Capa himself said that his father moved a knight from a white square to another white square (I forget the actual color) so clearly the child is watching the game and making some kind of connection to the pieces and how they move.

If a four to six-year olds brain could learn chess like ones learns a language, the pawn structure could be like a the sentence structure to them and the pieces the punctuation marks, then like language, it just a matter of using it enough to become proficient at it.

In your references to Capablanca, who we see playing openings with Benoni structures with stunning accuracy first time around, he appeared to position the pieces exactly where they were needed like punctuation marks if you will.

He did the same with the French defense he played against Corzo, 1 e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 de4 4.Ne4, and now Capa played 4.Bd7 intending 5.Bc6. I can't seem to find any games older then his using the ChessBase database.

<A child of 4 years old has a brain especially well-adapted to learning multiple languages. Apparently, the language areas are still very 'plastic' and easily form new synapses and connections. Perhaps some rare kid may have the brain that allows him to treat chess as a language.>

If there is any truth to this, then Morphy and Capablanca were to a large extent products of fortune and serendipity. The best age for a child to learn languages is at around 2 to 6 years old. At this age, a child can learn the most difficult languages in the world without effort. It's as natural as learning how to stand, walk, and run. If Morphy and Capa first saw their fathers playing chess at say age 8 to 10, they may never have learned chess as a first <language>, and may not have been as strong in chess. If they were in Europe, they may well still have become known masters, but given their location in the Americas, they probably would have ended up being solely a lawyer or a mathematician, or in some other field from which we as chess fans would never have heard of them.

You bring up some thought-provoking points here.

I had a math teacher at Iowa State who was also a linguist of sorts, and he explained that math was a language. I think he defined a language as a series of symbols used to convey complex meaning (or something like that) and I must admit I agree with his insights.

That said, I am not prepared to accept that chess is a language per se unless perhaps in it's most rudimentary form.

One could easily and, I think successfully, argue that chess is a means of communication, but the information being conveyed is of an extremely limited nature and my gut tells me it's not a language because of this.

If chess does not indeed meet the criteria for being considered a language (and we can talk about that if you wish), it clearly shares certain similarities to languages as you both point out in terms of it's structure.

<If there is any truth to this, then Morphy and Capablanca were to a large extent products of fortune and serendipity>

Now as far as this goes, what would this say about a player like Pillsbury, who only learned the moves when he was in his teens?

<I am not prepared to accept that chess is a language per se>

And I agree. However, since playing chess to a large extent consists of logical pattern recognition, and perhaps so does speaking a language, I am wondering if the same areas of the brain can process both chess and language.

If chess is a real language, then the siblings of Capablanca and Morphy would have learned it too, just by watching their fathers play. Young children will learn any language that they are exposed to. Capablanca and Morphy simply had the brains to do it, which their siblings, and probably 99.99% of the human population does not have.

<Would you argue that Pillsbury was more gifted than Capa and Morphy?>

Perhaps if the obviously talented Pillsbury learned chess by watching his father play at the age of 4, he could have reached the heights of a Capablanca.

I agree with <visayanbraindoctor> that the age of the <"right kind of brain's"> exposure to chess can affect the how strong that chessplayer will become.

I said earlier Pillsbury and Morphy could remember pages of material after scanning it once. This kind of memory power gives one and enormous advantage in chess. Combine this with a natural ability to play and you have a player with computer like capabilities.

Now this is just my take, Pillsbury learned chess late, but had a phenomenal memory and he was a disciplined analyst, he said he "evolved" his own moves.

Did chess come to him naturally, I don't think so, as result of his late learning, he had to analyze chess, something he admits to. I can't imagine Morphy or Capablanca preparing variations against future opponents the way Pillsbury did. Note his playing of the QGD and his attacking formation, and his favorite 3...g6 variation in the Ruy Lopez.

Capablanca and Morphy played with natural ability and dealt with the positions that developed in real time. I often wonder if Pillsbury could have survived the Marshall gambit in the Ruy Lopez if it was sprung on him, my take is not the first time around.

Had Pillsbury learned chess during the time the brain learns a language with relative ease instead of years later, then perhaps HE would have been know as the "chess machine"

The effect Pillsbury's 1899 Havana simultaneous display had on a 10 or 11 year old Capablanca:

<'I was then a very mediocre player, but the reader can well imagine the impression on a child full of imagination produced by a man who could play simultaneously sixteen or more blindfold games of chess at the same time that he played a number of blindfold games of draughts [checkers] and a hand of duplicate whist. The effect of Pillsbury's displays was immediate. They electrified me, and with the consent of my parents,I began to visit the Havana Chess Club. By leaps and bounds I reached the top class in three months, and I was not over twelve when I defeated the champion of Cuba in a set match....'">

Pillsbury's blindfold performance compared to one of Alekhines, supposedly written by a person who saw both these great players in action:

I agree. Even without Marshall springing the Marshall Attack on him, Pillsbury had great difficulties in handling Marshall's highly tactical style. I think Marshall is one of the less than a handful of masters with a plus score against Pillsbury. Pillsbury also met his jinx in Blackburne, another mainly tactical player. Honestly, I think that if it were Pillsbury on the receiving end of the novel Marshall attack by Marshall himself, instead of Capablanca, Pillsbury in all likelihood would have gone down in flames, even if I think he is one of the greatest players of history and should have been World Champion.

<Did chess come to him naturally, I don't think so, as result of his late learning, he had to analyze chess, something he admits to.>

I agree. It's the same case with Rubinstein, and for that matter I think with Korchnoi as well. All these Almost World Champions learned chess late. They probably had to do a lot of over the board analysis as you say using the <I move this, he moves that> method, mentally crunching out variations step by step, while keeping a clear mental visualization of the chess pieces on the chess board. In effect, this is like playing blindfold chess, as you visualize in your mind's eye as many positions as possible from any given position that is actually on the chess board, step by step.

Pillsbury's photographic memory and visualization gave him a huge advantage in this. He could see clearly in his mind's eye numerous possible positions as though they were on an actual chessboard.

Capablanca on the other hand probably almost always saw positions automatically flashing in and out of his mind's eye very rapidly whenever he was presented with any given position. From all accounts, his colleagues could not believe how fast Capa could play in complicated positions without committing a single error. Capablanca would surely love present-day time controls of 1.5 hours per 40 moves; he seemed to have consumed just an hour in many of his games, and yet while playing perfectly without errors. In blitz and rapids, Capa was truly invincible and beat the crap out of everyone from Lasker to Fine. Chess was a mother tongue to him. Same with Morphy.

In addition, although Capablanca was not into blindfold chess the way Alekhine was, he was excellent in blindfold chess too if he did play it, for instance as seen in Capablanca vs M Fonaroff, 1918. I have read an article by Capa actually complaining that he remembers all the games he has ever played, as these cluttered up his head, and he was trying to forget all these infernal games replaying themselves in his mind. I think Capa remembered every master game he had ever seen or replayed, which is one reason why he did not have to intensively prepare for openings. Any new opening that he saw got stuck into his memory. And with his unsurpassed chess intuition, he could handle these openings inside out from both sides of the board, playing them perfectly even if the theory for them did not yet exist. (I have made numerous posts on this remarkable ability on the Capablanca page.)

It's unfortunate that Pillsbury did not learn chess at the age of 4. As I have posted, he could very well have been as good as Capablanca, and he would have indeed been the first chess machine.

Morphy made Game Collection: WCC Index [La Bourdonnais-McDonnell 1834] a special study and we are lucky to have his analysis for some of these great matches. And of course he knew every Staunton game by heart. Capa had to work on Lasker's games to have any chance of challenging the greatest champion of his generation.

I try not too, of course they analysed, but not "worked hard" to the extent of say Alekhine, who was well know for analsying even non-master games. Capablanca and Morphy were noted for their natural accurate quick play which is an indicator of natural ability. In chess much like language the deeper the comprehension, the more fluent the person speaking/playing it.

To some especially childern picking up a language is easy, the brain is still developing so there room so to speak that has not been used or even formed yet. A child learning chess or any other activity will have an advantage if they have the right kind of brain. Capablanca and Morphy were natural players more so than Alekhine and Pillsbury, the latter two great analyzing and preparing variations.

A person speaking fluently speaks fast, the same comparison can be found in chess. In Capablanca's case we have a report from Alekhine himself commenting of capa's ability in "quick games"

<His real, incomparable gifts first began to make themselves known at the time of St. Petersburg, 1914, when I too came to know him personally. Neither before nor afterwards have I seen – and I cannot imagine as well – such a flabbergasting quickness of chess comprehension as that possessed by the Capablanca of that epoch.

Enough to say that he gave all the St. Petersburg masters the odds of 5–1 in quick games – and won!>

These are the masters Capablanca allegedly gave 5 to 1 odds to and beat all of them:

Emanuel Lasker
Siegbert Tarrasch
Alexander Alekhine
Frank James Marshall
Ossip Bernstein
Akiba Rubinstein
Aron Nimzowitsch
Joseph Henry Blackburne
Dawid Janowski
Isidor Gunsberg

Now I'm not sure if quick games is the same as blitz chess but I've seen photographs and the clocks they use, they certainly could set a one clock at 5 minutes and the other at 1 minute. Alekhine reports that Capablanca spot them all and won, this tells me that they played even at first and then discovered they couldn't handle Capablanca and started getting time odds.

I play speed chess myself and can tell you tactical players especially the gifted ones are the most dangerous, in the 1914 list we have Alekhine, Blackburne and Marshall all strong tactical players being giving the odds of 5 to 1, and being dispatched in less than 60 seconds, from what it sounds like. I can scarcely believe this even now! I've seen masters give 5 to 1 odds ...not easy, I've never seen one win ALL the games.

Is it possible to looked at a chess game or chess itself and like hearing say a melancholy tune caused one to become depressed, and if one cannot escape from that source of depression, cause one to take ones own life. If chess <like love like music has the power to make men happy> then it should just as well have the same power to make men miserable.

We don't have to go back in history to find such talent. Anand fits your description well. He learned to play when he was young. He plays wickedly fast and is the best speed player over the last 20 years. Of course he does work pretty hard on his game these days. No amount of talent will take you to the championship today.

The Civil War did not effect Morphy as much as your posts imply. At least it had little influence on his decision to leave chess. He felt that chess was not a proper career for a man from his prominent family. New Orleans survived the war virtually unscathed as it was captured by the Union very early.

<SatelliteDan: Another thought,.. Given the fame that Paul Morphy had. Shouldn't there have been many more quote's fom him?>

There are many Morphy quotes. Plus he wrote a chess column and many of his letters are available.

Anyone interested in Morphyana is urged to visit our very own SBC's Web site. Be forwarned that you will not be able to stop reading this immense archive.

If Morphy had any predilection for Schizophrenia, a civil war would be a prime candidate for triggering the full-blown disease. (It could have been other factors though, or a combination of them, including the American civil war.)

I do hope American chess fans and chess players organize a Morphy Memorial, overdue by more than a century.

Morphy was against secession. He left for Europe shortly after the start of the war. His family was shielded by their prominent position in Louisiana society.

Although there were major engagements in Mississippi, Louisiana was spared. The Union was only interested in controlling the river. After the fall of Vicksburg one day after Gettysburg, they achieved this goal. The war in the West was then strategically over. That's one reason Lincoln could bring Grant East.

Concerning Morphy's incredible memory, Falkbeer, in the June 1881 issue of Brentano's Chess Monthly, had this to say: