Here is a game score between Paul Morphy and Charles de Maurian written down by Morphy himself, in all likelihood sometime after the game was played. David Lawson, the most serious collector of Morphy memorabilia, presented it in his article on Morphy in Frank Brady's maiden issue of Chessworld. Jan/Feb 1964.
Batgirl, you have a peerless shovel. May I just add that, according to the Chessworld article, the game was played at "the odds of Queen's Knight."
Brady had some other interesting articles in that issue, notably "The Ten Greatest Masters in History," by Bobby Fischer, and "Why the Russians?," by Alexander Kotov.
Playing at QKt odds, Morphy displays his understanding of the value of time and position over material. Maurian actually played quite well considering his opposition. Maurian was Morphy's most frequent opponent and almost always received QKt odds even though at the end of their playing together in 1869, Morphy admitted that Maurian had grown to strong for such odds and Morphy played some unrecorded games with him at Pawn & 2 odds.
Here the above game in a viewer:
Brady had some other interesting articles in that issue, notably "The Ten Greatest Masters in History," by Bobby Fischer, and "Why the Russians?," by Alexander Kotov.
That was one of Fischer's most controversial contributions to chess literature.
I don't have the actual magazine, just scans of the Morphy sections someone sent me and somewhere I also have the scans of the Fischer article. I never read the Kotov article.
Here a scan of the somber cover of the first issue:
What's most interesting about Fischer's "The Ten Greatest Masters in History" is not which players are listed but what Fischer said about them.
yes....i sponser 4 u
be typical US style yes? Come and play world champion... but Morphy never win any such title? Opera game much overated... Morphy play against pair of patzer aristocrat, count dumb and duke dumber... they even play Philidor defence!?
Who he play anyway? Maurier? Staunton? patzer, patzer, lion win them both, no handicap... Morphy is patzer too, only play e4, e5 yes? lion v morphy... easy win for lion yes? lion play QP, sicilian... Morphy have no reply yes?
What's most interesting about Fischer's "The Ten Greatest Masters in History" is not which players are listed but what Fischer said about them.
His choice of players was rather telling...as was his choice of whom not to choose.
What he said about them was probably the more controversial part.
On Alekhine:
"It's hard to find mistakes in his games, but in a sense his whole method was a mistake"
On Staunton:
"...he understood all of the positional concepts which modern players hold so dear, and thus - with Steinitz - must be considered the first modern player."
On Tal:
"Even after losing four games in a row to him I still consider his play unsound. He is always on the lookout for some spectacular sacrifice, that one shot, that dramatic breakthrough to give him the win.
On Capablanca:
"He had the totally undeserved reputation of being the greatest living endgame player."
On Tschigorin:
"At times he would continue playing a bad line even after it was refuted."
...and we all know what he wrote about Paul Morphy.
What did he say about Morphy?
On Paul Morphy:
"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 player who ever lived, he would beat anybody today in a set-match. He had complete sight of the board and seldom blundered even though he moved quite rapidly, rarely taking more than five minutes to decide a move. I've played over hundreds of his games and am continually surprised and entertained by his ingenuity."
thx for that... and Morphy would have access to modern data and software as well...
To be fair, Fischer also said in one of his later interviews which can be found on YouTube:
”If Morphy came back today, he might struggle, even against Masters (2200s)”
Like most things of this nature I’m sure the truth is somewhere well within the middle of these two extremes.
This advertisement appeared regularly all through 1859 in the Sugar Planter (a journal founded in 1856 and published in the West Baton Rouge Parish of Louisiana) journal. the actual ad is a bit longer. I truncated it just because it was so long. Morphy's name was undoubtedly used without his permission or consent. Notice that, playing on Morphy's unrequited challenge to Staunton, where I cut it off it says:
"Won't Back Out!!! if they receive a challenge."
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