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Paul Morphy
Morphy 
 

Number of games in database: 456
Years covered: 1848 to 1869
Overall record: +167 -25 =16 (84.1%)*
   * Overall winning percentage = (wins+draws/2) / total games in the database. 248 exhibition games, blitz/rapid, odds games, etc. are excluded from this statistic.

MOST PLAYED OPENINGS
With the White pieces:
 Evans Gambit (43) 
    C51 C52
 King's Gambit Accepted (22) 
    C39 C37 C38 C35 C34
 Sicilian (14) 
    B44 B21 B40 B20
 King's Gambit Declined (13) 
    C30 C31
 Philidor's Defense (12) 
    C41
 French Defense (9) 
    C01 C00
With the Black pieces:
 King's Gambit Accepted (21) 
    C33 C39 C38
 Ruy Lopez (15) 
    C77 C65 C64 C60 C78
 Evans Gambit (13) 
    C51 C52
 Giuoco Piano (10) 
    C53 C50 C54
 Philidor's Defense (7) 
    C41
 King's Pawn Game (4) 
    C44
Repertoire Explorer

NOTABLE GAMES: [what is this?]
   Morphy vs Duke Karl / Count Isouard, 1858 1-0
   Paulsen vs Morphy, 1857 0-1
   Bird vs Morphy, 1858 0-1
   J Schulten vs Morphy, 1857 0-1
   Morphy vs Schrufer, 1859 1-0
   Morphy vs Le Carpentier, 1849 1-0
   Morphy vs Anderssen, 1858 1-0
   N Marache vs Morphy, 1857 0-1
   Morphy vs A Morphy, 1850 1-0
   Morphy vs Anderssen, 1858 1-0

NOTABLE TOURNAMENTS: [what is this?]
   Morphy - Mongredien (1859)
   1st American Chess Congress, New York (1857)
   Anderssen - Morphy (1858)
   Morphy - Lowenthal (1858)
   Morphy - Harrwitz (1858)

GAME COLLECTIONS: [what is this?]
   Paul Morphy -The Great Chess Genius by Timothy Glenn Forney
   Paul Morphy -The Great Chess Genius by fphaase
   Paul Morphy -The Great Chess Genius by nbabcox
   Paul Morphy -The Great Chess Genius by Beatlesrob
   Paul Morphy Conquered the World Says Fredthebear by rpn4
   Paul Morphy Conquered the World Says Fredthebear by fredthebear
   Paul Morphy Conquered the World Says Fredthebear by rpn4
   Paul Morphy Conquered the World by Okavango
   Paul Morphy Conquered the World Says Fredthebear by rpn4
   Paul Morphy Conquered the World Says Fredthebear by demirchess
   Morphy Favorites by rookchat9
   Morphy Favorites by chocobonbon
   0ZeR0's collected games volume 64 by 0ZeR0
   10 Louis leg end inspired FTB obj by fredthebear

GAMES ANNOTATED BY MORPHY: [what is this?]
   La Bourdonnais vs McDonnell, 1834
   La Bourdonnais vs McDonnell, 1834
   La Bourdonnais vs McDonnell, 1834
   McDonnell vs La Bourdonnais, 1834
   La Bourdonnais vs McDonnell, 1834
   >> 31 GAMES ANNOTATED BY MORPHY


Search Sacrifice Explorer for Paul Morphy
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PAUL MORPHY
(born Jun-22-1837, died Jul-10-1884, 47 years old) United States of America

[what is this?]

Paul Charles Morphy
Born: New Orleans, Louisiana, United States
Died: New Orleans, Louisiana, United States

He was the son of a successful lawyer and judge Alonzo Morphy. His uncle, Ernest Morphy, claims that no one formally taught Morphy how to play chess, but rather that he learned the rules by observing games between himself and Alonzo. When Morphy was only 12 years old, Johann Lowenthal visited New Orleans and at the behest of his father, agreed to play a casual match with the prodigy. Young Paul won 2½ to ½.

In 1857, Morphy won the 1st American Chess Congress, New York (1857) with a dominating performance. This success prompted a European trip where he met and triumphed over most of the prominent masters of the period, namely Adolf Anderssen whom he defeated +7 -2 =2 (see Anderssen - Morphy (1858)), Loewenthal in Morphy - Lowenthal (1858) and Daniel Harrwitz in Morphy - Harrwitz (1858). The tour was overshadowed, however, by his failure to secure a match with Howard Staunton. Returning to America to public acclaim, the chess world awaited his next move, but his interest in chess was fading and he returned to New Orleans to start a legal career. Attempts by Louis Paulsen and Ignatz von Kolisch to arrange matches were rebuffed and all subequent rumours of a public return came to nothing. Morphy still played occasionally in private, especially with his friend Charles Maurian.

Although the official title of World Champion did not exist in his time, Morphy was and is widely regarded as the strongest player of his day. Even today his games are studied for their principles of open lines and quick development, and his influence on the modern game is undeniable. Mikhail Botvinnik wrote of his influence: "His mastery of open positions was so vast that little new has been learned about such positions after him."

User: jessicafischerqueen 's YouTube documentary of Paul Morphy: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...

Lucas Anderson's YouTube video 'The Life and Chess of Paul Morphy': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zy6...

Unpublished manuscript of the "The First and Last Days of Paul Morphy", written by his friend and neighbor Constant Beauvais: https://web.archive.org/web/2017103...

Notes: Paul also played team chess with Morphy / Barnes and Morphy / Mongredien, and edited a chess column in the New York Ledger. / Games not actually played by Paul Morphy Game Collection: Not Really Morphy

Wikipedia article: Paul Morphy

Last updated: 2025-08-31 18:43:47

Try our new games table.

 page 1 of 19; games 1-25 of 456  PGN Download
Game  ResultMoves YearEvent/LocaleOpening
1. Morphy vs A Morphy 1-0181848Casual gameC33 King's Gambit Accepted
2. Morphy vs A Morphy 1-0311848Casual gameC23 Bishop's Opening
3. Morphy vs NN 1-0191848New OrleansC20 King's Pawn Game
4. Morphy vs J McConnell 1-0291849Casual gameC39 King's Gambit Accepted
5. Morphy vs E Rousseau 1-0171849Casual gameC39 King's Gambit Accepted
6. J McConnell vs Morphy 0-1231849New OrleansC38 King's Gambit Accepted
7. Morphy vs NN 1-0201849Casual gameC39 King's Gambit Accepted
8. Morphy vs J McConnell 1-0111849Casual gameC35 King's Gambit Accepted, Cunningham
9. Morphy vs A Morphy 1-0461849New OrleansC51 Evans Gambit
10. Morphy vs A Morphy 1-0211849New OrleansC51 Evans Gambit
11. Morphy vs Le Carpentier 1-0131849Rook odds game000 Chess variants
12. Morphy vs J McConnell 1-0231849Casual gameC40 King's Knight Opening
13. Morphy vs E Morphy 1-0201849New OrleansC53 Giuoco Piano
14. Morphy vs A Morphy 1-0151849New Orleans mC51 Evans Gambit
15. Morphy vs E Rousseau 1-0231849New OrleansC50 Giuoco Piano
16. Morphy vs NN 1-0181850Odds game (Ra1)000 Chess variants
17. Morphy vs A Morphy 1-0181850Odds game (Ra1)000 Chess variants
18. J McConnell vs Morphy 0-1141850Casual gameC02 French, Advance
19. Morphy vs NN 1-0141850Casual gameC44 King's Pawn Game
20. NN vs Morphy 0-1241850Casual gameC65 Ruy Lopez, Berlin Defense
21. Morphy vs Lowenthal 1-0551850Casual gameC42 Petrov Defense
22. Morphy vs Lowenthal 1-0491850Casual gameB21 Sicilian, 2.f4 and 2.d4
23. J McConnell vs Morphy 0-1251852Casual gameC52 Evans Gambit
24. E Morphy vs Morphy 1-0371854Casual gameC51 Evans Gambit
25. Maurian vs Morphy 0-1191854Odds game (Ra8,Pf7)000 Chess variants
 page 1 of 19; games 1-25 of 456  PGN Download
  REFINE SEARCH:   White wins (1-0) | Black wins (0-1) | Draws (1/2-1/2) | Morphy wins | Morphy loses  

Kibitzer's Corner
< Earlier Kibitzing  · PAGE 250 OF 284 ·  Later Kibitzing>
Aug-25-12  Pawn Ambush: <When seated before the chessboard, his face betrays no agitation even in the most critical positions; in such cases he generally whistles an air through his teeth and patiently seeks for the combination to get him out of trouble. - Ernst Morphy>

I tried this once and messed up everything, both the combination and the tune.

Aug-27-12  Poisonpawns: <thomastonk> I am not sure it was Morphy who "declined to play certain masters at even terms." I do know that according to Ed Lasker in "the Adventure of Chess;" Alexandre Deschapelles was noted for this behavior. In fact when his student;La Bourdonnais began to defeat him in these "odds" games, Descapelles refused to play him at all.
Sep-24-12  kaingero: paul morphy - the greatest chess player who ever lived. the grandmaster of all grandmasters.
Oct-26-12  Conrad93: Bobby Fischer was stronger. Plus, Paul Morphy never played at the level of Fischer, nor saw as deep.
Jan-27-13  LastDaysofSaloFlohr: An amazing insight, Conrad93.

You should write a book.

By the way, is 93 your year of birth or your IQ?

Jan-27-13
Premium Chessgames Member
  HeMateMe: <He may be right now, and you may not need to go back to the 19th century. Take a look at old Mad Magazines. In the 50's and 60's they could do parodies of Gilbert & Sullivan songs, or classic literature, and expect even the clods who read Mad to understand it enough to laugh. Now now. >

I don't think people in high school are required to read anything, anymore, unless they are in Catholic school or another private prep school.

The only Marc Anthony they've heard of is J-Lo's ex-husband.

They think Fiddler on the Roof is one of the steps in Donkey Kong.

Pompei is the pizza joint, two blocks from school.

lady Ga Ga has twitter, they know her. They've never heard of Lady Godiva.

Jan-27-13
Premium Chessgames Member
  Phony Benoni: <HeMateMe: They've never heard of Lady Godiva.>

Altogether?

Jan-27-13
Premium Chessgames Member
  HeMateMe: You'd think a nude woman on horseback would draw a little more attention to the history books?
Jan-27-13  TheFocus: <HeMateMe> >You'd think a nude woman on horseback would draw a little more attention to the history books?>

After you've been to a few nude rodeos, Godiva doesn't even turn an eye anymore.

You seen one nude woman on horseback, you've seen them all.

Feb-01-13  theagenbiteofinwit: The greatest ever. Unlike Fischer, there was never a period of time where Morphy didn't dominate the chess establishment. There was never such a strength differential in the field for Morphy to have cause to complain that chess was "fixed" against him. He didn't have to take three years off to study to beat the European grandmasters, he merely dominated every player breathing, sometimes removing his pieces from the board just to make it fair for them.

<The foremost man of his time>

Feb-01-13  RookFile: It's true that this guy climbed Mount Everest faster than just about anybody.
Feb-02-13  morfishine: Morphy was a true prodigy; whereas Fischer had to go the 'blue collar' approach: work and work and work and work until, as he was quoted "When I was eleven, I just got good"
Feb-15-13  Kaspablanca: morfishine: Morphy had the advantage that most of his rivals justo knew to move the pieces whereas Fischer had rivals that really knew how to play chess. Morphy was so ahead of his time that he could afford to give knight odds, rook and move odds and still beat them thus it give us an idea how weak were his rivals.
Feb-15-13  Kaspablanca: Morphy dont even make it to top 10 in most of list of favorite and/or strongest, greates player of all time due to mainly his "career" was very short and his rivals very weak.
Feb-15-13  morfishine: <Kaspablanca> I understand your point(s). The only issue I would make is that most of his serious rivals were actually quite accomplished chess players.

There was an article written a few years ago where a gentleman attempted to assign ratings to the older classical players. Of course, since these players didn't play in the 'modern' era where competition vs current players are used to establish ratings, he had to resort to an alternative metric. In the end he assigned Morphy a rating of 2710 and Adolph Anderssen a rating of 2560.

This is all subjective and unprovable, but his techniques and metric/basis were quite interesting.

Top 10 lists mean nothing to me.

I will try to retrieve the article if you are interested.

Feb-15-13  Lambda: Morphy's very strong domination of rivals clearly inferior to those faced by any world champion neither makes him inferior or superior to the later greats of the game. It just makes him unmeasurable. If he had been born later in history, and had players like Lasker and Capablanca, or Karpov and Kasparov to aim at, we've just got no way of predicting how well he'd do, there just isn't the information available.
Feb-15-13  Kaspablanca: Lambda, but i repeat my point and is that Capablanca, Lasker, Karpov, Kasparov had strong competition compared to Morphy, none of those player couldnt even give a pawn odds.
Feb-16-13  FadeThePublic: IMHO, is that he was the most naturally gifted player off all time. He learned everything on his own , EVERYTHING, an amazing talent. Sure he couldn't beat today's players without today's information but if he had that I believe he could be WC today as Fischer thought. He had by far the greatest distance to the second best player of his time than anyone, a true chess genius.
Feb-16-13  RookFile: You could set up some crazy position from a Sicilian Defense, and have Morphy analyze with Tal or somebody. I'm sure that in such an open position, Morphy would be right there with the very best in terms of his calculation and analysis.
Feb-16-13  morfishine: In my view, any true chess prodigy would handle himself well in any era. A true prodigy would adapt and rise to the circumstances.

There's no doubt Morphy was a prodigy: He wasn't exposed to chess before the age of 10, he had no chess books to learn from, and he was limited to only playing a few games on Sunday. Yet, by the age of 12, he was thrashing all the strong players in the area. Its noted that he played Eugene Rousseau, (a strong French player living in New Orleans at that time), approximately 50 games between the age of 12 - 14 (1849 - 1851), and won "about" 40 of them.

Feb-16-13  solskytz: To how many elo points is 'pawn odds' translatable?

If I play someone with black, without my f-pawn, by how much should he be weaker for me to realistically expect to score 50%?

What if it's "pawn and two moves"? Or a knight? Or a queen? And does the difference in elo depend on how high my own level is? (I guess it does)

Feb-22-13  tzar: I have read many opinions in this page theorizising whether Morphy had strong oponents or not, whether his chess was really outstanding or the quality of games at his time was too low, about his estimated elo etc,etc. All great players in history have had admirers and detractors. Only one player has received the ABSOLUTE ADMIRATION OF EVERY SINGLE WORLD CHAMPION. This player is Paul Morphy.
Mar-22-13  Just Another Master: The greatest chess Talent ever imho, he could give odds to the next best player in the world and crush him. He was so much better its unbelievable, Fischer knew chess and he said that give him some time in today's world and he would be the best, cant argue with that, RIP Paul you were/are a gentleman and the greatest chess genius of all time.
Apr-19-13  Conrad93: Eh, Steinitz was the better player. I do not get why he is held in such high regard when other 17th and 16th century players were also dominating the competition just the same. Poor play from booth sides does not make a great player. I have seen better chess from strong 1500's.
Apr-29-13  Zenagg: I think it is strange to compare talents over time.

Who is to say that a 'natural' talent of the passed could or would thrive in today's variation of chess.

I have trouble imaging them spending their lives studying opening theory. If we took every chess genius before 1960 and brought them forward in time...

I imagine they would find chess a great hobby and make millions working outside of the chess industry.

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