Paul Morphy: The Pride and Sorrow of Chess

by David Lawson

  Anderssen did offer a reason to Lange for losing to Morphy as he did, which may or may not have had much substance. As Falkbeer tells it in Paul Morphy, Anderssen excused his loss by saying, “It is, however, impossible to keep one’s excellence in a little glass casket, like a jewel, to take it out whenever wanted; on the contrary, it can only be conserved by continuous and good practice.” Much has been said about Anderssen’s lack of practice, yet he seemed in good practice for his first game with Morphy, and in his games with Harrwitz, winning against such an antagonist does not indicate that he was too “rusty” for combat. And it is true that there had been no tournaments for Anderssen or anyone after 1851, until the Manchester tournament of 1857, in which twelve strong players participated. Nevertheless, before meeting Morphy he had many encounters with strong players such as Lange, Mayet, and Dufresne. Gottschall says Anderssen often went to Leipzig and Berlin, and the former selected for his book on Anderssen over one hundred games he played in those cities, of which about forty were with the above-mentioned masters. One was the famous “Evergreen” game played with Dufresne in 1853.

  Also, as co-editor of Schachzeitung with Lange, Anderssen was well acquainted with the games of other masters and with new developments. He also had seen many of Morphy’s games in other publications, as well as some thirty that were published in the Schachzeitung in 1858.

  In Anderssen’s first game with Morphy, none of the “rust” that Steinitz mentioned (see Chapter 5) is apparent, nor any “intimidation” or signs of “lack of practice” that Reinfeld spoke of. Often considered the best of the match, this game was won by Anderssen, who appeared to be in full command of himself and the game throughout. In fact, Morphy wrote to Fiske during the match that Anderssen “is both bolder and stronger than any of his other opponents, and that his style and strength of play are fully up to the standard of 1851.”

  Anderssen accepted his defeat most graciously. He left Paris for Breslau on January 2, charmed with the city. Even under his heavy disappointment, he vowed to return soon. In a letter written a year after the match, Anderssen wrote very candidly about Morphy, expressing his great admiration of the latter’s extraordinary chess capacity. (The letter is here translated from the German by Dr. A. Buschke.)

  Breslau, December 31, 1859

  Mr. Von Hyderbrandt V. der Lasa

  Minister Resident [Rio de Janeiro, Brazil]

  Dear Sir:

  My most deepfelt thanks for sending me your latest work, with which you again presented me in such a friendly way. Even without your intention of dropping on the unsteady scales of public recognition which now so decisively tends in the direction of the transatlantic master, a counter-weight in favor of German chess mastery, your “Erinnerungen” [Lasa on historical chess, published 1859] will produce this effect since the games recorded therein are preferable to the Morphy games, in which faultless accuracy can, after all, be found only on the side of one of the players, on account of their being correctly played by both parties. I fully agree with your opinion on Morphy as well as with your disapproving of German chess vanity. You are perfectly right: the Berlin Club should have acted with the dignity of a chess academy whose duty it would have been to bring forward the talent and to support it, rather than to behave nobly and to show coldness and lack of esteem. If the necessary steps had been taken at the right time, Morphy very likely could have been induced to travel to Berlin. Later, however, when there was already talk about arranging a meeting between him and myself in Paris, he declined an invitation actually extended by the Leipzic (and Breslau) Club under the pretense [“because of” is probably the intended meaning here] his having to return home in the near future.

  Whether you yourself who for years have kept aloof of all chess activities, could have fought the American victoriously without further preparations, may of course be doubtful. Notwithstanding, your strong self criticism cannot possibly refer to your proper and true strength which, in order to be revived, needs only some exercise. In any case you have evaluated correctly the miraculous talent of the foreign master. I not only believe that deeper combinations and brighter sparks of genius are at Morphy’s disposition than were at Labourdonnais’, but that in infallible calculation and soundness, he even surpasses the latter. He who plays with Morphy must not only renounce every hope of concealing even the subtlest traps, but he must also start with the idea that Morphy will clearly see through all, and that there can be no question of a misstep. On the contrary, if you see Morphy make a move that, at first glance, seems to yield you a chance to get some advantage, examine it carefully, because you will find that it is correct and that trying to take advantage of it will lead to disaster. But most fatal, when opposed to him, is overconfidence on account of a better position and strong attacking game. I cannot describe better the impression that Morphy made on me than by saying that he treats chess with the earnestness and conscientiousness of an artist. With us, the exertion that a game requires is only a matter of distraction, and lasts only as long as the game gives us pleasure; with him, it is a sacred duty. Never is a game of chess a mere pastime for him, but always a problem worthy of his steel, always a work of vocation, always as if an act by which he fulfills part of his mission.

  To the fight with me he gave also outwardly such a strict appearance of solemnity, that it took away from it entirely the character of a gay occupation, and it had as far as I am concerned something oppressing, I would almost say strangling. The onlookers were forced to abstain even from the slightest whispering—something unusual which was to me all the stranger, as I am not aware of having been ever disturbed, during a game, by those surrounding me by any act of conversation (except barking of dogs and crying of children).

  It goes without saying that he himself likewise during a game does not utter any sound other than Schach, to wit, really Schach, not Scheck, as the English players say. His figuring is, in general, not of remarkable or even tiring duration; he always takes as much time as such a tireless and experienced thinker requires depending on the position, but he never makes the impression of useless and tormented pressure or stress—an impression I occasionally had with Staunton. And in addition, he sits there with a face so lamb-pious as if he wanted to convey the impression that he could not do any harm to a child; but when he executes a move with an expression so really harmless and pretending tiredness, one can always presume that he is just preparing the greatest meanness.

  Altogether, he is not only a great chess player but also a great diplomat and all maneuvers which he inaugurated in reference to me since his arrival in England, had no other purpose than to lure me to Paris and to burden me with the inconvenience of the trip. Likewise, I admired from the very beginning as a very tactful diplomatic maneuver that he took to his bed when I arrived in Paris, and I have never changed my mind about that. For that much I can assure you of: he did respect both of us, you as well as me, and not a trifle at that. If I say did, i.e., Parfait defini; perfection praeteritum, this of course applies only to myself, for my defeat can all the less have influenced his judgment about you as he knows, even in regard to myself, what the bell has tolled. Incidentally, I am not sorry about my trip to Paris, in fact I have already announced my return visit there during the Easter vacations and have fixed irrevocably time and hour of my arrival. Let us hope that then, when passing through Berlin, I shall have the pleasure, to meet you, dear Sir, in person, and then I could add quite a lot which can better be said than written, to my short communication about Morphy.

  Very truly yours

  Your obedient

  A. Anderssen

  In the above letter, written a year after the match, Anderssen is expressing a well-considered opinion of Morphy as chess master. It may be suggested that if Anderssen was strangling during the match, it was due to Morphy’s moves and not to any imposed conditions of silence. Morphy never requested such conditions at La Régence—where the match would have been played but for Morphy’s illness (instead of in his apartment). If
such conditions prevailed, it was not at Morphy’s request.

  It is evident from what Lange says in his Morphy book that Morphy had promised Anderssen he would visit Germany that coming March—in fact, Morphy wrote to Fiske that “he [did] not intend to leave Europe without meeting Lange.” But it is evident that Morphy had to forego the visit, due to his physical condition and pressure from his family for his quick return.

  Regardless of Lange’s hurt Germanic pride about Anderssen’s being “made” to go to Paris (he thought Edge had schemed it), Lange was extremely enthusiastic about Morphy and more than once referred to him as “our hero.”

  Some thirty years later, Lange discussed Morphy and genius in the Schachzeitung of July 1891:

  Genius, as a capacity for opening new ways in any department, lies, with regard to our game, not in the advancement of theoretical innovations, whose intrinsic value is yet to be tested, and which are frequently surpassed and cancelled by subsequent innovations, nor is the discovery of new principles which have yet to stand the ordeal of time and practice. On the contrary, genius manifests itself more prominently by the successful originality with which it carries on the actual game. In this latter sense, it is the whole play of a master in its harmonious richness of characteristic combinations, which acts as pathfinder and model for the spirit of his time and of posterity.

  With Paul Morphy this capacity and art originated in the natural disposition of his brain, i.e., in the co-operation of all intellectual faculties given by nature, which find their main employment and creative activity particularly in application to chess where they reach their highest state of development.

  In this sense, Paul Morphy is and will remain the practical chess master par excellence. It is my unalterable opinion, and that of experienced chess-masters, that the American chess expert would have found his way against any kind of play of his time, and if he was living today and in the full strength of his chess capacity, he would though, perhaps, momentarily embarrassed, after a short period of reflection discover the correct treatment of any style of play and be able to avail himself of it to his advantage in actual play, by reason of his extraordinary talent for chess. Those who advance the plea that he owed his fame mainly to the incorrectness of his adversaries, fail to consider that he had, in the first place, no other task than to overcome the style of play practiced by his actual opponents, and it would be clearly nonsensical to argue that, though he accomplished that task, he could not overcome an apparently more correct style of play. The mere reference to the so-called “modern school,” so long as it is not better substantiated for this comparison, is little more than vain phraseology, and the conclusion that a style of play because modern, for this sole reason, be better than the old, passes criticism; for such a bare assertion cannot stand as a deduction before the tribunal of common sense.

  Lange then quotes from Anderssen’s letter to von der Lasa (the second paragraph given above), with which he expresses himself to be in complete agreement.

  The Saturday previous to Morphy’s match with Anderssen, Harrwitz had given his blindfold exhibition, in an attempt to emulate Morphy, but with the poor results mentioned earlier. As the Era of January 9, 1859, states, Morphy’s immediate reaction was to declare that he would play twenty simultaneous blindfold games “against that number of as strong men as Paris can produce,” after the conclusion of his match with Anderssen. This incredible proposal caused much concern among Morphy’s friends, and he was finally persuaded not to attempt it. However, not until February 12, in the New York Saturday Press, of which Fiske was chess editor, was it indicated he might not do so:

  Our latest private letters from Mr. Morphy inform us that he has not yet authorized the publication that he intends to play twenty simultaneous blindfold games, and we hope that he will be dissuaded from the attempt to perform such a gigantic mental task.

  Forty years later it was attempted by H. N. Pillsbury.

  According to C. A. Gilberg, in his Fifth American Chess Congress, Morphy later wanted

  to demonstrate how slightly he esteemed the task of conducting eight or ten games at the same time and without sight of the boards. Mr. Morphy expressed his willingness, soon after his return to New Orleans [1859], to undertake twenty games in that manner [blindfold]. Prudent friends, however, dissuaded him from an experiment which seemed to them to involve a rash purpose to transgress the bounds of human capability.

  Fiske had written to Professor Allen in January that Morphy was “about to offer Harrwitz a match at Pawn and Move and will make the same offer to any English player upon his return to London.” Until the Anderssen match, Morphy had exempted Harrwitz from his “odds-to-all” rule from France, but now decided to silence the latter’s pretensions. In the presence of witnesses, Morphy authorized a fellow American, probably James Mortimer, to propose to Harrwitz on his behalf a second match, on the following terms: Harrwitz to receive the odds of Pawn and move; the winner of the first five or seven games to be the victor, and the stake to be five hundred francs, more or less, as Harrwitz might choose.

  The challenge was duly presented to Harrwitz on January 3, but he declined on the grounds that Morphy had treated him badly. However, as the Era commented: “Considering the courtesy that Mr. Morphy had extended to each and all of his antagonists since he visited Europe, this is perhaps the most ludicrous excuse that could have been made for declining the challenge so boldly proposed.”

  Edge says that “Morphy felt so much desire to play this proposed match, that he even offered to find stakes to back his antagonist, but all to no purpose.” As he is quoted in the New York Herald of January 30, 1859, St. Amant said he believed Morphy could “give pawn and move to any living player” and had hoped to witness such a contest between Morphy and Harrwitz. It was the general opinion that Harrwitz lacked the courage to accept Morphy’s challenge. When he received Harrwitz’s refusal, Morphy seemed to lose all interest in playing at La Régence, and to have taken a positive aversion to chess.

  Harrwitz now made an attempt to give La Régence players the same odds as had Morphy, but without success. Morphy had given Budzinsky—a very strong Polish player, probably as strong as Laroche—the odds of Pawn and move, winning five games to Budzinsky’s one. Harrwitz offered him the same odds but the results were Harrwitz one, Budzinsky three.

  In January 1859, the Chess Monthly carried the following announcement:

  Mr. George Walker publicly states that in his opinion, Mr. Morphy can give any player in England the same odds [as those offered Harrwitz] and urges Mr. Morphy to issue a challenge to that effect upon his return to the shores of Albion.

  On January 7, 1859, Dr. Johnston, the Paris correspondent of the New York Times, reported that

  Mr. Morphy offers now to play Mr. Staunton, and give him a Pawn and a move; but, of course, no player of Mr. Staunton’s caliber would accept such an offer. Mr. Morphy, however, is justified, after the course of Mr. Staunton, in making such an offer, and he says to his friends, that he is sure he can beat him with that advantage.

  Porter’s Spirit of the Times of January 15, 1859, also carried the news of Morphy’s challenge: “To silence all cavil in regard to the English Champion [Staunton], Morphy now offers to give him pawn and move, and play him for any sum he pleases.”

  George Walker, in Bell’s Life in London of July 17, 1859, may have expressed the ultimate vote of confidence in Morphy:

  It is something for America to be able to say with truth, “we have Paul Morphy, a boy of twenty-two, who can give Pawn and Move to every other player in the world.” And large as the world is, this, we, Bell’s Life in London, honestly believe the BOY can do.

  And so at the age of twenty-two, Morphy was internationally regarded as the strongest player in the world.

  Edge, in his long dispatch of January 5, 1859, to the New York Herald, was the first to announce that “Paul Morphy had declared that he will play no more matches with anyone unless accepting Pawn and move from him.” And perha
ps he was not too presumptuous.

  CHAPTER 14

  “The World Is His Fatherland”

  Morphy’s formal challenge to the chess players of the world, offering the odds of Pawn and move, was never taken up. Thereafter, however, in his casual games, he almost invariably offered Knight odds. With his friend Rivière, he made a single exception, continuing to play him even.

  Morphy had promised a match with Augustus Mongredien, president of the London Chess Club, who, knowing Morphy would have no time for it in London on his way back to America, decided to come to Paris in late February to redeem the promise. The match of eight games was played at Mongredien’s hotel, the Hotel du Louvre. It began on February 26 with only St. Amant and Rivière present. Mongredien had no illusions as to what the outcome would be, and the match ended on March 3, Morphy seven, Mongredien zero—the first game having ended in a draw. Apart from these, and three with Lowenthal, one with Boden, and some with Mongredien and Rivière in 1863, Morphy never thereafter played others without giving odds.

  As was seen in Chapter 13, after his defeat of Anderssen, Morphy’s acclaim seemed to cover all Europe. T. J. Werndly of Holland celebrated him in the January 1859 Sissa in a five-stanza poem ending:

  Weep not, O Europe

  Rejoice not, America!

  For genius like his,

  Both lands are too small.

  The World is his Fatherland!

  Many such testaments to Paul Morphy have continued to be voiced by great masters down to the present day. Emanuel Lasker (in Lasker’s Chess Magazine of January 1905) pronounced him

  the greatest chess player that ever lived. Every student of the game, who has delved into the stories of the past, realizes that no one ever was so far superior to the players of his time, or ever defeated his opponents with such ease, and no one ever offered Knight odds to the men who considered themselves his equal.