Paul Morphy- A Positional Player of the Highest Class!
We hear it all the time, and so much, we believe it to be true: "Paul Morphy was a tactician...."
But when we take a closer examination, it turns out that the opposite is true: Paul Morphy was a consumate positional player, and yes, he could also attack and had great calculation skills!
In this game against Harrwitz, Morphy plays the Dutch Defense, and teaches Mr. Harrwitz a lesson in positional chess in the process!
Daniel Harrwitz
DANIEL HARRWITZ
(born Feb-22-1821, died Jan-02-1884, 62 years old) Germany
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Daniel Harrwitz was born in Breslau, Germany. During the 1850s he was among the top 3 or 4 players in the World. He played matches against Howard Staunton (+0, =0, -7) in 1846, Bernhard Horwitz (+6, =1, -5) in 1846, Adolf Anderssen (+5, =0, -5) in 1848, Horwitz (+7, =12, -6) in 1849, Jozsef Szen (+3, =1, -1) in 1852 and Johann Jacob Loewenthal (+11, =12, -8) in 1853. He played in Manchester 1857 but was knocked out by Anderssen in the 1st round and played a match against Paul Morphy (+2, =1, -5) in 1858. When his father died, he retired to Bolzano in the Austrian Alps with a small family inheritance. |
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Paul Morphy
(1837-1884)
Paul Charles Morphy was born in New Orleans. He was the son of a successful lawyer and judge Alonzo Morphy. His uncle, Ernest Morphy, claims that no one formally taught Morphy how to play chess, but rather that he learned the rules by observing games between himself and Alonzo. When Morphy was only 12 years old, Johann Jacob Loewenthal visited New Orleans and at the behest of his father, agreed to play a casual match with the prodigy. Young Paul won 2½ to ½.
In 1857 Morphy won the First American Chess Congress with a dominating performance . . This success was followed by a European trip where he met and triumphed over most of the prominent masters of the period, namely Adolf Anderssen whom he defeated +7 -2 =2 (see Anderssen-Morphy (1858)), Loewenthal in Morphy-Loewenthal (1858) and Daniel Harrwitz in Morphy-Harrwitz (1858). Upon returning to America, he announced his retirement from chess.
Although the official title of World Champion did not exist in his time, Morphy was and is widely regarded as the strongest player of his day. Even today his games are studied for their principles of open lines and quick development, and his influence on the modern game is undeniable. Mikhail Botvinnik wrote of his influence: "His mastery of open positions was so vast that little new has been learned about such positions after him."
And here are a few quotes about Morphy, from Batgirl's blog:
Quotes About Morphy
Adolf Anderssen
I consider Mr. Morphy the finest chess player who ever existed. He is far superior to any now living, and would doubtless have beaten Labourdonnais himself. In all his games with me, he has not only played, in every instance, the exact move, but the most exact. He never makes a mistake; but, if his adversary commits the slightest error, he is lost.
Richard Réti
Morphy was the first positional player who, unlike his Romantic rivals, understood the strategic basis for attack. He wrote nothing more than a few game notes and played fewer than seventy-five serious games. But his exploitation of open lines prepared the way for Steinitz's scientific treatment of closed positions and the era of modern chess.
Andrew Soltis (from Golombek's "Encyclopedia of Chess," New York, 1977)
Genius is a starry word; but if there ever was a chess player to whom that attribute applied, it was Paul Morphy.
J. A. Galbreath ("American Chess Bulletin," October, 1909)
"It has been truly said that Morphy was at once the Caesar and the Napoleon of chess. He revolutionized chess. He brought life and dash and beauty into the game at a time when an age of dullness was about to set in and he did this at a stroke. Then he quit forever. Only two years from the beginning to the end. The negotiations for some modern matches have taken that long!"
Edward Lasker (in "The Adventure of Chess," 2nd Edition, New York, 1959)
After the passage of a century, Morphy still remains the most glamorous figure that has ever appeared in the chess world.
Fred Reinfeld (in "Great Moments in Chess History," Brancliff Manor, New York 1963)
Paul Morphy was a great chessplayer, a genius... Morphy, I think everyone agrees, was probably the greatest genius of them all...
Emanuel Lasker
In Paul Morphy the spirit of La Bourdonnais had arisen anew, only more vigorous, firmer, prouder... Morphy discovered that the brilliant move of the master is essentially conditional not on a sudden and inexplicable realisation, but on the placing of the pieces on the board. He introduced the rule: brilliant moves and deep winning manoeuvres are possible only in those positions where the opponent can be opposed with an abundance of active energy... From the very first moves Morphy aimed to disclose the internal energy located in his pieces. It was suddenly revealed that they possess far greater dynamism than the opponent's forces.
Jose Raul Capablanca
Reviewing the history of chess from La Bourdonnais to the masters of our day right up to Lasker, we discover that the greatest stylist was Morphy. He did not look for complicated combinations, but he also did not avoid them, which really is the correct way of playing... His main strength lay not in his combinative gift, but in his positional play and general style. Morphy gained most of his wins by playing directly and simply, and it is this simple and logical method that constitutes the true brilliance of his play, if it is considered from the viewpoint of the great masters.
and
The style of Morphy, they say, and if it is true that the goddess of fortune has endowed me with his talent, the result [of the match with Emanuel Lasker] will not be in doubt. The magnificent American master had the most extraordinary brain that anybody has ever had for chess. Technique, strategy, tactics, knowledge which is inconceivable for us; all that was possessed by Morphy fifty-four years ago.
Alexander Alekhine
How much more vivid, more rich does the figure of Morphy appear before us, how much clearer does the secret of his success and charm become, if we transfer ourselves in our thoughts to that era when he lived and created, if we take the trouble to study, only a little, his contemporaries! Then...in London and in particular in Paris, where the traditions of Philidor were still alive, where the immortal creations of La Bourdonnais and McDonnell were still in the memory, at that time, finally, when Anderssen was alive, and with brilliance alone it was hardly possibly to suprise anyone. The strength, the invincible strength of Morphy- this was the reason for his success and the guarantee of his immortality!
Mikhail Botvinnik
To this day Morphy is an unsurpassed master of the open games. Just how great was his significance is evidant from the fact that after Morphy nothing substantially new has been created in this field. Every player- from beginner to master- should in this praxis return again and again to the games of the American genius.
Bobby Fischer
A popularly held theory about Paul Morphy is that if he returned to the chess world today and played our best contemporary players, he would come out the loser. Nothing is further from the truth. In a set match, Morphy would beat anybody alive today... Morphy was perhaps the most accurate chess player who ever lived. He had complete sight of the board and never blundered, in spite of the fact that he played quite rapidly, rarely taking more than five minutes to decide a move. Perhaps his only weakness was in closed games like the Dutch Defense. But even then, he was usually victorious because of his resourcefulness.
Vassily Smyslov
There is no doubt that for Morphy chess was an art, and for chess Morphy was a great artist. His play was captivated by freshness of thought and inexhaustible energy. He played with inspiration, without striving to penetrate into the psychology of the opponent; he played, if one can express it so, "pure chess". His harmonious positional understanding the pure intuition would have made Morphy a highly dangerous opponent even for any player of our times.
Max Euwe
If the distinguishing feature of a genius is that he is far ahead compared with his epoch, then Morphy was a chess genius in the complete sense of the word.
Garry Kasparov
Morphy can be regarded as the forefather of modern chess.
and
What was the secret of Morphy's invincibility? I think it was a combination of a unique natural talent and brilliant erudition. His play was the next, more mature stage in the development of chess. Morphy had a well-developed feel for position, and therefore he can be confidently regarded as the first swallow - the prototype of the strong 20th century grandmaster.
