Morphy's Games of Chess

This is a great book about a stellar player. There is a nice mix of biographic material, as well as numerous annotated chess games. There is a lot to be learned from playing through the games of Morphy. Even if you begin to emulate this remarkable player in just the slightest degree, your chess will benefit a great deal. Unless you really dislike chess, you will be hard pressed not to be in awe of his remarkable blindfold demonstrations. This man played better chess as a teenager than I may ever play in my entire lifetime. Grab a coffee, grab a chess board, and most definitely grab this book and treat yourself to some truly enjoyable games.

I got into this book first off by reading Frances Parkinson Keyes' novel THE CHESS PLAYERS, in which the game itself takes back seat to the rather romanticized life and loves of Paul Morphy. And then when I was working my way through the papers of the American poet Jack Spicer, I found out that on his deathbed he kept a few books on chess, among them this book, in its 1957 incarnation which looks pretty much the same as this one except the chess pieces are all shadowed in a thick claret-like red instead of the cool blue we have now. I decided to get a replica of Spicer's copy and see if I could follow it and somehow see how he (Spicer) used chess, and in particular the legend of Paul Morphy, in his extremely difficult poetry. He was attracted I think to Morphy in the same way as he found Rimbaud so intriguing: in both cases an exhibition of brilliance, nearly of genius, while both men were very young, teenagers I guess, and then only a few years later a renunciation so extreme it amounted to burn-out, a psychic fatigue. Sergeant's annotations I find helpful, as well as his reasoned and well-argued account of Morphy's rise and fall as a grand master. What makes us turn away from the thing we do best, and go into trade? At least Rimbaud had reason to enter the mercantile world, for he was a poor boy and needed money for his family. But Morphy apparently was a scion of American aristocracy and would be counted a millionaire in today's money. I found it interesting that they were annotating his games when he was a mere 13 years of age! AND that the games he played in blindfolds were among his best. If chess relies as much on memory as computers do, perhaps it would not matter to a clear brain like Morphy's how many games he was playing at once (in London he played five men simultaneously, two wins, two losses, one draw)--not exactly bukkake by the standards of today, but as Sergeant reminds us, he was playing the absolute top masters of his time. I love the idea of Game LXXIX, the opera house game, played in the royal box of the Duke of Brunswick at the Paris Opera House during a performance of Rossini! You can practically hear the triumphantly comic strains of THE BARBER OF SEVILLE in the air as you read the long columns of Morphy's assault. (He won of course.)

Hi , the book is great but it is written in descriptive notation and that makes the book itself very awkward . Descriptive notation is no more used sincedecades . Some one should rewrite the book in algebric notation.Otherwise the book were great , I gave 4 stars instead of 5 only for that reason.

Before we go any further, I want you to know I am a Chess Master and I teach chess for a living.All my students who have purchased this book have loved it.All the great teachers of the game (GM L. Evans, SM Ken Smith, IM Silman, GM Soltis, GM Alburt; etc.) say you must FIRST master tactics before you can do anything else. This is the MANDATORY first step in the game of chess.The best way to learn and master TACTICS is to study the OPEN GAMES. In my own opinion, there is no better way to do this than to study the games of Paul Morphy very carefully. (I personally believe Morphy was - easily - the greatest chess player who ever lived. See my web page on "The Greatest Chess Players" for more details.)The games in this book are well written and easily understood by any class of player. The author did a great job here, and this probably remains the best book - dollar for dollar - on Morphy. And in case you think these moves are easy to find, I once tested some of these moves on a GM ... who was approximately 18 months away from winning the U.S. Championship ... and he failed to find some of the moves that Morphy found quickly and easily!The story in here is good, the games are great. Paul Morphy's games are the best vehicle for mastering the basics of chess. They are also very beautiful. If you buy this book AND play through a few of the games - I personally guarantee you will not be disappointed with it. (And if you are, you can sell it on e-bay for almost what you paid for it.)Come on! What else do I have to say? I make all my students study Morphy. I promise you will get better. GET THIS BOOK!!

The author assembled 300 of Morphy's games, more than enough for the reader to form a solid opinion on this extraordinary player. I can say without hesitation that if you are not charmed by his games, there is very little chance that you will ever be much of a chessplayer.