Paul Morphy

What a brilliant chess players. (as well as a lawyer) Paul Morphy, unofficial chess world champion from 1958 to 1862, a sad detached death a great US player.

A sad lonely death at the height of his powers, was it chess that brought him to his early grave or something else?  

                                           A Picture of Paul Morphy  

I'll vote "something else".

There's a lot that's incorrect about this post, but I'll try to keep this short.  Morphy died long after his public chess career was over.  It's my opinion that he died from a brain tumor, but I have absolutely nothing other than my own suspicions to base that on.  The fact is, we really don't know what he died from.

How about syphilis! Nietzsche may have had syphilis, and Nietzsche was said to have gone insane because of philosophy. Morphy could be the American Nietzsche!

I read it was a stroke. He must have been a time traveler too if he was WC from 1958 to 1862, like you say. LOL.

Yes, that's a very common misconception, Morphy spent alot of time on chess. He wasn't extremely booked up on theory for no reason. 

Already back then, opening theory moved quite fast, especially in the razor sharp variations that where popular back then. The opening theory he would have picked up watching amateurs play as a child, would not have been relevant by the time he was a grown up and touring the world.

There are quite alot of articles that deal and mention the vigor and ferocity he studied chess with. These are often passed over though, since they don't fit well with the romantic notion that his life is often clouded over.

With that said, I hardly think he had a bad memory or wasn't a natural, he was a natural, and his memory was most likely exceptional. However, that's no reason to buy into the exxagerations that are so common when dealing with historical figures.

Ps: Zukertort did not speak 7 languages fluently.

It was suggested that for me to become a better player, I should find and study one grand master. I have chosen Paul Morphy. As it turns out, in a nutshell, he just played as a kid, went over seas and beat all the grand masters at the time and quit playing chess to become a lawyer.

I found this link to be incredibly helpful studying his games. He is amazing, and many of his games were very short and sweet.

http://www.pgnmentor.com/players/Morphy/

Oh, for the time traveler questions, yes he had a time machine and traveled to the future in 1958.

Actual Life Span (1837-1884)

Unofficial Champ (1858-1862)

Age 9, best chess player in New Orleans. Born in New Orleans. Began beating grandmasters at age 12.

 It wouldn't surprise me if Morphy died a virgin. This syphilis, insanity thing is beginning to be humorous. I've heard of guys going insane because they dont get nooky and I've heard of guys going insane because they get  nooky. Its a no win situation.

Eddie Murphy had a routine 25 yrs ago where he talked about aids. Man this sex thing is getting out of hand he said. You used to get gonorrhea, your dick hurts and you went to a doctor and got a shot.

Then along came herpes---that shit hangs around forever---like luggage.

Now we have aids---that shit will kill you! Man whats coming next ?

Maybe you will just stick your dick in and explode,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cEtygSs2AEY&feature=related

i always found the similarity of morphy and fischer to be interesting, in that, once they had 'conquered the world' they withdrew and well, went a bit bonkers ... once they had reached the pinnacle, neither attempted to compete at that level again (the 'rematch' of spassky and fischer wasn't really at the top level they both were previously 20 years earlier) ... it's just interesting to me they ended up very similar ... morphy said to be wandering the streets of new orleans mumbling to himself and fischer wandering everywhere and bellowing his awful anti-semitic (and other) rants ...

i have no idea what these two similar ends mean, if anything ... i just think it's interesting ... :)

and morphy will always be a fave of mine as well :)

Well, if you are playing chess with a blindfold on and winning at age 9... your are doomed to be wandering the streets in your 40's mumbling crazy rants.

Just saying.

that was just the laweyer in him, the only reason he toured Europe playing was because he was to young for the louisiana bar to admit him so he played chess, Pretty Damn Well, too. then he turned 21 and became a laweyr

" the only reason he toured Europe playing was because he was to young for the louisiana bar to admit him so he played chess, Pretty Damn Well, too. then he turned 21 and became a laweyr"

Actually, Paul turned 21 just 2 days after arriving in England from America.

Ironically enough, one of Paul's reasons to travel to Europe was ostensibly to participate in the Birmingham Meeting which was to start on his 21 birthday.  Unknown to Morphy because he was traveling, the tournament had been postponed until August 24. . . . and Morphy never did play in it but he gave  eight-board blindfold exhibition instead.

For those interested, here is an essay I wrote about 5 years ago called, What's So Great About Paul Morphy.

The puzzling thing about Morphy was that he got good without effort.  It may be he had done a  lot of studying chess, but none of the biographers say so.  Edge stuck around with him pretty much all the time once he reached Europe for the first time, and he didn't mention him taking out pieces and playing over games.  When morphy found out he was going to play Andersson, the "fever" came over him again and he pulled out a chess set and showed Edge several games from A's past from memory, but nowhere do we actually see him analyzing or learning the games.

Nor do we see any emotion, anger or sorrow.  When he lost the first game to Harrwitz in Paris,  H grabbed M's wrist and said that his pulse was beating just as fast as if he had won.  We can never get close to the man, never mind the chessplayer.  All the good players I know have worked hard to build up their skills.  Reading about Morphy's ease of playing is just frustrating.  I know there has been a lot of discussion about this, but i believe that at a certain point in a game you just have to play chess, and at that point Morphy would beat anybody in the world today.