Paul Morphy

Paul Charles Morphy (June 22, 1837 – July 10, 1884) was an American chess player. Living before chess had a formal world championship, he was widely acknowledged to be the greatest chess master of his era. He won the tournament of the First American Chess Congress of 1857, winning matches with each opponent by lopsided margins. Morphy then traveled to England and France to challenge the leading players of Europe. He played formal and informal matches with most of the leading English and French players, and others including Adolf Anderssen of Germany, again winning all matches by large margins. He then returned to the United States, and before long abandoned competitive chess. A chess prodigy, he was called "The Pride and Sorrow of Chess" because he had a brilliant chess career but retired from the game while still young. Commentators agree that Morphy was far ahead of his time as a chess player, though there is disagreement on how his play, and his natural talent, rank compared to modern players. Biography Early life Morphy was born in New Orleans to a wealthy and distinguished family. His father, Alonzo Michael Morphy, a lawyer, served as a Louisiana state legislator, Attorney General, and a Louisiana State Supreme Court Justice. Alonzo, who held Spanish nationality, was of Spanish and Irish ancestry. Morphy's mother, Louise Thérèse Felicitie Thelcide Le Carpentier, was the musically talented daughter of a prominent French Creole family. Morphy grew up in an atmosphere of genteel civility and culture where chess and music were the typical highlights of a Sunday home gathering. Sources differ about when and how Morphy learned how to play chess. According to his uncle, Ernest Morphy, no one formally taught Morphy how to play chess; rather, Morphy learned on his own as a young child simply from watching others play. After silently watching a lengthy game between Ernest and Alonzo, which they abandoned as drawn, young Paul surprised them by stating that Ernest should have won. His father and uncle had not realized that Paul knew the moves, let alone any chess strategy. They were even more surprised when Paul proved his claim by resetting the pieces and demonstrating the win his uncle had missed. That anecdote, however, is dismissed as apocryphal by Edge.