Alex Alekhine vs Paul Morphy

 I always love your articles, my fondness for past masters its personal passion; Barnes vs. Falkbeer, Barnes is fine positional feel is incredible adding to his defensive skills and endgame technique, I enjoy play through that game.

I would like to add Alekhine became top world chess player and world champion, so Alekhine benefit greatly from studying Morphy's games, while our dear friend Znosko-Borovshy was just a strong master; I remember reading GM John Nunn, he just beat a GM and the GM said to GM Nunn, I didn't see that attack coming. GM Nunn, reply, You must not have study 1001 how to checkmate from Fred Reinfeld. A lot times is what we study we are able to create a masterpiece or win a game that at first seem impossible.

 When Morphy first arrived, he played Barnes, considered one of the strongest players of the St. George's Club, a series of 26 games. During the first ten games, they alternated wins. This surprising occurrence led many spectators to believe that Morphy's reputation had been greatly overstated. Morphy, however, won 19 to Barnes' 7.

As a side note in regard to Morphy's play vs Barnes:

When Löwenthal challenged Morphy to their match the stakes were originally set at £50, but Löwenthal was so confident --from Morphy's results with Barnes-- that he had the advantage, he asked to double the stakes to £100. Morphy agreed and provided his own stake money. Somehow, Löwenthal's seconds were Barnes and Oldham while Morphy's seconds were Arthur Hay and John Owen. The winner was to be the first player to score 9 wins.

After ten games, the score stood 7 to 2 (with the first game drawn) in Morphy's favor. Löwenthal took sick and Morphy insisted on postponing the rest of the match. When the match resumed a week later, Löwenthal won the first, one game was drawn, and Morphy won the other two he needed to win the match. Accepting the £100 stakes, Morphy bought a set of furniture valued at £120 and gave it to Löwenthal's family for their new apartment (some people seem to think Löwenthal was never married, but that doesn't seen to be the case).

Morphy, as mentioned,  played Barnes soon after his arrival in England.  As usual, his play after traveling and/or against a new strong opponents tended to be a little uneven until he found his footing.

At any rate, here's some comparative data on Barnes:

Thomas Wilson Barnes

Year;  Ranking;  Assigned Rating

Edo Retro-Ratings
1855, #19, @2433     
1856, #10, @2475
1857, #12, @2506
1858, #14, @2502
1859, #24, @2462
1860, #32, @2437
1861, #35, @2423
1862, #31, @2438
(The last event used by Edo Chess is in 1862 - 12 events total)

Chessmetrics
1856, #10, @2440
1858, #11, @2489
1859, #11, @2490
1860, #09, @2489
1861, #17, @2390
1862, #16, @2470
1863, #12, @2482
1864, #10, @2484
1865, #13, @2490
(the last event used by Chessmetrics is in 1860 - 5 events total)

do not know

I don't remember where I read it, but a description of a young Alekhine standing in a corner with a book and a pocket set examining the Labourdonnais-M'Donnel match always sticks in my mind.  Alekhine was no stranger to the past masters, and his practice of not just not dismissing them, but to analyze their games for some truths must have made his insight all the more penetrating.  Most people are impressed with Morphy's fireworks, but Alekhine was more interested in what Morphy did, or innately understood, to allow for those fireworks.. the understandings other tacticians, even those of Anderssen's caliber, lacked.  All that talk by ZnoSko-Borovsky is nonsense.  While Steinitz  who might have considered, or led people to believe he considered, that Morphy's play was only beautiful against weak opponents, spent his life dissecting chess, trying to categorize the principles, like pinning butterflies to a board, principles, many of which Morphy, whose butterflies flew free, understood intuitively and never bothered to try to understand or explain.  

Morphy's theme song if he lived today:

I'd go with Chelsea Morning.

- this one ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_y7O06z77Q

by sweet Joni Mitchell

:- )

what does videos and music have to do with morphy beating alekhine or alekhine beating morphy

 Thank you Batgirl.

 From Reuben Fine's "World's Greatest Games"

I think Anderssen might have said something similar about Morphy.

yeah

lol true

If Morphy was transported to Alekhine's time, or both were transported to the present at their best, they would use the knowledge of the time, so it's hard to say who would play better.  Bobby Fischer knew much more about chess than anyone on these boards and he said Morphy was the greatest ever.  Of course, he was a little off his rocker, too.

"Lasker ... didn't understand positional chess." - another Fischer quote from around the same time as his Morphy comments.
Extended discussions of Morphy have been written in books by GM Franco, GM Beim, GM Ward, GM Marin, GM Bo Hansen, GM McDonald, Garry Kasparov (with Dmitry Plisetsky), and GM Gormally. Anyone see any of them express the view that we should accept Fischer's conclusion about Morphy? There seems to be general agreement that Morphy was, as GM Fine put it, one of the giants of chess history, but that is a long way from saying that he was better than anyone playing today.
https://www.chess.com/article/view/who-was-the-best-world-chess-champion-in-history
"... Morphy became to millions ... the greatest chess master of all time. But if we examine Morphy's record and games critically, we cannot justify such extravaganza. And we are compelled to speak of it as the Morphy myth. ... [Of the 55 tournament and match games, few] can by any stretch be called brilliant. ... He could combine as well as anybody, but he also knew under what circumstances combinations were possible - and in that respect he was twenty years ahead of his time. ... [Morphy's] real abilities were hardly able to be tested. ... We do not see sustained masterpieces; rather flashes of genius. The titanic struggles of the kind we see today [Morphy] could not produce because he lacked the opposition. ... Anderssen could attack brilliantly but had an inadequate understanding of its positional basis. Morphy knew not only how to attack but also when - and that is why he won. ... Even if the myth has been destroyed, Morphy remains one of the giants of chess history. ..." - GM Reuben Fine
It is perhaps worthwhile to keep in mind that, in 1858, the chess world was so amazingly primitive that players still thought tournaments were a pretty neat idea.

what do you mean off his rocker?

no. They would play each other 7 times

because it is lucky