Let's Relax with a Miniature

                                      FIXED IDEAS

   "The story goes that a practical joker, taking advantage of Akiba Rubinstein's predilection for 1.d4, once nailed down the grandmaster's Queen's Pawn. What appears as a harmless foible in a great player may,however , be magnified to dangerous proportions in his weaker brethen.
   It is this quality which spoils so many Morphy games for us. His opponents always "attacked"; always defened badly, if at all; always underestimated the problem of defense -insofar as they were aware of it."

                           TWO KNIGHTS DEFENSE
                             New Orleans, 1858
                      White, Paul Morphy   Black, Amateur
                         (remove White's Queen's Rook) 

1.e4 e5  2.Nf3 Nc6  3.Bc4 Nf6  4.Ng5 d5  5.exd5 Nxd5
  
    Objectively this is not a blunder, since White's sacrificial reply (the "Fried liver") is unsound against the best defense. But since Black is patently incapable of playing the best defense , he should content himself with the more prudent 5...Na5.

 6.Nxf7 ?! Kxf7  7.Qf3+ Ke6  8.Nc3 Nd4
      He leave his menaced Knight in the lurch, and prefers "attack." Even this inferior move is permissible at the odds, but best of all is 8...Ne7 (unsatisfactory when White has his Queen's Rook)

 9.Bxd5+  Kd6   10.Qf7  Be6?  A much better reply to the threatened 11.Ne4 mate is 10...Qe7 ! forcing White to retreat without adequate compensation for the Rook minus.

 11.Bxe6  Nxe6   12.Ne4+  Kd5   13.c4+!  Kxe4   He must bite into the sour apple, for after 13... Kc6  14.Qxe6+  Bd6  15.Qd5+  Kd7  16.c5 (16.Nc5+? Ke8!} White is ahead in material and has a winning attack to boost.

  14.Qxe6  Qd4?  If 14...Qf6  15.Qg4+  Kd3 (or 15...Qf4  16.d3+) 16.Qe2+
 as in the game. But 14...Kd4 ! was a far better defensive try.  15.Qg4+ 
 Kd3  16.Qe2+  Morphy makes chess seem very simple. The contrast between his elegant economy and Black's ineffectual bumbling is quite vivid: the Black monarch is forced into a fantastic mating net.  ...Kc2
 17.d3+ !  Kxc1  Even refusal would have been unavailing:  17...Kb1  18.0-0  Kxa2  19.Qc2 ! and black is helpless against the coming discovered check with the b-pawn. 18.0-0 mate !  Morphy resolutely refused to allow his opponent's weak play to cheat him of a fine finish.