Read an Excerpt
Morphy's Games of Chess
By PHILIP W. SERGEANT Dover Publications, Inc.
Copyright © 1957 Dover Publications, Inc.
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-486-14527-3
INTRODUCTION
It is a truism, familiar to most chessplayers, that chess theory has made greater advances in the past hundred years than in the previous thousand, and it is to Paul Morphy that we owe the impetus for this magnificent progress.
Just how Morphy accomplished what he did is not easy to explain. Do great men make history, or does history make great men? Did Morphy impart his doctrines to his contemporaries, or did he merely systematize ideas that were part of the "intellectual climate" of the chess world of his day? And just how did he preach his ideas—how did he convince the ignorant and open the eyes of the blind?
Morphy wrote no book; he never expounded his chess theories publicly, aside from a chess column he edited in a New York newspaper for about a year. His ideas and guiding theories are imbedded in his games. Over the years, six large-scale collections of his games have been published. These extremely popular works have made Morphy's games available to a large number of players.
Morphy's games are so insidiously attractive that they make powerful propaganda for Morphy's theories—theories, I repeat, that were never stated by Morphy but are implicit in his games.
Morphy believed, above all, in developing his pieces rapidly. This was a conscious policy, and no mere accident. While his opponents often crassly neglect development, or allow themselves to be capriciously deflected from the goal of full development, Morphy never neglects this vital principle: Develop quickly and efficiently!
All credit to Morphy for this important emphasis. But the chess world was in any event moving slowly to a recognition of the value of development. The systematic study of chess in the modern sense really started with the great Frenchman Philidor in the latter half of the eighteenth century. As technique gradually sharpened and theoretical understanding broadened, the best chess minds groped laboriously for a fundamental concept of the game. Morphy supplied that concept: Development!
The lesson is clear in Morphy's games. Particularly when we play over his games with weak players do we see how he invariably and effortlessly hammered away at obtaining an advantage in development. Of course, in these games the opening of attacking lines goes hand in hand with rapid development.
Enough of abstractions. Take a concrete example—the game with Lewis (CXXXVI, p. 200). While Black voluntarily submits to a cramped game with his timid opening moves, Morphy develops quickly. At the same time, he stresses from the very start his intention of opening the King Bishop file. (He gives us a clear hint with the unorthodox 4 Kt-KR3, played to make room for P-KB4 followed by P-B5.)
Notice how calmly, clearly, elegantly Morphy brings one piece after another to the attack, always increasing the pressure. Having opened the King Bishop file, he places his Rooks on it. Then he uses the open file as a steppingstone to the King Knight file and attacks on that file too. Finally we have a neat, pleasing conclusive attack—all thanks to the carefully planned development that preceded it.
This was a blindfold game, which makes Morphy's achievement all the more impressive. In another blindfold game against an amateur (XCVIII, p. 170), Morphy reaches even greater heights. Aside from the beauty of the play, this game is significant because it is an Evans Gambit—that favorite opening of Morphy's in which White sacrifices a Pawn "on spec" in order to gain time to obtain a dashing development and a formidable Pawn center.
Here again we see Morphy's grand technique of combined operations—quick, forceful development and the opening of lines. Look at the diagram after Black's twenty-first move. White has all his pieces actively developed. Black's forces are passive, some of them undeveloped. White has the open lines—open King file, open long diagonal. No wonder Morphy is able to bring off a combination as electrifying as the crashing chords of a Beethoven sonata.
This is the great lesson Morphy teaches us untiringly: Develop your pieces; create open lines; operate on the open lines with your more actively posted pieces until you have crushed the enemy to a pulp and hounded his King into oblivion.
Morphy was generally a brilliant player, and for more than one reason. His flair for the game was such that he had a natural preference for the colorful, elegant conclusion. But it was not only a matter of temperament. A big lead in development, quantitative and qualitative, automatically produces situations in which brilliant attack is the order of the day.
But in chess there are times when one cannot be brilliant, even though forceful moves are available. And of this art too—how to be forceful without being brilliant—Morphy was a past master. The last game of the match with Lowenthal (XXXIII, p. 81) is a good example. Here Morphy pushes his advantage in terrain with simple, logical, forcing moves until Black gasps for air. Such games, as Morphy plays them, have a genuine aesthetic appeal even though the fanfare of easy brilliancy is absent.
In fact, the incessant din about Morphy's brilliant combinations has blinded many to the superb skill he displays in the end game. The third match game with Harrwitz (XLIII, p. 94) shows Morphy's end-game virtuosity in the most favorable light. The way he creates a passed Pawn and uses it to tie up White's pieces makes it clear that Morphy was a thorough master of the fine points of end-game play.
Again, in Game CXVI (p. 185) against Seguin, Morphy spies the weakness of Black's Queen Bishop Pawn and, in a series of well thought out moves, forces its downfall. This game is all the more remarkable since it was played in a blindfold exhibition and we might expect Morphy to strive for brilliancy at all cost.
Still another facet of Morphy's genius that compels our admiration is the beauty of his blindfold play. In these games against weak opponents he allows his combinative genius full scope and produces many fireworks effects.
Even after the most critical examination we must admit the many-sided genius of Morphy's play. Yet he was not a god, and if we are to appraise him with ruthless candor, we must admit that there are flaws in his play too. This may be a calculated affront to what might be styled the bobby-sox school of chess critics, in whose eyes Morphy can do no wrong. But, by honestly enumerating these flaws, we will come to a better understanding of Morphy's genius and of master play in general.
In the first place, some of Morphy's games are downright dull—some, but not many. When we come to these dreary games, we must remember that the chess master, unlike other great artists, has to produce on schedule, whether he is in the mood or not. There are days when even the most outstanding geniuses are unable to give of their best. It is the chess master's misfortune that these occasionally mediocre efforts are recorded and may turn up in future years to plague him and embarrass him. As far as Morphy is concerned, his occasionally dreary games allow his characteristic masterpieces to shine with an even more brilliant luster.
If one were asked to name a group of games in which Morphy shows to least advantage, it would be, on the whole, the games of his match with Lowenthal. It may well be that the strain of his relations with Staunton (as explained by Sergeant in the biographical introduction) had a bad effect on Morphy's play.
This is a good point at which to deal with one of the most pernicious misunderstandings about Morphy's play. His uncritical admirers, as well as those who have never played over his games, have the impression that Morphy was always brilliant. This is not true, and it is especially misleading in connection with his match and tournament games. It was Steinitz who first established—with malicious glee, to be sure—that Morphy's serious games against first- rate opponents contain comparatively few brilliant moves.
This fact, and it is a fact, is not necessarily to Morphy's discredit. He had the good sense to realize that he could not bowl over men of Anderssen's stature as if they were feeble amateurs. In this respect Morphy's experience has been borne out by the praxis of the modern masters, who know that a sensational game against a formidable opponent is the exception and not the rule.
Getting back to the defects in Morphy's play, we must correct another erroneous impression created by Morphy's uncritical admirers. The widespread veneration aroused by Morphy's genius is understandable, but it has led to deplorable myth-making. No man is infallible—not even a Morphy. It is a mistake to insist that all of Morphy's combinations are infallible, for they do contain inexactitudes and weaknesses.
On the whole, Morphy's combinations stand up very well in the pitiless analysis of latter-day authorities. And yet here and there we detect flaws which remind us that even the greatest master is no chess machine. It is interesting in this respect to note that neither of Morphy's two most brilliant games is flawless. Thus, the magnificent Rook and Queen sacrifice against Bird (CXCII, p. 249) should have led at best to a draw. And in the case of Morphy's most celebrated brilliancy (XVI, against Paulsen, p. 56), Morphy missed the most forceful continuation not once, but twice! The doctrine of Morphy's infallibility dies hard.
But the weakest aspect of Morphy's play is in his handling of the close game. He is at his best in the open games that begin with the double march of the King Pawn on both sides. Where another sequence is used at the beginning of the game, Morphy is uninspired and clearly uncomfortable. This is perhaps most obvious in the sixth, eighth, and tenth games of his match with Anderssen, where the German professor consistently outplays him in the opening and early middle game.
And in this respect we can compare the delightful win against Lichtenhein (VII, p. 45), with the lackluster games (IX, p. 47) Morphy played only two days later against the same opponent. It is difficult to realize that Morphy played Black in both these games!
Again, Morphy's treatment of the French Defense (as, for example, in Game XXXI, p. 79) shows a complete lack of understanding of the close game. Morphy's favorite move 3 P × P, opening the closed diagonal of Black's imprisoned Queen Bishop, is rarely seen in modern chess. In this respect even second-rate modern masters have a better understanding of the close game than Morphy did.
Having frankly noted these weaknesses, we still return to the view that Morphy was the memorable genius who wrenched chess out of the rut in which it had sluggishly dawdled for a thousand years. By emphasizing the role of systematic, aggressive development, Morphy helped to mold chess into an art form and into the highest phase of intellectual struggle. That is why he still deserves our admiration and why his games still continue to afford us the keenest pleasure.
1957 Fred Reinfeld
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Morphy's Games of Chess by PHILIP W. SERGEANT. Copyright © 1957 Dover Publications, Inc.. Excerpted by permission of Dover Publications, Inc..
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
