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| From | Message | Posted by ccmcacollister
legalserv.com
4/02/2008
08:26:16
Play online chess |  Subject: Paul Morphy ...
Message:
Apparently there has been differing info out there about Morphy. I recall dimly reading a CHESS LIFE article a couple decades ago, and a hodge-podge of articles or book sections/mentions over time (probably before that, mostly).
I do recall seeing one somewhere after that where it showed his gravesite, which was not in good shape.
MY questions are:
Have you seen something you considered the definitive work on Morphy?
Or if not that, anything you felt was good, or interesting, etc. Or Bad & erroneous.
Or Anything at all.
I do like Morphy. Let's not forget I'm the one who heard them say he would not stand a chance playing anyone in the FIDE TOP 100, and called it wrong. (Surely if they fear the tactics of Chess computers, even Unbooked Engines it has been suggested, the tactics of Morphy could score some points? The player Fischer called The Most Accurate in History? )
Question 2, or was 4, 5?
Well just any comments you have on Morphy etc ... let's hear it. EG Do you think He could never score on a Top 100 FIDE player? In otherwords, in seems, could neither
score on a Fritz? Or Rybka? Or maybe a DEEP DEEP Something? :)
| Posted by ionadowman
legalserv.com
4/02/2008
12:31:49
Play online chess | My own take on Morphy...?
Message:
Given the knowledge he had available to him in his own day, he wouldn't cut it in today's FIDE top 100. He would just be out-theoried. Recall that he was prepared to play a line like this in the Philidor's Defence: 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 d3 3.e4 f5... The thing was theory in 1860; rather discredited now.
Given today's knowledge, or even perhaps it were made available to him, Morphy would be up there with the best, I reckon: top 20 at least. So would, in my view, Adolf Anderssen, his greatest contemporary.
I have a feeling Anderssen came unprepared (and out of practice) into the match with Morphy. Winning the first game with the White pieces (... with 1.a3 e5?! 2.c4 - a positional win, not the style we usually associate with Anderssen) may not have helped, either.
Although Anderssen took his defeat in good part, he did make a comment later that one can not preserve one's skill level without actually playing. A match with Anderssen at the peak of his form would have been something to watch!
I gather Anderssen's 1866 match with Steinitz was just such a slugfest 6-8 with no draws! Steinitz took an early 4-1 lead, Anderssen drew level, to 4-all, 5-all, 6-all before Steinitz took out the final 2 games.
It's a pity of the world that Morphy dropped out of the Chess scene. Americans tend to blame Howard Staunton, but Staunton had pretty much retired from chess quite a while before, so it's hard to see that it would have been much of a match. They did play against each other in a consultation game, which suggests maybe too much is made of the alleged rivalry between the two. Morphy and partner won the game.
Leaving that aside, imagine the sort of games Morphy might have had with the likes of Steinitz, Zukertort, Gunsberg, Winawer, Mason and Blackburne; then later on Lasker, Tchigorin, Tarrasch; not to mention renewed battles against his contemporaries who continued their own chess careers: Louis Paulsen and H.E.Bird.
Morphy was a chess great in his own day, with the potential to be greater still - just as Fischer was last century - and, born 150 years later, would have been great in our day too.
I reckon,
Ion
| Posted by ccmcacollister
legalserv.com
4/02/2008
13:50:50
Play online chess | ionadowman ...
Message:
Do you think he would lose to Everyone in the top 100?? (How about the guy that lost to Fritz?)
How many times would Morphy lose to that discredited line? Where would he be after one year of theory study? Or perhaps even spectating one modern FIDE tournament?
Fischer played only a handful of openings most of his career ... surely Morphy has Somehing in his repetiore that would hold up?!
I know its all opinion and unprovable. But don't you find these interesting Questions at least? :)
———
Chess Puzzles: King Tut in Studies — Last week we invoked memories of King Tut, presenting two chess compositions in which the black king is mated, surrounded by eight black pawns. You can find the solutions at the end of this column. This week we present a slightly different "King Tut motif. " Entombing the king in chess studies is usually done at the edge of the chessboard and often leads to spectacular stalemates. It can save draws in tournament games. Puzzle #1: A simple king tomb was created by the Austrian chess master, theoretician and writer Johann Berger in his important work on endgames, Theorie un Praxis der Endspiele, published in 1890. Johann Berger White draws
Posted by chessnovice
legalserv.com
4/02/2008
16:28:32
Play online chess | ...
Message:
I see where ionadowman is coming from when he says that Morphy wouldn't match up to the modern FIDE top 100, but that has much to do with the fact that their knowledge is founded upon some of the groundwork that Morphy had built. Certainly, I agree that the top 100 FIDE players (knowing what they know right now) would be able to beat Morphy (knowing just what was available then).
But it is more appropriate to believe that the two players should have an equal playing field. Morphy was innovative, whereas not everyone in the FIDE top 100 is. If he had the resources of today (or conversely, the FIDE top 100 were only taught by the resources of Morphy's time), I'm sure Morphy would do quite well.
———
For One Teenage Chess Champion, Moscow Is a Charmed City — Le Quang Liem startled the chess world last year when he won the top section of the prestigious Aeroflot Open in Moscow. He was 18 and had just entered the top 100. The victory earned Le Quang an invitation to the Sparkassen Chess Meeting tournament in Dortmund, Germany. There he showed that his performance in Moscow had not been a fluke by finishing second. By September, he was ranked No. 41 in the world. His fall came just as quickly, first at the Chess Olympiad in Khanty-Mansiysk, Russia, where he struggled, and then at the Asian Games in Guangzhou, China, where he lost all but one of his games. Le Quang, who is from Vietnam, began 2011 ranked No. 79. Last week, ...
Posted by ganstaman
legalserv.com
4/02/2008
17:19:36
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ionadowman: "Given the knowledge he had available to him in his own day, he wouldn't cut it in today's FIDE top 100. He would just be out-theoried. Recall that he was prepared to play a line like this in the Philidor's Defence: 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 d3 3.e4 f5... The thing was theory in 1860; rather discredited now."
Topalov played the Cochrane Gambit against Kramnik and drew, so playing a discredited opening alone wouldn't be enough for him to lose.
Plus, from what I've seem of Morphy, he could figure out the best moves even without knowing that it's theory.
———
Le Quang Liem produces second shock win at Moscow Aeroflot — Moscow Aeroflot is the strongest and most fiercely competitive open chess tournament in the world, with a €20,000 first prize and nearly 50 entrants rated above 2600, the level of a high-class grandmaster. So it was remarkable that the winner in this week's Aeroflot 2011 should be the same Vietnamese teenager who scored a shock victory there in 2010. Last year Le Quang Liem won Aeroflot at 18, finished second in an elite chess event at Dortmund ahead of the former world chess champion Vlad Kramnik and soared up the world rankings. Le's hot streak then subsided until the second half of Tata Steel Wijk aan Zee last month, where he almost caught Luke McShane at the post. Now he ...
Posted by ionadowman
legalserv.com
4/03/2008
00:29:49
Play online chess | Well, there you go!
Message:
I didn't know it had been tried in modern times. I still reckon Morphy wouldn't be competitive given what he knew (and no more) in his own day. And he was capable of being outplayed: Anderssen did in the first match game (or at least the first in which Anderssen had White. True, Morphy returned the compliment 7 times over...
But Craig raises a point, as in a way does ganstaman, and it is something I hinted at myself. If Morphy, having recovered his enthusiasm for the game and been magicked from 1862 into the present day, had the theory available to him to watch, read, figure out, learn, we're in altogether different country. Given the motivation, of course, he would start out looking pretty rusty and then afetr a while - probably not even a long while - he'd be giving anyone a run for their money.
Mind you, convincing tournament organizers and sponsors that he was the real deal might take some doing. That would probably be the biggest hurdle to overcome...
;-)
Ion
———
Ugandan girl, Phiona Mutesi leads chess revolution from the slums — Despite background the 15-year-old girl is already country's number two chess player and has competed at World Chess Olympiad. In a rickety church in a Ugandan slum, a girl's hand thrusts forward and a black bishop falls. The girl shows no emotion, though she knows the end is near. Striking quickly, silently, the black queen is toppled, and then the king. Only then does she smile. "You attacked too much," she tells the boy sitting opposite her on the wooden bench, a homemade board between them. Phiona Mutesi is 15. She has just finished primary school and is still learning to read. Her family is so poor they have been evicted from tiny, rented shacks more times than she ...
Posted by lighttotheright
legalserv.com
4/03/2008
14:20:52
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With time Paul Morphy could hold his own against top players in the world, but not immediately. He would need time to catch up a little bit upon theory. It is a little unfair to compare his play with modern world class Grandmasters. Morphy is one of those early masters whose advances in chess theory has allowed some of the world's greatest 20th century GMs to even exist. Many others built upon his discoveries...and still others built upon those others. Let's face it. Morphy would need to catch up. But his basic ability was just incredible.
I remember years ago analysing some of his games with earlier (but still very strong--even master strength) computer programs. His play was clearly much better than those (at the time) modern computers. With that kind of ability (with no previous modern theory to help), I shudder at the thought of how strong he could be with all the chess knowledge of a modern world class Grandmaster!
———
First Came the Machine That Defeated a Chess Champion — Before there was Watson, there was Deep Blue. In 1997, Deep Blue, another computer built by I.B.M., defeated the world chess champion, Garry Kasparov, in a six-game match. At the time, it was considered a stunning achievement and a significant step forward in the field of artificial intelligence. Some people said that a new era would be ushered in, one in which computers would perform many tasks — like air traffic control — that it once seemed only humans could do. That era has not quite materialized. But almost 14 years later, chess programs running on an average desktop computer can play better than Deep Blue, making its victory no longer seem as implausible. And while the research that ...
Posted by cascadejames
legalserv.com
4/03/2008
23:01:28
Play online chess | Craig
Message:
"The Immortal Game: A History of Chess" by David Shenk, has a short section on Morphy, but more important for your purposes, it has a bibliography with source references. I merely skimmed this book some time ago when I checked it out of the library, so I can't help you with the details, but I think the bibliography had some references to info on Morphy, and it might help you find your definitive sources.
| Posted by ketchuplover
legalserv.com
4/04/2008
05:41:25
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I think if Morphy could stay equal after a dozen moves he'd do quite well.
| Posted by fmgaijin
legalserv.com
4/04/2008
11:21:55
Play online chess | The Definitive Biography
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Paul Morphy, The Pride and Sorrow of Chess by David Lawson 426 pp. London: McKay, 1976.
| Posted by cascadejames
legalserv.com
4/04/2008
13:06:16
Play online chess | Morphy on Amazon
Message:
I did a search on Amazon.com for "Paul Morphy" and somewhat to my surprise it returned over 2
dozen books about him and his games. Some are recent; some are out of print; at least one may
have been written by a relative, "Charles Morphy."
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