess competition, so he traveled to Europe to play some real chess masters such as Adolf Anderson and Staunton. But when he arrived in Paris, he got a bad case of gastroenteritis.

The treatment for this, was to put blood-sucking leeches on Morphy's body and hope that they would suck the "bad blood" away. This resulted in Morphy having a substantial amount of blood loss, and instead of canceling or postponing the match, he played 11 games with Adolf, all while not being able to think clearly.

And he beat him seven times. 

He was so far ahead of his time, that he was named the first (unofficial) world chess champion. But when he was 21, he decided that chess was too easy for him, so Morphy retired from the game very early on and rarely played again. 

But when he was in his prime, Morphy was an incredible attacker and the literal definition of a romantic player. His opening choices were risky, but they always made his opponents uncomfortable. He never missed a chance to sacrifice in the middlegame, and in the endgame... well... he destroyed his opponents so badly that I am not sure he has ever played an endgame in his life. 

But then, in 1884, when he was 48, he was murdered in a snowstorm (well maybe not but, it sounds less depressing than "dying in a bathtub"). And more than 100 years later, he was reincarnated as a chess computer with a strength of 2500. 

Paul Morphy is the incarnation of attacking chess. Do your best to survive playing one of the all time greats! 

And just for the heck of it, I thought I would play the most romantic, most daring, most risky opening I know against Paul Morphy, just to see how they would respond. On move 10, I was down 7 points in material but managed to claw my way back with an awesome finish, where I had two brilliants. 

But I had not done this first try. 

I had not really "studied" this romantic opening, I just sort of searched the engine database for the "double muzio gambit" and called it cool. In my first game, I had forgotten the main principles while playing the king's gambit, and I didn't know what quite I sacrificed my pieces for, other than because it looked fun. That caused me to quickly throw away my attacks, and I allowed Morphy-Bot to create a concrete defense. I resigned because I didn't think I could outplay Morphy while down 6 points in material. 

And although a lot of the moves were computer-approved "excellent" and "good" moves, I still found myself playing toward defeat. My problems first started when I chose the more safe way of playing, pushing d3 instead of d4 (safe is not how you play this opening), and then giving away most of the attack by doing random developing moves that would be good in other openings but not here. 

So after that loss, I did some research on this opening and studied all the main lines. 

But then, in our next match, they played a variation that was unheard of. It had literately never been played in human history, and I was bamboozled when I saw it. My reaction was naturally a blunder, and I played the rest of the game pretty poorly, getting mated on move 26. 

And in our next rematch, I actually handled the opening relatively well, but I was rushing my moves and blundered a rook.

I had lost for the third time in a row.

It seemed that with every new move that they had played, I had almost always replied with a blunder. I lost to them a ridiculous amount of times- Maybe today's modern Grandmasters were right and the muzio was bad after all. 

  Two more losses and I would have been adopted by morphy... I dodged a close one there. 

I was starting to get a bit peeved at the computer. They were not playing the opening perfectly, but it was still enough to beat me. So instead of pouting about my bitter losses, I learned from my mistakes and saw where I was going wrong, and how to gain a winning advantage. And if there is one thing I learned when looking at these losses, is that if it isn't the best move, it is a blunder. 

It may seem like an exaggeration, and the computer will agree with you, but if you want to turn your fallen pieces into a devastating attack, you will have to play near-perfect. But for me, a 1400-rated patzer, playing perfect chess while sacrificing more than one piece in the opening was out of the cards. I could have just quit, and decided that this opening was not for me, but I challenged Morphy one last time.

And I finally had success. I started the match by playing the main-line book move theory and transitioned into the middlegame by trading queens, and following  Morphy's footsteps, I sacrificed my last remaining bishop to threaten mate. 

They declined, so a few moves later I sacrificed the same bishop. It did not matter if they declined or accepted. I would have the option to checkmate either way. And a few more moves later, it was game over for Morphy. 

 I beat a WCM chess.com streamer the next game and I was feeling pretty good about myself... then I went and tilted my blitz /;

Paul Morphy basically invented attacking chess, and I played the most aggressive opening I know against him. He made some of the best sacrifices ever, and I sacrificed four pieces against him. He finished off his opponents so quickly that he rarely had to play an endgame, and I beat him while half the pieces were still on the board. 

in other words, I destroyed Morphy with his own style

  Here's proof I didn't do it on one star 

And even though I missed a few tactics, I wasn't too sad about those because there were a lot of chances to have puzzle-worthy moves. My two brilliants empowered the two bad moves. Check below for an image where you can see the evaluation going crazy, and proof that this game was filled with romantic blunders-

I think that is the first time I agree with my coach on how the game went. 

Good game @Morphy-bot, these were honestly some of the most exciting games I have ever played, and I really don't get why people are scared to play this in real games... oh well. And if you guys like primates, such as gorillas, orangutans, or Japanese snow monkeys go check out my ape fan club. And for all my readers, my next post will be in about two weeks, and it will probably be the best post I have ever done, so watch out for that. Sooo. yeah. Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed watching my blunders and brilliants, and please share your thoughts below.