Well it's not too bad for an 11 year boy who never had that much in the form of chess literature to learn from.

In them days Black was still playing White.

EH?

There is 50-50 chance that the board set up in the Morphy house on that day after 1.e5 e4 2.f2 was this.

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You could win a £10 bet by asking who was White in the 'Immortal Game'. It was Kieseritzky, Anderssen had the Black pieces but moved first.

So who taught Morphy?

I don't agree with the school who think Morphy could be in the top 20 of today's players and on another day I could build a case that the Morphy hype over-shadowed other developments that were taking place in chess.

But no Morphy....unthinkable. He left us such wonderful insructive games and I've heard too many comments from beginners to GM's who say they fell in love with the game thanks to playing over a Morphy game.

Think I'll buy the David Janowski's best games book, it's one of the very few game collections I don't have and I've always rated him as a player.

And yes a couple of pints and a 5 minute session in Sandy Bells are in order.

The drink of course will be Murphy's Irish Stout. And apparently it's not a pun on Morphy. According to Edward Winter there is a link.

C.N.5068. Morphy and beer

http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/...

Did you see how nicely I swung that back onto the Morphy topic.

The crime novelist John Connolly (his recurring hero is named Charlie 'Bird' Parker) set one of his books around New Orleans ... where there was an Irish-American cop called Morphy, "descended from the chess champion".

What Connolly overlooked was (1) the absence of Morphy descendants in real life, and (2) the fact that the Morphy family were posh Spanish-American lawyers ... not Micko cops.

Connolly is from Dublin -- I've interviewed him for a paper -- and should know better.

Winter does link Morphy with Ireland on the fathers side and the coat of arms displayed in the link does seem to show this.

Worked with Edward Winter once on one of his notes. Never met such a meticulous man. He ordered and bought a non-chess book just to double check one referernce.

Chess should be very glad we have him. His site is the best thing on the net.

Been listening for chess references in the World Cup. 'it's like a game of chess' or 'stalemate.'

Currently halfway though a column where I use football terms in chess notes.

'Sick as a parrot', 'A Knight offside' etc.... (lost pieces are those sent off, promotions are the subs coming on...sounds totally crap I know but it will look OK when it's finished.)

Just looking for a 'game of two halves' and I'll have it done.

I did it, finished it yesterday.

http://www.redhotpawn.com/blog/blog...

WARNING:
Some of the moves you see there will turn your hair white.

Missed mates in one, castling into mate in one (both King and Queenside.) These are not blitz games. The players actually had 20+ days to make a move!

It turned out OK. Even came up with a new term: The Maradona Mate. (nothing to do with the 'Hand of God' that was a poor ref's decision - 20 years earlier one gave England a goal in the World Cup Final. In Football, as in Chess, what goes around comes around.)

Re TV Commentators:

I wish one would say something like:

"This game is liking watching the Exchange French between two grandmothers."

Or

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If the White King is the penalty taker or striker, the pawn is the ball, and the Black King is the opposition keeper, then the solution is simple: smash the pawn forward into the net.

But the chess solution is different: you must leave the 'pawn' on the spot, run out in front of it with 1.Kd5, elbow the opposition player aside, and only then let the ball roll into the net.

It was all, as always, mixing a bit of fun with instruction. I do wish though that football commentators would not refer to boring matches as like a game of chess.

In your posted position the White King runs into space wrong footing a defender so the ball (at the pawn's feet) can be slotted home.

This position would cause a problem.

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Mutual Zugzwang. Who ever has the move loses.