Athletes - Paul Morphy

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	Athletes - Paul Morphy

Paul Charles Morphy (June 22, 1837 - July 10, 1884), "The Pride and Sorrow of Chess," was an American chess player. He is considered to have been the greatest chess master of his time, and was an unofficial world chess champion. Some chess grandmasters consider Morphy to have been the greatest chessplayer who has ever lived.

Morphy was also the first American to be internationally acknowledged as the preeminent world figure in a cultural or intellectual field. He was also the first chess prodigy since the creation of the modern rules of chess.

Early life

Morphy was born in New Orleans, Louisiana to a wealthy and distinguished family. His father, Alonzo Michael Morphy, was a lawyer, state legislator, state attorney general, and state Supreme Court Justice of Louisiana. Morphy's mother, Louise 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. Father and uncle were surprised, as they didn't think that young Paul knew the moves, let alone any chess strategy. They were even more surprised when Paul 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 talent. Taken to local chess activities and allowed to play once a week at family gatherings on Sundays, Morphy demonstrated his ability in contests with relatives and local players. By the age of nine, he was already considered one of the best players in New Orleans. 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, eight-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. Morphy was 12 when he encountered Löwenthal. Löwenthal had played young talented players before, and expected to easily overcome Morphy, and considered the informal match as a waste of time but accepted the offer as a courtesy to the well-to-do Judge. When Löwenthal met him, he patted him on the head in a patronizing manner. He expected no more from Morphy than the usual talented young players he had played before.

When the first game began, Löwenthal got to about move 12 and realized he was up against something formidable. He slowed way down on his moves, and each time Morphy made a good move Löwenthal's eyebrows shot up in a manner described by Ernest Morphy as "comique". He was shocked at the power he was up against. 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, 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 an L.L.B. degree on April 7, 1857. Although Morphy was able to recite the entire Civil Code of Louisiana from memory, he was too young to be officially admitted to the bar.

Consequently, this left Morphy with a lot of free time. He received an invitation to participate in the First American Chess Congress, to be held in New York in the fall of 1857. 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. He won the competition by winning fourteen while losing one with three draws. In the final round, he defeated the strong German-American master Louis Paulsen winning five games, drawing two, and losing one. (It was said that Louis Paulsen was an extremely slow player and that made Morphy nearly cry while playing with him). Morphy was now the chess champion of the United States, and such was his strength of play that many urged him to test his skill abroad.

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Athletes - Paul Morphy

Early life

Childhood victories

Schooling and the First American Chess Congress

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