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A M E R I C A N C H E S S
C H A M P I O N S
1. Paul Morphy
By FRED REINFELD
In 1857 American chess was in its infancy. The
infant was not strong and lusty, giving promise of vigorous growth:
it was weak, pulling feebly, helplessly dependent on its European
wet-nurse.
To contemporary chess players, the state of
affairs in those days must seem incredible. There was no chess organization
of any sort; the mortality rate among the scrawny, poorly supported chess
periodicals was fearful; newspaper columns were few and far between (they
still are!); no chess master of note had been produced; chess literature and
analysis leaned heavily on European sources. As Charles Gilberg, chronicler
of early American chess congresses, puts it in his delectably genteel
nineteenth-century prose: "A few intermittent and
spasmodic efforts had, indeed, been previously made by the worshipers of
CAÏSSA to allure fresh converts to her shrine, for the purpose of
strengthening some local organization; but, unsustained by the fervor of the
enthusiastic laborer, those efforts had become too soon relaxed to yield the
courted fruit, and club after club had been permitted to disintegrate and
decay until few remained. The chess pageantry of the Old World had been but
slightly reflected across the ocean, and the stray gleams that reached our
shores proved too evanescent to penetrate the plebian soul of the
uninitiated."
There were extenuating conditions, to be sure. The
country now proudly stretched from ocean to ocean, but the "Iron Horse" had
not been built. Transportation, and consequently communication, was still
slow. The resulting predominance of regional and sectional feeling over
national sentiment severely handicapped any attempt at nation-wide
organization. And, as we know from the development of the arts in this
country, American chess was not the only field in which we were imitative,
lacking in self-confidence, dependent on European models. The country was
still new, ever-advancing frontiers were being opened up constantly, the
emphasis was on making a living; such things as leisure, culture and
research had to be deferred to the future. Above all, the country became
ever more intensively preoccupied with the bitter controversy which was to
explode into civil war.
At all events, 1857 witnessed a radical proposal by D.
W. Fiske, a professor of languages at Cornell and a great chess enthusiast.
Let us have a national championship tournament, he urged, tirelessly calling
on chess players all over the country to support the project. The more they
considered Fiske's suggestion, the more obvious its attractions appeared:
the game would receive valuable publicity; the outstanding players would
make each other's acquaintance; their comparative strength would be
accurately measured; chess devotees would have delightful entertainment,
chess laws would be efficiently codified.
Fiske's proposal found popular favor. A committee was
organized, a local was obtained for the tournament, the necessary funds were
raised, an don October 6, 1857, the First American Chess Congress got under
way in New York. The tournament was run on the same foolish
"knock-out" principle that had been used in the first International
Tournament at London in 1851: the players were paired
by lot, and the first to win three games from his opponent qualified for the
next round. while the loser fell out of the tournament. The process was
continued until the final round, when the victor had to score five wins.
(The obvious flaw in this system - that accidental elimination of strong
players who start in poor form - led to the adoption of the now universal
system of round-robin play, a much more conclusive test of strength.
There were 16 entries: 8 from New
York, and 1 each from Hasting, Minn.; Bridgeport; Chicago; Mobile;
Philadelphia; New Orleans; Dubuque; Louisville. Imagine, if you can, the
astonishment and frenzy of the whole American chess public at the victory of
the New Orleans entrant, a complete unknown, who was also the youngest
competitor: 20-year-old Paul Morphy. Despite his
inexperience, the youngster had simply run through his opposition:
14 wins, 1 loss, 3 draws. But he not only scored like a champion - he played
like a champion! His play was sound, but so brilliant that nothing
like it had been seen before - certainly not in American chess. At last the
United States had a master who could be matched with the best that the Old
World could offer - and no American need be ashamed of the outcome.
Morphy's admirers were insistent:
he must got to Europe, demonstrate his ability against the great British and
German masters. Finally, in June 1858, Morphy sailed for Europe. His
immediate goal was a match with Howard Staunton, the leading English player
of his day and famous as the author of Staunton's Handbook - probably
the chess best-seller of all time. Like later champions past their prime,
Staunton skillfully parried all attempts to pin him down and successfully
side-stepped the match.
Rather than come home empty-handed, Morphy played
matches with Löwenthal and Owen, whom he defeated with the greatest ease.
He also played many off-hand games with leading English masters and
amateurs, always scoring phenomenally high percentage of wins, and
repeatedly winning his games in that strikingly brilliant manner which
has made him the most famous player in the history of the game. Toward the
end of the year, he crossed the Channel to play Harrwitz, then the best
player in France. Morphy started badly by losing the first two games; but he
followed this with five successive wins, whereupon Harrwitz became
"indisposed," and the match was terminated. Still disappointed by the
Staunton fiasco, Morphy had the pleasure of arranging a match with the great
Adolf Anderssen. Although Morphy was ill during the contest, he defeated
Anderssen decisively by 7-2, thus becoming the first, although unofficial
World Champion.
The pleasant relations between Morphy and Anderssen
were a happy relief from Staunton's devious dickering and name-calling.
Anderssen did not admit Morphy to be his superior and remarked bitterly that
one could not keep one's ability locked up in a glass case (he had played no
serious chess since 1851). Yet, he accepted defeat graciously, and both men
acted with courtesy and consideration.
During his stay in Europe, Morphy also gave several
blindfold exhibitions on eight boards. These were perhaps the most
sensational events of his trip, for no one in Europe had thought of breaking
Philidor's record of three games - set way back in 1783! Morphy
himself, who was by way of being an aristocrat, set no great store by
blindfold play, contemptuously dismissing the exhibitions as circus
performances.
In 1859, Morphy returned to the United States, where he
was given receptions fit for a victorious general. At a banquet in New York,
he received board and men which cost $1700. The Union Club presented a
silver laurel wreath to him; and in Boston, such distinguished men as
Agassiz, Holmes, Longfellow and Lowell attended the dinner given in his
honor. At a second dinner in Boston, he was presented with a gold crown. In
New York, Robert Bonner paid him $3000 a year in advance to edit a chess
column in the New York Ledger.
On his return to his native city, Morphy announced an
offer of Pawn and move to any player in the world - a challenge which had no
acceptance. A few months earlier, he had defeated James Thompson, one of the
best American players, by 5-3 at the odds of a Knight. Morphy now retired
more and more from active chess, and in 1860 he withdrew completely from
public competition. Thus Morphy's unique fame rests on a career of barely
three years' duration!
Morphy's ancestry has been the source of extensive
investigation, for every country likes to take credit for a great man. There
were four racial strains in his ancestry: Irish and
Spanish on the paternal side, Huguenot-French and Creole-French on the
mother's side. Morphy's great-grandfather started life as Michael Murphy,
but fled to Spain in 1753 during a period of particularly virulent
oppression in Ireland. In Malaga, where he made his residence, he became
Miguel Morphy. The Morphy family emigrated to Philadelphia toward the turn
of the century, then to Charleston and finally moved to New Orleans, where
Paul was born in 1837.
Morphy's ancestral background is interesting because it
conforms so closely to America's "melting pot" pattern - partly in the
diversity of the racial strains, partly in the fact that some of his
ancestors had to leave their native lands because of racial and religious
persecution. But there is still another sense in which Morphy was a
representitive American. Tot he best of my knowledge, he was the first
American who attained world-wide preeminence in any field. Before Morphy's
time, we had, of course, had great men, but none who were as outstanding in
their fields as Morphy was in his. This distinction explains why Morphy's
feats aroused so much enthusiasm: every American,
chess player or not, could follow Morphy's glorious victories with patriotic
pride.
* *
* *
Morphy's character was already well-defined in
childhood. As a schoolboy, he was shy, very reserved, very studious,
exceptionally courteous, he shunned athletics, kept pretty much to himself.
If the word introvert had been known in those days, it would have fitted him
perfectly. At the age of 10, he was taught chess by his father, who was a
passionate enthusiast of the game. Alonzo Morphy, by the way, must have been
a man of superior intelligence; at the age of 42, in 1840, he was appointed
a judge of Louisiana's Supreme Court. Young Paul was likewise destined
for the law, and his studies left him little time for chess. Yet, when he
was thirteen, he managed to beat the noted master Löwenthal during a visit
to New Orleans. So impressed was the master that he embraced the child and
prophesied that he would become the greatest player the world had ever seen.
At this time, Paul was so short that he had to sit on several books, or else
stand, in order to get a clear view of the pieces on the board!
In the years that followed, Paul continued to play
chess at home and in school, at such times as his studies permitted. So
intense was his concentration on law that he was admitted to the bar at the
age of 19 (he had to wait until he was 21 before he could practice), and he
knew most of Louisiana's Civil Code by heart. Yet his purely local
fame as a chessplayer in New Orleans was sufficient to secure him a place in
the First American Chess Congress, and the rest is history - glorious
history. It is true that only one of his rivals was a master of real stature
- Louis Paulsen - but Morphy beat him by the crushing score of 5-1.
Here is how Gilberg describes Morphy at the height of
his powers: "Morphy is below the medium stature, with a slight but active
frame. He possesses a handsome and peculiarly intellectual countenance: a
clear, lofty brow, and large, dark gray eyes, which seem to emit in
brilliant flashes coruscations from the great mental furnace within. Over
the chessboard his genial, placid countenance gave no indication of the
mental exertion while delving into combinations of the profoundest depth,
and his moves were generally made with a rapidity which seemed to betoken
the possession of an intuitive faculty of always selecting the proper reply;
but that readiness in action was due to a memory that was remarkably
tenacious in retaining its stores of learning, to wonderful analytical
powers, and an inexhaustible supply of resources at command to meet every
emergency. During his blindfold performances he engaged freely in
conversation, and upon at least one occasion amused himself by perusing a
book while waiting for the moves of his opponents. Every board was so
clearly limned upon his mental vision that a distracted attention could not
efface the pictures."
After returning from his European triumphs, Morphy was
at the height of his fame. Unequalled by any living master, lionized by his
countrymen, having every advantage of family, wealth, education and culture,
he could look forward to a brilliant career, fruitful activity and a happy
old age. Yet at 23, Morphy's life was over; the remaining 24 years were to
be pure misery.
* *
* *
Some time after his return to the United States,
Morphy decided that he had had enough chess for a while, and that it was
time to devote himself to the practice of law. But now he discovered, to his
dismay, that his world-wide fame as a chessplayer completely overshadowed
his hopes of becoming a lawyer. Unwilling to play chess, unable to continue
with his chosen profession, still brooding over the insults of Staunton,
Morphy was very unhappy. The coming of the Civil War, with the attendant
chaos and misery it produced in the South put the finishing touches to the
smashing of his professional career.
In the end, his temporary renunciation of chess became
permanent; he was neither a chessplayer nor a lawyer. But the career of
gentleman of leisure, with the daily promenade and the nightly visits to the
Opera, was hardly ample to absorb the capacities of a man like Morphy. He
failures rankled, and as time went on, he became more moody, succumbing to a
persecution mania which took alarming forms. He imagined, for example, that
his brother-in-law was trying to poison him in order to obtain his
inheritance. This led to a costly lawsuit which ended disastrously for
Morphy.
So Morphy's life dragged on in futile fears, plagued by
shapeless phantoms. He died on July 10, 1884 of a cerebral hemorrhage.
* *
* *
What was the secret of
Morphy's success as a chessplayer? What was his "secret weapon?" The answer
lies in one word: development. Morphy was the
man who taught chessplayers the value of bringing out one's forces quickly,
effectively, economically. Today this information is shouted from every
housetop and appears n every chess book as a matter of course; but in 1857
the idea of development was known only to a genius, and that genius was
Morphy.
But Morphy was not only an "efficiency expert": it is
not his system that gives his masterpieces their enduring vitality and
charm. He was a great artist, and that is why his games are still studied
today. The great Steinitz said of him: "Morphy's career marks a grand epoch
in the history of our pastime, and a careful study of his games will always
be essential for the purpose of acquiring a complete knowledge of the direct
attack against the King, which forms a most important element in mastering
our science." Morphy's games have left a deep impression on many a master. A
chess wizard who has not studied Morphy's games is about as queer a concept
as an engineer who is unable to count.
* *
* *
As I write these lines I am sitting on the edge
of a small but incredibly lovely lake. The sun beats down inexorably on the
steely-blue brilliance of the wavelets. Shouts of swimmers and canoers are
muffled by the muting haze of distance, while birds chirrup their delight.
All these things are doubtless lost on my son, who concentrates on building
sand-piles. One of these days he will be old enough to make one of life's
most enchanting discoveries: playing over Morphy's games for the first time.
This exquisite summer's day is like the years of Morphy's career - so
brilliant, so steeped in beauty, and so very, very short! It may be
true, as a noted psychoanalyst has claimed, that Morphy's life was ruined by
Staunton's contemptuous rebuffs; but while Stanton's tomes moulder in
provincial libraries, Morphy's masterpieces still continue to delight every
generation of chessplayers.
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