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Not helpful for black is 24.... Bxb5 25. Qxb5 b6 27. Qc6 Rc8 28. Qd7 and white starts capturing things.

Black has two logical moves:

A) Press the "random" button with ...d5
with the idea of ...Bc5

B) Play ...h6, to try to shore up his
kingside defense.

I put this Morphy game up there with these 2 I know and appreciate. It breathes the same "spirit" (whatever this is) for me:

Pillsbury vs Lasker, 1904

I think Harrwitz played a terrible positional game. He gives up the center and lashes out on a wing attack while White dominates the center. Wing attacks are more justified for Black here if the center were locked. (This is a typical theme in the KID Black Kingside pawn avalanche attacks.) In this case, White clearly had ways to make his center mobile.

30. c5! is the start of a brilliant and beautiful combination that is not easily seen from the starting position. It's a deflection sacrifice whichever way Black captures.

The obvious deflection occurs in the line 30... dxc5. The d-pawn is deflected away from its defense of the e5 pawn, and White can reply with 31. Qxe5

So obvious that Morphy already knew that Harrwitz would not play that. What's not obvious is that Morphy was planning on deflecting the Black Rook away from the 7th rank if it captures the pawn.

30. c5! Rxc5

Suddenly the 7th rank is minus a Black Rook. Now comes the more obvioius sac

31. Rxh7! which degrades the Black King's pawn cover and also acts as another deflection sac to force the Black King onto the h7 square, precisely where it can be further checked by the traditionally deadly attacking combo of Q + N.

31. Rxh7+! Kxh7 32. Qh5+ Kg8 33. Nxe7+ (which is another deflection tactic BTW)

Only now does it become clear what Morphy's intention is for his original c5 deflection sac. Note that if Black's Rook were still on the 7th rank, he could capture with 33... Rxe7. I think Black would still be lost but the game would be prolonged.

Now Harrwitz finds that he cannot recapture with his Queen because it gets deflected away from the the defense of his g6 Rook. If 33... Qxe7, then 34. Qxg6+.

So Black is left with 33... Kg7, and White wins quickly with the obvious 34. Nf5+ Kg8 35. Nxd6

<The funny thing is that the many years (usually decades) of study that modern players put into opening theory should not only count towards their strength, but that study and practice contributes vastly to their understanding of the middlegame and even some endgames. The silly idea that you can just 'catch up' in opening theory ignores the vast undertaking that this would involve, especially to absorb the vast number of openings and opening variations necessary to a complete chess education.> - John L Watson>

Let Watson try trolling such statements to Almost World Champion Keres (who began his chess career in the 1920s and whose prime IMO was 1938 to 1943).

The really funny thing is that when Watson did get to meet this archaic pre WW2 master over the board in a real competitive event, the old master thrashed him silly, showing just who had the really silly idea.

The really funny thing is that when Watson did get to meet this archaic pre WW2 master over the board in a real competitive event, the old master thrashed him silly, showing just who had the really silly idea>

I think Watson isn't trolling as much as questioning the often repeated claim that Morphy would be #1 if he just got <a little time to look at opening theory>, and similar statements about how little effort that would be needed for players of previous centuries to be the same level as the best players today.

All the years of professional training, GM coaching, international tournament circuits, decades of chess study, engines, etc, is often suggested to give no advantage whatsoever for players like Carlsen or Kasparov compared to the players of the 1800s. A glance at opening theory is suggested to be enough to be the same level or better. This suggests that the talent of modern players must be much lower than that of the players of the 1800s.

"If ignorance is bliss
the world will be ruled by geniuses".

There's a pretty big improvement available in the opening: 7....Be7, and if 8.Qxg7 Bf6 is near-equal.

Giving a more precise link for AJ's comment about 19th-century levels of play.

You will sometimes read that the longest Morphy took over a single move is the queen sacrifice against Paulsen, 12 minutes. I'm skeptical because there were no chess clocks and I doubt every move Morphy ever played was timed. But below pm1969 at least cites somebody. I can't tell you anything about Gianfelice Ferlito, though.

Sargeant's book of Morphy games gives the time used for the game as a whole for some of Morphy's match and tournament games. Three-five hours is typical, although some of the Paulsen games were far longer, and Morphy's 17-move blitz against Anderssen took just half an hour, while Anderssen's 77-move win (played the same day!) took six hours.

<paulmorphy1969: From the studies of the Italian historian Gianfelice Ferlito who studied Morphy, it appears that he was extremely fast and almost never thought more than 1 or 2 minutes at most before moving, perhaps the fastest ever.For the match with Paulsen the reflection times that exceeded 5 minutes per move were noted, morphy in the fomosa game of queen sacrifice reflected 12 minutes and on two occasions he exceeded 5 minutes per move while Paulsen also thought 2-3 hours for 3-4 moves.>

In that same thread that I quoted pm1969 from <nimh > said that Anderssen played very fast/quicker than Morphy, though he did not cite anyone.