56 Facts About Paul Morphy

Paul Charles Morphy was an American chess player.

Paul Morphy then traveled to Europe, residing for a time in England and France while challenging the continent's top players.

In 1859, Paul Morphy returned to the United States, before ultimately abandoning competitive chess and receding from public view.

Paul Morphy was born in New Orleans to a prominent wealthy family.

Paul Morphy's father Alonzo Morphy, of Spanish and Irish ancestry, was a lawyer.

Paul Morphy later served as a Louisiana state legislator, Attorney General, and a Louisiana State Supreme Court Justice.

Paul Morphy's mother, Louise Therese Felicitie Thelcide Le Carpentier, was a musically talented woman from a prominent French Creole family.

Paul Morphy grew up in an atmosphere of cultivated, genteel civility, where chess and music were the typical highlights of a Sunday home gathering.

Sources differ about when and how Paul Morphy learned to play chess.

Paul Morphy informed his hosts that he wanted to spend an evening playing chess against a strong local opponent.

However, after being assured that his wishes had been scrupulously obeyed, and that Paul Morphy was a chess prodigy who would prove his skill, Scott agreed to play.

Paul Morphy easily defeated Scott in both of the games they played, ending the second game by after only six moves.

Paul Morphy played at least fifty games against Eugene Rousseau, considered to be the strongest of Morphy's opponents during this era, and lost at most five.

Paul Morphy accepted an invitation to Judge Morphy's house to play against Paul, now twelve years old.

Lowenthal soon realized he was facing a formidable opponent: each time Paul Morphy made a good move, Lowenthal's eyebrows shot up in a manner described by Ernest Paul Morphy as "".

Paul Morphy proceeded to spend an additional year on campus studying mathematics and philosophy, and in May 1855 was awarded a master's degree with the highest honors.

Paul Morphy went on to study law at the University of Louisiana, receiving an LL.

Not yet the required age to practice law, Paul Morphy found himself with free time after graduation.

Paul Morphy initially declined, but later changed his mind at the urging of Alexander Beaufort Meek, a judge and close family friend.

Also in 1857, Paul Morphy founded the Chess Club of New Orleans, becoming its first President.

Up to this time, Paul Morphy was not well known or highly regarded in Europe.

Paul Morphy returned to his home city with no further action.

Staunton made an official reply through The Illustrated London News, stating that it was not possible for him to travel to the United States and that Paul Morphy must come to Europe if he wished to challenge him and other European chess players.

Paul Morphy made numerous attempts at setting up a match with Staunton, but none ever came through.

Paul Morphy remained resolutely opposed to playing chess for money, reportedly due to family pressure.

At Paris's Cafe de la Regence, the center of French chess, Paul Morphy soundly defeated resident chess professional Daniel Harrwitz.

Anderssen attested that in his opinion, Paul Morphy was the strongest player ever to play the game, even stronger than the famous French champion La Bourdonnais.

Paul Morphy gave numerous simultaneous exhibitions in both England and France, sometimes while blindfolded, in which he regularly played and defeated eight opponents at a time.

Still only 21 years old, Paul Morphy was now quite famous.

Paul Morphy offered to play a match with Harrwitz, giving odds of pawn and move, and even offered to find stakes to back his opponent, but the offer was declined.

Paul Morphy then declared that he would play no more formal matches, with anyone, without giving at least those odds.

In Europe, Paul Morphy was generally hailed as world chess champion.

In Paris, at a banquet held in his honor on April 4,1859, a laurel wreath was placed over the head of a bust of Paul Morphy, carved by the sculptor Eugene-Louis Lequesne.

Paul Morphy was declared by St Amant "the first Chess player in the whole world".

At a similar gathering in London, where he returned in the spring of 1859, Paul Morphy was again proclaimed "the Champion of the Chess World".

At a simultaneous match against five masters, Paul Morphy won two games against Jules Arnous de Riviere and Henry Edward Bird, drew two games with Samuel Boden and Johann Jacob Lowenthal, and lost one to Thomas Wilson Barnes.

At the New York testimonial dinner, Paul Morphy made an assessment of chess that has been widely paraphrased:.

Paul Morphy was engaged to write a series of chess columns for the New York Ledger, which started in August of 1859.

Paul Morphy did not immediately cease playing serious chess; on a visit to Cuba in 1864, he played a number of games with leading players of that country, including Celso Golmayo Zupide, the champion, all at odds of a knight.

Paul Morphy was late to start his law career, not having done so by the time the American Civil War broke out in 1861.

Lawson recounts a recollection by a Richmond resident in 1861 describing Paul Morphy as being "an officer on Beauregard's staff".

Financially secure thanks to his family's fortune, Paul Morphy essentially spent the rest of his life in idleness.

In 1883, Paul Morphy encountered Wilhelm Steinitz on the street while Steinitz was visiting New Orleans, but declined to discuss chess with him.

Paul Morphy showed signs of deteriorating mental health in his final years.

Paul Morphy had shown signs of a persecution complex; he sued his brother-in-law, for example, and tried to provoke a duel with a friend.

Merideth, Paul Morphy was talking to himself and responding to imaginary salutations.

Fine wrote that Paul Morphy "arranged women's shoes into a semi-circle around his bed", and this has been widely copied and embellished upon.

Now we come to the room which Paul Morphy occupied, and which was separated from his mother's by a narrow hall.

Paul Morphy's room was always kept in perfect order, for he was very particular and neat, yet this room had a peculiar aspect and at once struck the visitor as such, for Paul Morphy had a dozen or more pairs of shoes of all kinds which he insisted in keeping arranged in a semi-circle in the middle of the room, explaining with his sarcastic smile that in this way, he could at once lay his hands on the particular pair he desired to wear.

Paul Morphy favored gambits such as the King's Gambit and Evans Gambit.

Paul Morphy approached the game more seriously than even his strongest contemporaries.

Paul Morphy played before the advent of time controls, and sometimes faced opponents who played very slowly.

Lowenthal and Anderssen both later remarked that Paul Morphy was very hard to beat, since he knew how to defend well and would draw or even win games despite getting into bad positions.

World champions Kasparov, Viswanathan Anand, and Max Euwe have stated that Paul Morphy's play was far ahead of its time.

Paul Morphy is mentioned in Walter Tevis's 1983 novel The Queen's Gambit, as well as in the 2020 miniseries adaptation produced by Netflix, as the favorite player of Beth Harmon, a chess prodigy and the novel's protagonist.

Paul Morphy is referenced in the 1955 James Bond novel Moonraker by Ian Fleming.