<Paul Morphy: Mozart of Chess-Part three>

In this segment Morphy finishes his match with Daniel Harrwitz and plays his famous< Opera House game> against the Duke of Brunswick and Count Isouard. He receives a challenge from the fearsome German champion Adolf Anderssen, arguably the best chess player in the world since he obliterated Howard Staunton at the great London 1851 Supertournament.

White has developed his, and sacrificed some of them, while the Black king's bishop and rook are still at home as their king gets checkmated.

<IM Bill Hartston annotates this in his "Kings of Chess." After 7...Qe7 he writes <Most players, ancient or modern, would probably have settled for the win of a pawn with 8 Qxb7 Qb4+ 0 Qxb4 Bxb4+ 10 c3 etc., but Morphy goes straight for the kill.>

This is the one Morphy move in the game that I'm not sure about, and I've seen various annotators seem to talk around it in this way. There was one guy (I don't remember which; this game has been published how many thousands of times?) in which the annotator explained that White could have played 8. Qxb7, but that "that would have been the actions of a butcher, rather than an artist."

Of course, the game is great art only after we've seen the ending. The question the annotators are talking around is whether or not 8. Qxb7, boring and brutal as it is, is in fact the best move. If it is, then Morphy made one less-than-best move in this masterpiece. Was a brilliant sacrificial victory really in the works even before Black obligingly played 9...b5, or was Morphy going easy on his opponents on Move 8? After 8...b6, Black is probably still lost, true, but at least he should be able to hang on until Move 20 or 30.

Do we really know anything about the personalities of the Duke and Count? I've always been distrustful about the details of mythical games (as this one certainly is), because it seems that everyone wants to write part of the myth themselves (Morphy used 5 minutes, the others used half the opera, et cetera). Except for the moves themselves, the details tend to get buried

I don't think being an artist was ever entirely absent from Morphy's mind, especially in casual encounters. Here he wanted brevity and artistry both, and gave us a game for all time.

A more interesting idea for a challenge might have been to play two separate games, and see which one of them could last against Morphy longer, with Paul going for the quickest possible kill in each game, and playing to checkmate. If the object of the game is to mate as quickly as possible, then 8. Nc3 probably really is better than 8. Bxf7+.

My sites at GC hve all been closed, "A.J.'s Chess" is a new domain.