This is a strange, magical and controversial game. Morphy's Rook sac on move 17 has been a source of argument since Steinitz.  Some people maintain that it was basically a blunder since best play by White leads to a draw, whereas prior to the sac Black is thought to have a winning position as well as a pawn to the good (such a given winning line is 17...Bg4! 18. Rdg1 Bf3 19. Bxf3 Qxf3!).  Other's claim Morphy was more concerned about the sacs' aesthetic quality, and relied on his self-confidence to be able to out-navigate his highly skilled opponent, the ever-tricky Bird.

Lol either morphy was reallly great. or bird was really bad. i think a little of both.

It's probably one of the most luxuously presented and illustrated games

I've seen this famous game in a book I just borrowed! (Kasparov: My Great Predecessors)

I wonder how high Bird jumped in his chair when he saw the move 17...Rf2?

It must have been a complete surprise for him! 

 

Kamalakanta 

is very exiting thanks

NICE Game!!!

ADK

Mikhail Tal is my favorite tactical player. But seeing this gem by Paul Morphy made me realize that the former champion Tal is a lighter version of Paul Morphy, tactically.

For the overall facets of the game, Paul Morphy is simply the best chess player ever lived.

what if white play 22.Kc1? i think that after this move Morphy is forced to accept a draw.

could the 17th move Rxf2 be so easy to spot with today's masters? 

Another great Morphy game! I think he was one of the most original "thinkers" in chess, teaching the rest of the world how to play. He always went quickly for the throat! What impressed me so much was his blindfold playing ability and his ability to find incredible moves very quickly. He rarely took over a couple of minutes (or seconds) for each move. He could quickly see deeply into a series of exchanges and sacrifices to a winning mating net. Too Bad it ended so badly for him. He is my favorite! Great topic, Great Genius, Great Man of Chess!

17.. Rxf2 is something only masters can visualise for Queen to traverse from h3 to a3.  The shortest way to the attack.  Brilliant visionary, Murphy.... 

Good use of controlling the centre and strong tactics!

Ofcourse it was Morphy first :D
And i  meant Kc1, not Kb1.

Against furrer's opinion Morphy was the first who found the winning variation when Kb2 was the move. But for 22.Kc1 nobody found winning variation.

i have a book on danish by karpov called (my translation): The worldchampions miniature games, which got translated in 1989. I think the first russian version is from around 1985. That book had the variation with Kb2, and acording to Karpov he was the first who found the winning variation.

  If Morphy would have returned in chess, he would have defeated everybody - with the greatest ease.

This was Fischer's opinion. I agree with him. István Bilek Hungarian grandmaster described this sentence in the Preface of my Morphy book. We were analizing this game together and we were of the same opinion that this is the most beautiful game of Morphy. The analysis was eight A/4 pages. In the game we found winning continuations where before it wasn't known. Only the 22th move... If Bird would have moved 22.Kc1! thus the game is draw, but he moved 22.Kb2? Still one defective Bird move: 6.Ng3? instead of 6.Nxe5!

Kenytiger made again a good choice! Later such a beautiful game nobody could choice!

Great post. So many clever moves.

What a man !  What a chess player !  what a tragedy he withdrew fron the chess scene when he did. 

Incredible. Stunning actually. Morphy was way ahead of his time. I wonder what he would have done in chess with today's resources?

Thanks for the post. Once again, an excellent one from kenytiger.