Morphy's Pawn&move

That was actually the Anderssen match:

Here's a nice write up from the Baltimore Daily Exchange, Jan. 13, 1859

you have the skills of a good archivist batgirl , if this isn't your trade already then its one I think youd excel in

If I remember correctly, Edge wrote something about Morphy not getting enough sleep for the early games of the Harrwitz match.

Edge wrote that sleep loss was the problem in his opinion, but it was not the opinion of Morphy himself:

The night before the commencement of the match, Morphy had been sight-seeing until a very late hour; and we only got into bed between two and three o'clock in the morning. He laughe at me for reminding him of his approaching contest, and the necessity for mens sana in corpore sano (a sound mind in a sound body), which I said would be seriously interfered with by his not taking sufficient rest. The next day his appearance verified my prognostics, and he failed to show that impassibility which ordinarily characterizes him. He says, however, that Harrwitz beat him because he (H.) played the best moves; and he would not admit to me that want of rest at all interfered with his own play.

. . .

Our hero passed that evening with some friends. Towards eleven o'clock I said to him, " Now, Morphy, you really must not have a second edition of last night; let us get home in good time; but he replied, " Oh, don't be frightened, I've got the move to-morrow;" and, in spite of all I could say or do, we did not get to bed until nearly four o'clock. Well, what was the consequence? After getting a magnificent position in the second game of the match, bodily fatigue came upon him, and Harrwitz was again victor.

. . .

And I wound up by exacting a promise from him that he would never be out of bed after midnight, during the match.

Along the same vein, talking about  Harrwitz, Anderssen and Morphy, here is an interesting tidbit,  again from the Baltimore Daily Exchange, but a month earlier (De. 14, 1858) before Anderssen arrived:

Hmmm, that sounds like someone I know who stated that the challenge was an "alleged challenge" since all the references (from Lawson's book) to it were the opinions of others printed in the chess journals of the time.  Not quite enough evidence to state it was "fact".  This someone, was also aware of Edge's conveyance of said challenge to a correspondent of the "New Yorker" and while not specifically questioning why it wasn't known to have been printed by the New Yorker, it had crossed his mind.  Instead he questioned why such a challenge, if issued, wasn't printed in many of the chess journals of the time?  Perhaps the answer is too simple and obvious; in that Edge had only reported it to the "New Yorker".  Regardless, it is a great find Batgirl and brings the topic closer to fact than myth.

Chris,

I think the term "challenge" contains a certain connotation and therein lies a problem. I don't feel Morphy, as such a word suggests, was throwing down the gauntlet, so to speak, but was simply saying (for what ever reason: whether to get out of playing serious matches or because he felt and challenger should first have to prove himself, as was customary in that era) that, as the recognized champion of the world (which he was regardless of the fact that the expression "world champion" wasn't yet a thing), he could set the conditions for any legitimate challenge which was that before he would play on even terms, the challenger would first have to prove he could beat him at P&move odds - and not that he was  the one issuing a challenge. 

Later this was to be seen to be the case with Paulsen - who decline the odds condition on the rather strange basis that he felt that removing the QNP actually gave Morphy an unfair advantage. 

In his October 2, 1859  letter to Henry Harrisse, his go-between when trying to set up a match with Morphy Paulsen wrote:
As soon as I received your letter I commenced analyzing the pawn and move game. I have not yet finished my work. Should the result prove that in the pawn and move game the advantage is really on the side of the player who receives the odds, I will play a match with Morphy at these odds; and should I beat him he will be obliged to play a match on even terms . . .
His letter sent directly to Morphy a year later (Oct. 3, 1869), shows Paulsen with a slight change in attitude and tact, but still failing to convince Morphy to play even:
I am aware that you have declined playing with our most prominent chess players, except at odds of pawn and move. Allow me to reply to express the opinion that the odds of the pawn and the move are a doubtful advantage, while it invariably and necessarily results in a kind of mongrel game, never advancing the cause of Chess and rarely proving interesting to the great majority of amateurs.

But Paulsen's letters do substantiate Morphy's resolution in the matter.

And, to repeat a point that I made elsewhere, I suspect that this obituary

https://www.chess.com/article/view/on-the-death-of-morphy

is the origin of the somewhat mistaken perception that Morphy ever issued a challenge to the world to play a match at odds.

".............."? That's French for players of my strength, (and those of marginally higher strength).

Dearest Batgirl,

Not to diminish your nice "find" in the New Yorker but it would appear that Fiske, Morphy’s co-editor at the Chess Monthly, published several reasons as to why Morphy declined to play Paulsen on even terms.  Among the reasons were these two that have bearing.

• Mr. Morphy has again and again declared—a declaration which, as the acknowledged champion of two continents, he had a perfect right to make—that he would play no more even matches without having been first conquered at odds. If an exception were to be made to this rule, it certainly would not be right to make it in favor of one who has already been proven to be so greatly the inferior of the champion.

• It has not been said by Mr. Morphy, but it is the general feeling among those who have seen Mr. Paulsen play, even recently, that the fatigue of contending in a set match against that gentleman would be such that few persons would be willing to undergo it. It is certainly regretted that so fine a player should be obliged to evolve his combinations so slowly. We say this in no spirit of censure.

The first gives credence to the fact that Morphy had at least set forth a precondition to be met before engaging in a set match on even terms.  Not quite the same as an "outright challenge against the world" but more in line with what you had opined in your previous response.  As for what reason I could speculate on a few.  The first being the lack of a formal process in place to select a bona fide challenger through competitive play might leave Morphy having to respond to endless challenges.  Undoubtedly such a precondition could be sensationalized by some and portrayed as throwing down the gauntlet and issuing a challenge against the world.  I believe my acquaintance in stating it was an alleged challenge was in response to it being more of the throwing down the gauntlet version of events.

The second and probably the one that scared Morphy the most was having to wait hours on end for Paulsen to make a move just when he was most likely planning a return trip to Newport, lounging on the beach and spending some time with Virginia Butt and the other ladies of high social standing who were enamored by the mere chess player.  Given the two options I know which one I would pick.

Thank you for posting. I had seen that stuff, but could not remember where and I did not want to post something vague. Anyway, as Batgirl indicated, I think the main point is that we have a lot of evidence that Morphy did set a pre-condition for level matches. It somewhat surprises me that there has been any doubt about that.

Black to move and win... till check mating the White King...

SleepTheNb4,

There was an informal ranking system employed by pre-20th century players who engaged in odds play. While it was more prevalent in coffee-houses and haggled over to determine stakes, it was also common in match play. Staunton was probably the most successful odds-giver.  Curiously, Cecil Purdy wrote a treatise on handicapping, which he wasn't against as long as it followed certain guidelines. One of these guidelines was that one's handicap must be universally agreed upon.  I think that was the hope of 19th century players - a rook player was a rook player until he could prove he was a knight player.  Essentially, by refusing to honor, or let's say reserving the right not to honor, any challenger on even terms, Morphy was declaring himself Chess King.  So many things from that time were tacit or implied... who played whom at what odds might determine if one was suitable to play someone else, so you have to be careful who you played and at what, if any, odds.

It's curious that you bring up Paulsen's slowness of play as a factor.  Fiske would have a certain unique insight into Morphy. 

You undoutedly recall what WJA Fuller (in a letter to Thomas Frere and published in the Programme of the Steinitz-Zukertort Match, January, 1886) had to say about Morphy's reaction to Paulsen's slow play at the 1857 Congress:

"Just before this game [i.e. where Morphy sacked his Queen for a Bishop] Morphy went down to the restaurant with me and took a glass of sherry and a biscuit. His patience was worn out by the great length of time Paulsen took for each move. His usually equable temper was so disturbed, that he clenched his fist and said "Paulsen shall never win a game of me while he lives "—and he never did."

For fun, here is William James Appleton Fuller's entire letter:

Dear Mr. Frere,

When you asked me "to write something for the Programme," and would not tell me what you wished me to write about, you left me in a sea of doubt as to what should be my subject. At dinner a man can fall back comfortably upon the toast to which he is asked to respond. A clergyman can always have something to say about his text. Chess itself is a theme so vast and illimitable that it cannot be written about abstractly and impersonally in a newspaper article to do it any justice. The personnel of men who have attained distinction in any walk of life is always interesting. Hence, even at the risk of being charged with egotism, I will indulge in a few reminiscences of Morphy, which will not be found in any of his biographies. When I first joined the New York Chess Club in 1853, its meetings were held in the house of Mr. Perrin, in 12th Street. Its leading players were Perrin, Marache, Thompson, Mead, Roberts, Stanley, Fiske, with visitations by Hammond of Boston, and Montgomery of Philadelphia. These were all considered good players, and they were all Chess enthusiasts. Limburger's saloon, corner of Fulton and Nassau Streets, was also their daily resort for Chess, lunch, and lager. I was one of the editors of Frank Leslie's paper, and no branch of my editorial work gave me so much trouble and so much pleasure as its Chess column which you succeeded me in editing. Any one desirous of learning the biography and characteristics of tho leading American Chess-players of that day can find them by consulting the files of that paper for the first two years of its publication. By editorial and personal correspondence by Daniel Willard Fiske and others, the first American Chess Congress was held in New York, in October, 1857. Its history, admirably written by Mr. Fiske, will be found in every good Che3s library.

Morphy was then 21 years of age. His personal appearance did not indicate genius. He was small of stature, of light build, with a dark, black eye, pleasing manner, great urbanity, and a perfect Frenchman in politeness. He was well educated, having graduated from college and the study of the law, but his intellect was not of a very high order. Poeta nascitur non fit. So it was with Morphy. He was born a Chess-player. He was not made one by study and practice. Deschapelles was the only Chess-player in history who was like Morphy in this respect. He was incomparably the greatest genius for games of skill that ever lived. Both he and Morphy played by intuition—rather than by analysis. Chess, like every other science, is progressive. Had either of these players crossed lances with Zukertort or Steinitz, the world would doubtless have seen better Chess play than has been recorded. When genius combats genius, when intellect is rubbed against intellect, tho result is like burnished gold, the harder it is rubbed the brighter it shines. Steinitz confirmed me in my opinion that Morphy played some of his be3t moves by intuition, as it was impossible that human brain could have thoroughly analyzed tho result. Take, by way of illustration, the 30th move in his 4th game of the match with Harrwitz, where the simple advance of a Pawn was followed up with such ingenuity and accuracy: or the game in his match with Paulsen—I have not the book before me—where he gave up his Queen for a Bishop. Just before this game Morphy went down to the restaurant with me and took a glass of sherry and a biscuit. His patience was worn out by the great length of time Paulsen took for each move. His usually equable temper was so disturbed, that he clenched his fist and said "Paulsen shall never win a game of me while he lives "—and he never did.

When he made the move referred to, we all thought that he had made a mistake; especially as he had taken so little time for the move. Paulsen, with his usual caution, deliberated long—over an hour—before he took the Queen. He doubtless thought of Virgil's line " Timeo Danaos, et dona ferentes." Meanwhile the rest of us had set up tho position, and our joint analysis failed to discover Morphy's subsequent moves.

Morphy's triumphal career in Europe is a matter of history. His public reception in New York was graced and honoured by such an audience as I have never seen before or since. The intellect, culture, wealth, fashion, and beauty of the city were there. Charles O'Conor presided, John Van Buren made the address upon the presentation to him by his admirers of the gold and silver Chess-board and men, and the address upon the presentation to him by the N. Y. Chess Club of perhaps the finest Waltham watch ever made by tho Am. Watch Co., was made by myself. Morphy lost all his property and was obliged to sell or pledge these trophies. What became of the Chess-board and men I do not know; but I saw the watch last summer in the Caf6 de la Regence, in Paris, where it was shown to mo by Monsieur Arnous de Riviere, who had loaned Morphy a large sum upon it. The pledge never was redeemed, although this gentleman wrote to Morphy's family offering to return it. I understand he is willing to let any club or Chess enthusiast have the watch upon repayment of the loan. M. do Riviere is perhaps the best player in France, and is engaged in writing a treatise on the game of Chess, which promises to bo very valuable for its analyses. He is a distinguished litterateur, and well known by reputation to all Chess-players, and personally to all habitues of this historical oaf6.

Morphy flashed upon the Chess world like a meteor, and disappeared almost as suddenly as he came. His sad fate and untimely end were due to other causes than Chess, as all his friends know. After his return from Europe he was the lion of the day, and people vied with each other to do him honour, and to get him to play at fashionable parties. I played more games with him than any other man. The reason he preferred to play with mo at these parties was, because I knew I should be beaten as a matter of course, and I was not afraid to play an open game, so that he might exhibit his great brilliancy. Mr. Perrin, Mr. Fiske, and myself, in consultation, won one game of him on even terms. We shall live longer in that one game than in any other way. How well I remember that Sunday, in Eugene B. Cook's room 1 Perrin's face so beamed with satisfaction and delight, especially as Morphy said that he suggested the winning course of play, and had to fight hard to bring the other two to his way of thinking.

Robert Bonner, at that time, was in the first flush of success with his N.Y. Ledger. He paid the highest prices for the best work—ten thousand dollars to Edward Everett for one column a week for a year —some fabulous sum to Charles Dickens for an original story, etc., etc. With his keenness, wide awake to everything that was on the topmost wave of popular favour and universally known, and with his intention to have the best that money could secure for his paper in every department, he thought he saw an advantage, at least in the way of advertising, in having a Chess column for the Ledger, edited by Morphy.

Accordingly he engaged Morphy to edit his Chess column for a year. The negotiation was made through me. Mr. Bonner paid him in advance, with his usual unparalleled liberality, and for ono year the Ledger had a Chess column. Morphy was incorrigibly lazy, and Mr. Bonner would not continue his services at any price for another year. Moreover his readers were not particularly interested in Chess. They cared more for Sylvanus Cobb's stories, like "The Gun-Maker of Moscow," than they would for Shakespeare's Hamlet. There were some things connected with this Chess column that were curious, and would greatly interest Chess-players, but it would be contrary to the lex plumes to reveal them without Mr. Bonner's consent. It is more than a quarter of a century since I used to see Mr. Bonner on the top floor of the building corner of Ann and Nassau Streets, where I wrote for the Mirror, and he published the Merchants' Ledger. The absorbing labours of a busy profession have kept us apart. People run in grooves in large cities, and our paths have been as divergent as the poles. Friends are like garden plants and should be cultivated, but I hope Mr. Bonner feels as kindly to me as I do to him. His liberality to me was astounding. I shall never forget it. At that time a check for a thousand dollars looked to me as big as a cathedral. But my paper is used up, and I fear that the patience of your readers will be exhausted if I continue. To see the match between Steinitz and Zukertort will, in the language of the Scriptures, make me "renew my youth like the eagles." What exactly was meant by this expression, I do not know. Perhaps some clerical friend will kindly inform me.  Vale! ——W. J. A. Fuller.

"It's curious that you bring up Paulsen's slowness of play as a factor."

Looking back to the events which gives Fiske cause to cite this as a reason to avoid play with Paulsen I find completely understandable. The descriptions of Paulsen's play when the First American Chess Congress was entering the final match of the Tourney were an arduous obsticle to encounter and overcome. The first game of the match game lasted five hours and thirty minutes for thitry-nine moves. The second game was begun at 7:30 that evening, adjourned at midnight and continued for fifteen hours the next day. Even the onlookers were astutely aware of the effects of the German's slow play and because of it, while not yet common practice, a rudimentary method was employed to record the time a player spent on their moves. They had decided that upon the passing of five minutes after a player had made a move any additional time taken before his reply was made would be recorded. In this second game of the contest Paulsen had expended over eleven hours of time compared to Morphy's twenty-five minutes with an entire time for the game of nineteen and a half hours. The toll his notorious slow play was taking on Morphy's patience became evident shortly after move twenty-one when Morphy embarked on a short combination. Whereby the simple saccing of his rook would return to him a knight but more importantly a decisively strong mating attack. Unfortunately, it never came to pass as Paulsen had expended so much time in his responses Morphy had a momentary lapse and rather than taking the pawn to capture the knight he instead touched the piece of his next move, his queen, forcing him to make a move with the touched piece This misstep allowed the knight to escape and left Morphy a piece down in the exchange. Morphy eventually regained the material but as for the mating attack ... like sand in an hourglass and the game resulted in a draw. So on the match continued without limits on the time Paulsen could take to make a move. These unfair conditions were eventually eradicated by time controls but I feel Fiske is right in citing it as a reason to decline a match with Paulsen. If I were Morphy I would be more concerned about time-control than the odds of pawn & move.

I believe that the 1862 London Tournament was the first, or one of the first, to play under the time controls proposed by der Lasa. der Lasa had proposed 30 moves in two hours and additional allotments of one hour for 15 moves. In this tournament Paulsen came in second behind Anderssen and in later matches against Anderssen he won the last two. It is clearly evident that Paulsen was not only one of the world's strongest players but also more than capable of much quicker play than evidenced by his games against Morphy. Paulsen has made a great many contributions to the world of chess and while I recognize he was a player of the highest caliber I feel he was also somewhat a thorn is Morphy's side. Admittedly, there is some bias here … but he was slow.

Well, the Anderssen-Kolisch match in 1861 was played under the time control of 24 moves/2 hours and measured by a sand clock (an hourglass). The idea of time control was never meant to restrict thinking time, but rather to reduce "winning by the seat of your pants." Once tournaments became popular time controls became more essential. The invention of the chess clock - first used in 1883 in London - was probably a godsend. From then only clocks developed in a timely fashion.

Here's an interesting read from the Chess Player's Chronicle, July 1882

THE TIME LIMIT IN TOURNEYS.

"Time limit, fifteen moves per hour." Such is the allowance now usual in first class. Tournaments and matches, and which by repetition has at length become almost prescriptive. The credit of devising a time limit applicable to a series of moves, as opposed to an allowance of, say, three minutes for each move, is due to Mr. Medley, who, in a letter to the "Westminster Papers," of February 1875, gives this account of its origination:—" In the rear 1860 the London Chess Club got up a little match on even terms between Mr. Kolisch and myself. Mr. Kolisch of course won the match, but in one or two of the games I was fortunate enough to run him rather hard. In one game some position of difficulty arose, and over three successive moves he took more than two hours, occupying fifty-five minutes over one of them. Now, sir, although this was complimentary to my skill, it was, as you may imagine, a weariness, to the flesh, and I set my wits to work to devise some means of putting an end to a system of playing matches which had been creeping on until it had grown, as will be remembered, into a scandal. . . Spurred on by what had token place in my little contest, I was led to propose the method which has prevailed ever since in every match of importance. This I need scarcely say, is the regulation which allows a player to spend any specified time , . over any specified number of moves. . . This was the system adopted in the match between Anderssen and Kolisch, at Bristol in 1861." The original intention, then, of the reform introduced by Mr. Medley, was to prevent undue protraction of match games, but it has been reserved to players of later date to turn it into an engine for scoring games against an adversary who, from inattention overpasses* the limit laid down for him. I admit at once that any player doing this is strictly within his right, and there is no escape from the logic that a time limit is useless unless it is enforced. But when this has been said, there still remains the ugly fact, that won games have been converted into losses by the Draconian application of tho rule, completely stultifying the idea that the score sheet represents the actual result of the play. It has been proposed by one of the most able Chess writers of the day (who, if my memory docs not deceive me, has himself been a* victim to this inordinate legality) that five or ten minutes' grace should be allowed beyond the specified time. That there is no practical difficulty in this, is shown by the conditions of the match between Steinitz and Blackburne, which state, "The time limit shall be regulated by sand glasses, and cither player exceeding it by five minutes, shall forfeit the game." That this time of grace was availed of, is shown by the account of the match given by Steinitz. In the second game, "on Mr. Blackburne's twenty-ninth move, the alarum bell of his clock rang, to show that he could only rely upon the stipulated five minutes' grace for his next two moves." In his sixth game Steinitz nearly fell a prey to his astute opponent, through mistaking the time at his command. The objection to the revival of a time indulgence is, of course, that it only shifts the difficulty a step further on, but I think it is more apparent than real, for in the case quoted above, Blackburne was enabled to fight for more than two hours longer, whereas without any grace, the game would have been summarily scored against him. It is certainly a very unfortunate thing that Steinitz's name should have been associated with the disputes or misunderstandings (whichever you like to call them) at Vienna. Mr. Donnisthorpe alleges that he "intervened and got up a petition to the committee to score the game against Mason." Again, in his game against Winawer, it is said mechanical aids were invoked to settle the point as to whether Winawer's clock hand, was, or was not, over the hour. In yet a third instance, a London weekly states that both Steinitz and Paulsen went beyond their time, but that the question of who. timed first, could not afterwards be found out. The London correspondent of the "Glasgow Herald," who is certainly not unfriendly to Steinitz, caustically, but I think truthfully, points out that it is precisely because he acts up to his principles (one of which is undoubtedly hi* strict adherence to legality) that his conduct is so much disapproved of. "Live and let live," is. a maxim which seems to ine not out of place over the Chess board. An admirer of Steinitz's, unrivaled powers as a Chess player, and a sincere well wisher to him personally, I cannot but regret that he is so deficient in savoir faire as to raise opposition in quarters where his merits are ungrudgingly recognized. After all it is the appreciation of Amateurs which makes professionalism a possibility; it is they who find funds for matches and tournaments, and are willing to pay for receiving instruction or amusement. Surely then some effort to conciliate them is worth trying, and as a point of self interest, it should not be forgotten that the longest purses and the most generous impulses are not invariably on the side of those strongest, over the board.—" Bradford Observer."

I believe people are ignoring Morphy the person. He seemed to a lot of attention to peoples perception, manners, etc. If I recall correctly there were at least a couple of times that Morphy corrected information that was wrong about him. The challenge was reported in his lifetime I believe, if it was incorrectly reported I believe he would have corrected it.

The whole point is that, as far as anybody seems to know, no record has been found of a world-odds-challenge that was published while Morphy was alive.

I believe Batgirl is correct in her assessment that current disagreement over the Pawn and Move Challenge is a matter of perception. If one interprets the subject as being a direct challenge issued against the world its factual basis has not been substantiated. If one interprets the subject as Morphy stating that he will not again play a even match against anyone unless first being beaten at the odds of pawn and move its factual basis has been substantiated. "You say tomato, I say tomahto".

Paul Morphy was Supernaturally talented AND Supra-naturally precise.

The player the Devil wouldn't play.

Thank you Batgirl.....Brilliant article.

...but maybe a Robert Johnson ?