PAUL MORPHY THE CHESS CHAMPION
Overall record: +173 -24 =17 (84.8%)
[247 exhibition games, blitz/rapid, odds games, etc. are excluded from the statistic.]
A Man who never made a mistake on move ONE..
1.e4 178 games Won 83.7%
EVANS GAMBIT [30] C51
EVANS GAMBIT [14] C52
PHILIDOR DEFENSE [11] C30
KING’S GAMBIT DECLINED [11] C30
KING’S GAMBIT ACCEPTED [8] C37
KING’S GAMBIT ACCEPTED [7] C39
FRENCH,EXCHANGE [6] C01
UNCOMMON KING’S PAWN OPENING [6] B00
SICILIAN [5] B44
The chess games of Paul Morphy
{THE UNTHINKABLE …}
Morphy -Maurian 0-1
[SetUp “1”][FEN “rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/1NBQKBNR w KQkq – 0 1”]
1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. Bc4 Qh4+ 4. Kf1 b5 5. Bd5 Nc6 6. Nf3 Qh5 7. d4 Nf6 8. Bb3 Ba6 9. Qe2 Nxd4 10. Nxd4 b4 11. Qxa6??
NO DOUBT WHO’S PLAYING WHITE, NOW..
Morphy -Maurian 1-0
[SetUp “1”][FEN “rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/1NBQKBNR w KQkq – 0 1”]1. e4 e5 2. f4 exf4 3. Bc4 Qh4+ 4. Kf1 b5 5. Bb3 Nf6 6. Nf3 Qh6 7. Ne5 d5 8. Nc3 Bd6 9. d4 Nxe4 10. Nxe4 Bxe5 11. Bxd5 c6 12. dxe5 cxd5 13. Nd6+ kd7 14. Qxd5 kc7 15. c4 Qe6 16. Qxa8 Nc6 17. cxb5 Qd5 18. Qxc6+ Qxc6 19. bxc6 kc6 20. Bxf4 Rd8 21. Kf2 Be6 22. Rc1+ kb6 23. Be3+ ka6
MORPHY PEAKING OVER 2800
By far the strongest five players of the period 1821-1930, according to the Edo ratings, are Morphy, Steinitz, Lasker, Capablanca, and Alekhine, in historical order. These are the only five whose Edo ratings exceed 2760, with the next highest peak being 2716 for von der Lasa. This puts a significant gap between them and any other player of the period.
That these players should appear at the top is perhaps no surprise, but it is interesting that Morphy comes out so high, while some previous historical rating attempts have put him in a somewhat less favourable light. Even considering only results up to 1900, Chessmetrics puts Morphy’s one-year peak below Lasker, Pillsbury, Janowski, Tarrasch, Steinitz, Chigorin and Kolisch, and about equal to those of Maroczy, Neumann and Blackburne. The Edo ratings are more in agreement with Elo, who put Morphy’s peak second only to Lasker’s in the nineteenth century (but at 2690, still considerably lower than my peak of 2810). The discrepancy may partly be that Chessmetrics uses only official matches, of which Morphy had few (62 game results are used), whereas I have used all available information on his many less formal matches against ratable opponents (842 games).
http://www.edochess.ca/Edo.explanation.html
“No Computers / No MCO / No BCO / No NCO / No CDs / No DVDs / No Internet..”
