First Book of Morphy -your opinion

I am beginning to go through annotated chess games. Chernov's Logical Chess, Weeramantry's Best Lessons of a Chess Coach, Pandolfini's Russian Chess (which is a bit modern and a little strange to me.)

I have ordered Neil McDonald's Logical Chess and one of Purdy's Fine Art of
Chess Annotations.

That should keep me busy for a long time, but then I read that the First Book of Morphy is very good.

My rating is around 1037 and I am hoping to improve by studying annotated games.

Should I get Morphy's book?

Your suggestions would be helpful.

Thanks.

stwils

I looked at the Morphy book on Amazon and it looks very good.  Morphy's games are great for a developing player to study.  Your opponents (who will be close to your level) will make errors similar to the ones that Morphy's opponents made back in the early days of chess.

Some chess teachers hold that a player's development should follow the historical sequence of chess development - first learn open games, gambits, and then move on to closed games.  So Morphy's games are a great place to start.

Personally I think every player should memorize the game Morphy vs. the Duke and the Count from the Paris opera house.

Yes. Memorize that game ... but also memorize the mistakes (and why they were mistakes) made by the "Two Idiots in the Balcony."

DrawMaster - Hah!  You are right.   I have played games here on chess.com that went 1 e4 e5 2 Nf3 d6 3 d4 Bg4. 

Stwils,

I have 'The First Book of Morphy' and am too, a beginner, wanting to play
through annotated games and was told that playing through Morphy's games
was a great place to start. I have to agree with that. My only complaint
of the specific book is that the notation is not a 'friendly' one. By
that I mean, it's very minimalist in it's algebraic notation. As one of
the reviewers said on Amazon, a move such as 'Nc3' could mean
Nxc3, Nxc3+, Nc3# or just the move 'Nc3'. While that doesn't seem
like such a big deal, it is, as the reviewer I am parpahrasing says, get
quite annoying and distracting, particularly when the author goes into
variations. For someone at my level, and perhaps yours, it's not easy to
sit and look at the book and get as much out of it because of the lack of
notation indicating captures, checks or even the more subjective
characterizations of moves ( !, ?, !! etc.). I find myself not using the book
nearly as much as I had hoped but would gladly buy a newer edition if this
notiation issue was 'corrected'. Take a look at the reviews on Amazon
as well. Hope that this helps.

--Vic.

Thanks Vic.

For the way the notation is, as you described, I believe I will not get this book right now. I don't think I would enjoy it as it is in this edition.

stwils

Don't give up on the book because of that form of notation. You will come to appreciate it, I think. For example, listen to the masters when they talk about their games on any of the videos on youtube. You will hear them use this minimalist notation as well. I have heard them say "knight takes, knight takes, bishop takes, rook takes"...

In other words, you will be able to follow this notation pretty easily if you challenge yourself from the beginning with it. Enjoy!

I think the style of annotating where they don't even say whether a move is a capture or not is the direct opposite of the style where the only thing they say is that it is a capture (Ne5 Ne5 Be5 Re5 vs Nx Nx Bx Rx). I think the first is abbreviated algebraic, the latter is more like abbreviated descriptive.

I agree that too much abbreviation is annoying. Too much brevity makes for hard reading.

But console yourself with the idea that trying to read notation like this is good for your visualization skills. Once you have a clear picture of the board in your head, you'll know that Nc3 is a capture, simply because there's a piece there already...

  Stwils,

    You can actually 'search inside' the book at Amazon. Again, I am telling you my
    experience - Cofresi may be right. For me, this is a book that I would have to
    have a chess board out and play through (not a bad thing, of course), but unlike
    other books I have, I can't follow this one without the board because of the
    notation. That may not be a disadvantage for some, but I have yet to
    understand why it's preferred by any.

    --Vic.

I have this book and can thoroughly recommend it.

I also have this book and can recommend it