Paul Charles Morphy (June 22, 1837 - July 10, 1884), known as "The Pride and Sorrow of Chess," was generally considered to have been the strongest chess master of his time and an unofficial World Champion. He was also the first American since Benjamin Franklin to have been recognized as the pre-eminent world figure in an intellectual field, as well as the first recorded chess prodigy in history.
Early life
Paul Morphy was born in New Orleans, Louisiana to a wealthy and distinguished family. His father, Alonzo Michael Morphy, was a lawyer, state congressman, state attorney general, and state Supreme Court Justice of Louisiana. Morphy's mother, Louis Therese Felicite Thelcide Le Carpentier, was the musically talented daughter of a prominent French Creole family. Morphy grew up in an atmosphere of genteel civility and culture where chess and music were the typical highlights of a Sunday home gathering.
According to his uncle, Ernest Morphy, no one formally taught Morphy how to play chess. Ernest wrote that as a young child, Morphy learned on his own from simply watching the game played. His uncle recounted how Morphy, after watching one game for several hours between his father and him, told him afterwards that he should have won the game. They both were surprised, as they didn't think that young Morphy knew the moves, let alone any chess strategy. They were even more surprised when Morphy proved his claim by resetting the pieces and demonstrating the win his uncle had missed. Later, a similar story was told about the Cuban chess prodigy José Raúl Capablanca.
Childhood victories
After that Morphy was recognized by his family as a precocious chess talent. Taken to local chess activities and allowed to play once a week at family gatherings on Sundays, Morphy demonstrated his innate ability in contests with relatives and local players. In 1846, General Winfield Scott visited the city, and let his hosts know that he desired an evening of chess with a strong local player. Chess was an infrequent pastime of Scott's, but he enjoyed the game and considered himself a formidable chess player. After dinner, the chess pieces were set up and Scott's opponent was brought in: diminutive, nine-year-old Morphy, dressed in a lace shirt and velvet knickerbockers and looking like anything but a ferocious opponent. Seeing the small boy, Scott was at first offended, thinking he was being made fun of; but when assured that his wishes had been scrupulously obeyed, and that the boy was a chess prodigy who would tax his skill, Scott consented to play. To General Scott's surprise, Morphy beat him easily not once, but twice. The second time the boy announced a forced checkmate after only six moves. Two losses against a small boy was all General Scott's ego could stand, and he declined further games and retired for the night, never to play Morphy again.
In 1850, the strong professional Hungarian chess master Johann Löwenthal visited New Orleans, and could do no better than the amateur General Scott could. Löwenthal played three games with Morphy during his New Orleans stay, losing all three. (Note: One of the games was incorrectly given as a draw in Löwenthal's book Morphy's Games of Chess and subsequently copied by sources since then. David Lawson, in his biography of Paul Morphy, listed in "Further Reading" at the bottom of this page, corrected this error, provided the moves that were actually played, and urged that game records be corrected.)
Schooling and the First American Chess Congress
After 1850, Paul Morphy did not play much chess for a long time. Studying diligently, he graduated from Spring Hill College in Mobile, Alabama in the spring of 1855. He then was accepted to the University of Louisiana to study law. He received a law degree in 1857, in preparation for which he is said to have learned the Louisiana Civil Code by heart.
Not yet of legal age to begin the practice of law, in 1857 Morphy found himself with free time. He received an invitation to participate in the First American Chess Congress, to be held in New York in the fall. At first he declined, but at the urging of his uncle, who was quite proud of Morphy's chess skill, he eventually decided to play. After securing parental permission, Morphy made the long trip to New York via steamboat up the Mississippi River and overland by railroad to New York. There, he defeated each of his rivals, defeating the strong German master Louis Paulsen in the final round. Morphy was now hailed as the chess champion of the United States, and such was his strength of play that many urged him to test his skill abroad.
Morphy goes to Europe
Still too young to start his law career, he was invited to attend an international chess tournament soon after returning to New Orleans, to be held in Birmingham, England in the summer of 1858. He accepted the challenge and traveled to England but ended up not playing in the tournament, playing a series of chess matches against the leading English masters instead and defeating them all except English chess master Howard Staunton who promised to play but eventually declined.
Staunton later was criticised for failing to meet Paul Morphy. Staunton was flattered and at first intended to prepare for a contest in which he had little chance of success. Staunton later conducted a newspaper campaign to make it seem that it was Morphy's fault they did not play, suggesting among other things that Morphy did not have the funds to serve as match stakes when in fact he was so popular that numerous wealthy people and groups were willing to stake him for any amount of money.
Seeking new opponents and now aware that Staunton had no real desire to play, Morphy then crossed the English Channel and visited France. There he went to the Café de la Regence in Paris, which was the center of chess in France. He played a match against Daniel Harrwitz, the resident chess professional, and soundly defeated him.
In Paris he suffered from a bout of intestinal influenza and came down with a high fever. In accordance with the medical wisdom of the time, he was treated with leeches, resulting in his losing a significant amount of blood. Despite the fact that he was now too weak to stand up unaided, Morphy insisted on going ahead with a match against the visiting German champion Adolf Anderssen, who was considered by many to be Europe's leading player, and who had come to Paris all the way from his native Breslau, Germany, solely to play against the now famous American chess wonder. Despite his illness Morphy triumphed easily, winning seven while losing two, with two draws. When asked about his defeat, Anderssen claimed to be out of practice, but also admitted that Morphy was in any event the stronger player and that he was fairly beaten. Anderssen also attested that in his opinion, Morphy was the strongest player ever to play the game, even stronger than the famous French champion Bourdonnais.
In France, as he had before in England and America, Morphy played many exhibition matches against the public. He would take on eight players at once while playing without sight of the board, a feat known as blindfold chess, the moves of his opponents and his replies being communicated verbally. It was while he was in Paris in 1858 that Morphy played a well-known game at the Italian Opera House in Paris, against the Duke of Brunswick and Count Isouard.
The world hails its champion
During his chess travels, Paul Morphy was very popular. He was extremely polite, cultured, quiet, and reserved. In appearance he was small in stature, slim, and always impeccably dressed. His sense of sportsmanship was of the highest caliber, and his combination of brilliant play and personal modesty made him a welcome guest everywhere.
While in Paris, he was sitting in his hotel room one evening, chatting with his companion Frederick Edge, when they had an unexpected visitor. "I am Prince Galitzin; I wish to see Mr. Morphy." the visitor said, according to Edge. Morphy then stated that he was Mr. Morphy. "No, it is not possible!" the prince exclaimed, "You are too young!" Morphy was very secretive about his personal life, so the facts are not known, except that his brother-in-law actually came to Paris about this time, most likely for the purpose of escorting Morphy home. Returning to England in the spring of 1859, Morphy was lionized by the English. A match therefore was set up where he was pitted against five masters (Jules Arnous de Rivière, Samuel Boden, Thomas Barnes, Johann Löwenthal, and Henry Bird) simultaneously. Morphy won two games, drew two games, and lost one. No other world champion has since duplicated his feat of playing five of his closest rivals at the same time.
Shortly after, Paul Morphy started the long trip home, taking a ship back to New York. Word of his exploits in Europe had reached America, and he found himself the man of the hour. Popular acclaim was such that he had to travel home slowly, stopping in all the major cities, where the leading citizens in each competed to heap honors on him. Famous people such as Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes honored him at testimonial banquets, manufacturers sought his endorsements, newspapers asked him to write chess columns, and a baseball club was named after him. He was feted again and again, and in exchange, he thrilled the public with demonstrations of his skill, including more blindfold chess exhibitions.
Morphy abandons chess
Prior to his getting home, Paul Morphy had issued an open challenge to anyone in the world to play a match where he would give odds of pawn and move; and to play for any amount whatsoever. Finding no takers, he declared himself retired from the game, and with a few exceptions, he gave up the public playing of the game for good. Unfortunately, he was unable to, as in 1861 the American Civil War broke out, disrupting life in New Orleans. Opposed to secession, Morphy did not serve in the Confederate Army but remained for a while in New Orleans, then left the city for Paris. He lived for a time in Paris to avoid the war, returning to New Orleans afterwards.
His principled stance against the war was unpopular in his native South, and he was unable to begin practice of the law after the war. Attempts to open a law office failed due to a lack of clients; if anyone came to his office, it was invariably in regards to chess. Financially secure thanks to his family fortune, Morphy had effectively no profession and he spent the rest of his life in idleness. Asked by admirers to play chess again, he refused, considering chess not worthy of being treated as a serious occupation. Chess in Morphy's day was not a respectable occupation for a gentleman, but was admired only as an amateur activity. Chess professionals in the 1860's were looked upon as akin to professional gamblers and other disreputable types. It was not until decades later that the age of the professional chess player arrived with the coming of Wilhelm Steinitz, who barely made a living and died broke, and Emanuel Lasker who, thanks to his demands for high fees, managed a good living and greatly advanced the reputation of chess as a professional endeavor.
Tragedy and twilight
Morphy's final years were tragic. Depressed, he spent his last years wandering around the French Quarter of New Orleans, talking to people no one else could see, and having irrational feelings of persecution.
Morphy was found dead in his bathtub on the afternoon of July 10, 1884. The doctor said he had suffered congestion of the brain, brought on by entering cold water after being very warm from his mid-day walk. He died young, at the age of only forty-seven. Despite the fact that Morphy had not played chess publicly for over twenty-five years, it was not until after his death that Steinitz proclaimed that his match with Zukertort would be for the "official" world chess championship. Steinitz's forbearance to claim the title while Morphy was still alive was a recognition of Morphy's chess strength.
Morphy's chess play
Today many amateurs think of Paul Morphy as a dazzling combinative player, who excelled in sacrificing his Queen and checkmating his opponent a few brilliant moves later. One reason for this impression is that chess books like to reprint his flashy games. There are games where he did do this, but it wasn't the basis of his chess style. In fact, the masters of his day considered his style to be on the conservative side compared to some of the flashy older masters like La Bourdonnais and even Anderssen.
Morphy can be and generally is considered the first modern player. If his games do not look modern, it is because he didn't need the sort of slow positional systems that modern grandmasters use, or that Staunton, Paulsen, and later Steinitz developed. His opponents hadn't yet mastered the open game, so he played it against them and he preferred open positions because they brought quick success. He played open games almost to perfection, but he also could handle any sort of position, having a complete grasp of chess that was years ahead of his time. Morphy was a genius who intuitively knew what was best, and in this regard he was much like Capablanca. He was, like Capablanca, a child prodigy; he played fast and he was hard to beat. At the same time, he was deadly when given a promising game. Anderssen especially complained of this, saying that one false move against Morphy and one may as well resign. Morphy would win his won games, but if he made an error, it was still a long, hard process trying to beat him, and more likely than not the game would still go to him in the end. "I win my games in seventy moves but Mr. Morphy wins his in twenty, but that is only natural..." Anderssen moaned, explaining his poor results against Morphy. Anderssen was perhaps grateful that he did get a 70 move win, as he didn't get many wins of any kind against Morphy.
According to the online database chessgames.com, Paul Morphy suffered only twenty losses out of about two hundred games in the database, giving him a far higher scoring percentage than any other great master in the database.
Quotes
"Morphy's principal strength does not rest upon his power of combination but in his position play and his general style....Beginning with la Bourdonnais to the present, and including Lasker, we find that the greatest stylist has been Morphy. - former world chess champion Jose Raul Capablanca, in Pablo Morphy by V. F. Coria and L. Palau.
"...Morphy, the master of all phases of the game, stronger than any of his opponents, even the strongest of them..." - former world chess champion Alexander Alekhine, in Shakmatny Vestnik, January 15, 1914
"...the greatest chess player that ever lived...no one ever was so far superior to the players of his time" - former world chess champion Emanuel Lasker, Lasker's Chess Magazine of January 1905
"...Morphy was stronger than anyone he played with, including Anderssen" - former world champion Wilhelm Steinitz, International Chess Magazine 1885.
"Morphy, I think everyone agrees, was probably the greatest of them all." - former world chess champion Bobby Fischer
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