From Morphy to Magnus and Everything In Between
The game of chess is always changing.
New openings, new strategies, and philosophies are constantly surfacing. Don't believe me? Well, what if I told you that over the past 150 years, chess has undergone several drastic transformations? Below is a history of legendary thinkers who shaped the way we play chess today. This is the story of chess from Morphy to Magnus and everything in between.
Pre-Chess
Surprisingly, chess strategies predate the creation of actual chess. Below is an excerpt from the 1614 book 'The Famous Game of Chesse-Play' by Arthur Saul. For reference, the final rule of chess, en passant, only became widely accepted in 1880! If you can comb through the archaic language, you can find some very dated rules of strategy:
Arthur Saul's Doctrine:
1) If someone doth playeth well with their queeneth (like every loweth eloeth player), tradeth their queeneth and kicketh their asseth.
Saul claims that reading this book will profit you more than playing one thousand mates. Personally, I doubt that, but let's jump forward a century into the next great advancement of chess.
Phillidor's Pawnism
Fast forward a long time and you have a French chess player named Francois-Andre Danican Philidor. He was taught chess by Legall de Kemeur (known for discovering Legall's Mate). However, Philidor quickly became stronger and beat Legall in a match. He was then cemented as the strongest player of his era and nobody could beat him. In 1849, he wrote the legendary chess book 'Analyse du jeu des echecs'. You can read the English version here!
Below is one of the games from Philidor's book with Philidor's original annotations:
Note that I had to heavily reword the above annotations because the original was filled with archaic terms and was even written in descriptive notation. Also, note that it’s unclear whether this is a real game that took place or a theoretical game that Philidor created to walk people through his strategies. For my purposes, I’ll assume it is a game.
Philidor’s Philosophy
Les pions sont l'âme du jeu d'échecs! (The pawns are the soul of chess.)
— Francois-Andre Danican Philidor
Philidor said the above quote which later became iconic. Pawns, which in that era were underestimated and considered weak, finally found redemption. Philidor was one of the first chess masters to understand the value of pawn structure.
In the above game, Philidor talks about the importance of his pawn center right out of the opening. In fact, it started on just move 3 (!) when White played 3. c3. Philidor created and nurtured the pawn center that would march down the board and squash Black dozens of moves later. This is slightly off topic, but Philidor was also a music composer, click here to check out his Spotify profile.
But I digress. There’s no doubt that Philidor was ahead of this time and greatly advanced chess strategy. However, his positional play anecdotes would have to wait for a long time to become mainstream. Let’s skip forward to the 1800s as chess becomes serious!
Romanticism
Would I be wrong in saying that the Romantic Era was the Golden Age of chess? As an ooga booga tactical player myself, I live for wild attacks, flashy sacrifices, and quick checkmates. Games in the Romantic Era often produced all three - unlike the snoozefest draws we see at the top level today. I was truly born in the wrong chess generation 
Anyway, let’s go explore the wonderful world of Romantic chess!
a) Legendary Opening
There’s only one opening in contention here. You already know which one it is… The King’s Gambit, the most beautiful chess opening ever created and the start of countless brilliancies. If I was reborn as a chess opening, I would want to be the King’s Gambit. Just look below and I’ll show you why…
if you’ve read my other blogs (nobody reads my other blogs) you’ll know that I’m an absolute simp for the King’s Gambit. Laugh all you want, but I’m in good company. Do you know who else loves the King’s Gambit? The legendary Paul Morphy…
b) Legendary Player
Paul Morphy needs no introduction.
In case you're wondering who the three players on the right are, they're Staunton, Boden and Lowenthal, three players living in Morphy's shadow...
Paul Morphy is arguably the greatest chess talent ever. In a time when chess resources were thin, Paul Morphy rose to the top and is probably one of the chess GOATs. We can only imagine how strong he'd be if he was born in the modern era or if he had dedicated his life to chess. It's as if Morphy was a time traveler who dropped into the 1800s to show chess masters how it was done.
Now let's cover one of Paul Morphy's greatest games:
c) Legendary Game
I'm sure many people will assume that I'm using an überfamous game like the Opera House game. However, that gets repetitive quick. The game I'm about to show you was played between Morphy and the French chess player Henri Baucher. The interesting thing is that this game was played in a blindfold simul with eight players. That means Morphy played this 96% accurate brilliancy while juggling seven other games! Morphy definitely put his Crocs in Sport Mode for this one...
That was a masterstroke by Morphy, one of the greatest practitioners of romantic chess. However, around the turn of the century, chess took a drastic turn and it was all masterminded by one Wilhelm Steinitz. Let's take a look at the next major chess movement, Classicism.
Classicism
(note: confusingly, depending on who you ask, this school of thought is called either Classical Chess or Modern Chess)
The principles of classical chess, while having roots centuries ago, were first popularized by Wilhelm Steinitz. To understand Classicism, you need to first look at the differences between Morphy and Steinitz.
Morphy was born into a rich family and considered chess to be a fun hobby. He focused on aesthetics over concrete moves, and so produced many brilliant games. Steinitz, on the other hand, was born into a poor family. He considered chess to be an occupation, and financially needed to win games. This caused him to focus on objectively better moves, and so the Classicism philosophy was invented.
By the turn of the century, Romantic chess at the top level was dead. Steinitz and his followers realized that most king hunts were only successful because the defense was weak. Popular chess quotes like the below were spread to enable flashy sacrificial games:
if u decline a SACRIFICE ur a SCAREDY CAT!!! even if taking the sacrifice is LOOSING, ur still a SCAREDY CAT!!!!!!
— popular 1800s chess philosophy
Steinitz knew this was wrong and set out to disprove the Romantics. And so began the Classical School of chess!
a) Legendary Opening
The opening we've chosen in this case is actually named after the above player. It's the Steinitz Defense of the Ruy Lopez, and I believe it demonstrates the classical chess principles. The main idea of the Classical chess school of thought is that you need to control the center with pawns. In the Steinitz, Steinitz puts his e5-pawn in the center and proceeds to defend it with all he's got.
Sadly, Steinitz's favourite defense is now less than popular at master level, appearing less than 1% of the time. However, his legacy lives on through the slightly more sound Deferred Steinitz Variation (playing ...a6 before ...d6). This variation occurs 4.3% of the time and is the second most popular sideline for Black after the Berlin Defense (yuck).
I think I've been simping for Steinitz a bit too much here, so I'll switch it up for the Legendary Player section.
b) Legendary Player
Steinitz died in 1900, and that was the end of his chapter. However, the next chapter started as chess masters began expanding on Steinitz's work. One of them was Siegbert Tarrasch, a Prussian chess master with a magnificent moustache (just have a look below!). He was one of the greatest players to never win the World Championship.
Tarrasch was an excellent player, theoretician and writer. Among his opening innovations are the Tarrasch French, Tarrasch QGD, and Tarrasch Variation of the Ruy Lopez (commonly called the Open Variation). His style of play was extremely positional, and he had the special ability of converting winning positions with remarkable accuracy.
In particular, he liked having a space advantage and thought piece mobility was very important. One of his most important ideas is a quote which is still popular today:
Rooks belong behind passed pawns.
— Siegbert Tarrasch
As you can see, Tarrasch was definitely an extremely influential chess thinker. However, he was also a very difficult person. Before his World Championship match against Lasker, for example, he declared: "I only have three words to say to you, Dr. Lasker, check and mate." Tarrasch made enemies easily, and was very opposed to the next movement in chess, which was...
Hypermodernism
The main idea of hypermodernism was that the center did not need to be controlled by pawns. (of course, there's more, but this is the main idea) This went directly against the teachings of the Classical school which caused great debate at the time. In the 21st century, we now know the Hypermodernists were right. Popular top-level openings like the Grunfeld Defense are hypermodern.
However, that being said, hypermodernism did not disprove classicism, but instead added onto it. Tell that to everyone who wasted time debating on which school is better. Sort of like how people waste time arguing about Ronaldo and Messi, when Phil Jones is clearly the GOAT. Let's read on about some juicy drama between some 1900s chess masters:
The Beef Between Tarrasch and Nimzowitsch
This beef started when Tarrasch played against Nimzowitsch in 1904. On move 10, Tarrasch loudly exclaimed, "Never in my life have I had such a winning position in such few moves!" Of course, you can't fault Nimzowitsch for taking some offense to this, and thus started a heated chess feud. (if you're curious, the game was eventually drawn)
"How did the two of them duke it out?", you may ask. Was it a rap battle? A boxing match? A chess drag race?! Well, while all three of those would have been extremely entertaining, this battle was fought mostly on the chessboard and in chess literature. Let's have a look:
Tarrasch Beats Nimzowitsch
Their first game in 1904, which I talked about above, was drawn. However, in the ten games after that, Nimzowitsch won five, Tarrasch won two, and four were drawn. Here's one of the games, in which Tarrasch played his famous Tarrasch Defense and absolutely crushed Nimzowitsch:
Legendary Flame War
I also mentioned that Tarrasch and Nimzowitsch fought in chess literature. And it's true - both of them wrote many legendary books and never failed to mention the other in a bad light. For example, in Tarrasch's book, which is very creatively titled 'The Game of Chess', he writes this:
Nimzowitsch fires back by writing a four-part article titled 'Does The Game of Chess by Dr Tarrasch Really Correspond with the Modern Conception of the Game?' Also, in his legendary book My System, he dedicates an entire chapter to his anti-Tarrasch agenda.
Nimzowitsch's reply !
Just to summarize: Nimzowitsch thought Tarrasch's ideas were too dogmatic and rule-based, and Tarrasch himself was a 'mediocre person'. Tarrasch, on the other hand, thought Nimzowitsch's system was bizarre and unaesthetic. Anyway, let's have a deeper look at the hypermodern strategies:
a) Legendary Opening
We've already talked about how hypermodernism states that you don't need pawns in the center to control the center. That's the principle behind the Nimzo-Indian, a very prominent super GM-level opening and one of my favourites. It may seem an odd choice, but have a look below as I explain the Nimzo-Indian:
The Clash of Chess Styles
Until now, most of the top players have followed the same styles. For example, in the `800s, most players played flashy, swashbuckling Romantic chess. However, as chess as a game matured, players started developing unique styles. When two opposing styles clashed, it was quite fun to watch. Let's jump forward 25 years...
Mikhail vs Mikhail
The year is 1960... Mikhail Botvinnik has just regained the world title and was up against a 24-year old Mikhail Tal. Botvinnik was known for his quiet positional style, while Tal gained fame as a tactical genius. I think the best illustration of this style clash was in Game 6 of the World Championship. Have a look at the below sequence of moves:
We can see the huge clash of styles in the annotation to 19... Re7. Tal had a very calculative approach to the game while Botvinnik had great intuitive insights. Anyways, let's go forward to the next amazing style clash from 1976:
Attack and Defense
The next game was played in 1976 between Ljubomir Ljubojevic and Ulf Andersson. Ljubo was a dangerous attacker who produced many brilliancies, while Andersson was known for his quiet positional play. Whose strategy would emerge victorious in this epic style clash? Here's the game:
Magnus Philosophy
Finally, here's the philosophy that most top players these days seem to live by:
There are no styles - only weaknesses.
— Magnus Carlsen
Chess players these days seek to be all-rounded instead of favouring specific types of positions. Here's my tip if you want to be a more all-rounded chess player: get into uncomfortable position. For example, if you're an ooga booga tactical player, try out a quiet opening like the English to hone your positional skills (and vice versa).
The Mighty Magnus himself, one of the chess GOATs!
We've covered the march of chess ideas from the 1800s to present day chess. Now, let's have a look at what the future could have in stock for us chess players!
Stockfishism? AlphaZeroism?
In the future, it is definitely possible that we base our styles on chess engines instead of chess players. But do chess engines really have styles? Actually, yes they do. The most pronounced 'engine style' is that of AlphaZero. Yes, AlphaZero has a very succinct playing style which even Magnus has taken inspiration from. If you want to play like AlphaZero too, here's how:
(These are definitely not taken straight from this blog)
1. AlphaZero likes to target the king of the opponent.
2. AlphaZero likes king safety.
3. AlphaZero sacrifices material (about 1-2 pawns) to open lines and diagonals against the king of the opponent.
4. AlphaZero plants knights on beautiful outposts, and sometimes sacrifices material to get enough time to transfer them there.
Some great further reading is in this blog, which I already linked above - it offers some great insights into AlphaZero's play. Maybe one day AlphaZeroism will become a thing and our robot chess overlords will have a patzer cult following!
Conclusion
Well, that's how the game of chess got to where it is today. I hope you enjoyed reading about it. In the comments, you will find a list of things that I wish I had the space to cover. We've certainly gone on quite the journey in the past century or two. Like I mentioned earlier, I think the chess world would be a better place if we all still played Romantic chess. However, until the next chess movement is declared to be Niemann's Beadism, thanks for reading the Daily Rat.
