<<Nov-16-11 leonie: Mr. Goldsby, please excuse me for posting here but I do not like the page with the game of Paul Morphy any more. You have been helpful and so I shall copy this here again, if you do not mind. It is about 6....Qd7 and I cannot find it in your analysis. You show that 7....Qd7 is bad.

leonie: Mr. Goldsby, is it true?

The oldest and probably best defense (see Atwood vs. Wilson, 1801 posted previously) is 6....Qd7!.>>

Paul Morphy - The Count of Isouard & The Duke of Brunswick [C41]
Paris, 1858.

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 Bg4 4.dxe5 Bxf3 5.Qxf3 dxe5 6.Bc4,

click for larger view

6...Nf6;

Technically speaking, this natural developing move is actually a mistake. However, I want to emphasize that Black has a TERRIBLE (nearly losing!) game here ... nothing he does will change that. (ALL the engines agree - the eval's are either that White is MUCH better, or even nearly winning ...)

All the good analysts (Hubner, Timman, Nunn, etc.); agree that 6...Qf6 was the best move for Black ... in a pretty bad situation.

Your 6...Qd7?! is inferior ... the is just a (long-term) target on d7. (However, I should point out that 6...Qd7; was probably still an improvement over the actual game!)

Here is an analysis that I began last night - and finished this morning. (I don't consider it exhaustive, but just shows how Black will NOT escape his difficulties from the diagrammed position.)

[6...Qd7!?; (Really - '?!') 7.0-0 Nf6; 8.Rd1, (8.Nc3!?) 8...Qg4; 9.Qd3! Nc6; 10.f3 Qg6; 11.Bb5 Bc5+!?; 12.Be3 Bxe3+; 13.Qxe3 Nd7; To protect c6, if Black gets doubled Pawns here, the game is virtually over.

14.Nc3 a6;
Black must do something. Castling on the Q-side looks very dangerous, and ...0-0?? just drops a on the d7-square.

15.Bxc6 Qxc6; 16.Nd5 Nf6; 17.Qa3! Nxd5; 18.Rxd5 f6; 19.Rad1, White is much better. " "]

Most of the time, 6.Qb3 is purely transpositional. (7.Bc4 is usually played next.) However, one VERY GOOD reason to play 6.Qb3 immediately is that Black seems virtually forced to play the weakening 6...b6. Also - in some games I found on the Internet - White sometimes want to follow this up with a pin (b5) of Black's QN; if it goes to c6 ... the doubling of those Pawns is probably decisive, if Black allows that to happen.

Or is that even worse than 4...Bxf3?? Which we know causes Blacks first probem?

I can't post a diagram so..

W..Kf1/ pawns on a7 and h3/ Rg7

B...Ke5/ pawns on f3,g5,h5/ Ra2

There's just no way i can promote that a pawn is there?

Anyway i resigned, but even though i attained that position you said was bad for Black after 6...a6, this is the best i could personally do lol.. Saying that its the closest iv got, and probably ever will get to beating an engine lol

I have just read your assessment of the tactics of Paul Morphy's opponents - your assessment dating back to May 6th, 2011, sorry for the delay in paying attention to your contribution!

I would like to stress that you have made a most valuable point by stating that <" ... for the most part, Black doesn't play this game horribly. Sure, 3...Bg4 and 7...Qe7 are probably not good, and 9...b5 is just asking for it. But for the most part, D&C make reasonable moves ...">.

Yes, you are right! Many of those moves that D&C have executed are quite plausible. Therefore the average amateur player, after somehow having stumbled by chance into the dubious line 3. ... Bg4? pp. , would tend to play the same way the duo D&C has tried to get out of their mess back then at Paris. With the result that sometimes a strange case of replay can be put on the board, herewith a stunning case - R Gralla vs S Stojanovic, 2008 - that has happened FOR REAL 150 (!) years after <Paul Morphy vs Duke Karl / Count Isouard, Paris 1858> at Hamburg, Germany.

At Philadelphia 1991, Gennadi Zaitshik played 1.d4 d6 against me (the only time I faced 1....d6), but after 2.c4, we transposed into a Saemisch KID.

From time to time I played this for Black and even used the Kangaroo once against a booked-up 2100 player who was solid-anything to get him out of his preparation.

<....I usually respond with 2.c4 as White, but am annoyed when I see 2...f5, since I'd rather play something else against the Dutch....>

In the early days I used to play the same way, but later switched to 2.e4, though by then, the French had become one of my mainstays as Black. No-one ever played 1.d4 e6 2.e4 c5, though.

<....I'm not overjoyed to play 2.Nf3, either, which rules out lines like the QG Exchange Variation with Nge2 and the Marshall Gambit, 1.d4 d5 2.c4 e6 3.Nc3 c6 4.e4!?>