Jim West On Chess: Morphy versus PCG by Transposition

Thursday, April 9, 2009

Morphy versus PCG by Transposition

In response to Tuesday's post, Alejandro Melchor of Barcelona has sent me an e-mail, mentioning three games where Paul Morphy by transposition played Bc4 against positions that resemble the Philidor Counter Gambit, namely Morphy-Rousseau, New Orleans 1849 and Morphy-Schulten, New York 1857 and Morphy-Worrall, London 1859.

But in none of these games did Morphy face the position after the move order 1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4 f5. Instead Black played 2...Nc6 which Morphy answered by 3.Bc4, and eventually Black played ...f5. In every case, Morphy won.

The most remarkable of these was his victory over Worrall because Morphy played the game blindfolded!

"My study of chess was accompanied by a strong attraction to music, and it was probably thanks to this that from childhood I became accustomed to thinking of chess as an art, and have never regarded it as anything else, for all the science and sport involved in it. And, moreover, an art which in some ways is closer to music than it is customary to think. Perhaps chess and music are drawn together by laws of harmony and beauty which are difficult to formulate and difficult to grasp, or perhaps by something else." - Vasily Smyslov