Hi and welcome into the lesson "The greatest chess game everyone MUST know".
Millions of games have been played during over the history of chess, but there is only
very little percentage of games that will be the most influential, most important and
most instructive.
And every aspiring chess player just MUST know these few games.
Today, we will talk about one of them.
The game played by Paul Morphy, one of the greatest chess players of the US, I think,
together with Bobby Fischer.
These two are by far the greatest players of the US, and maybe for the entire world
as well.
Just to give you an idea of his power, Morphy played handicapped games - giving the extra
pawn and extra move to any of his opponents.
I really doubt that Magnus Carlsen will be able to do the same 'trick' today.
I'm Igor Smirnov, International Grandmaster and a chess coach from the Remote Chess Academy.
And my point today is, not just to show you the game played by Paul Morphy, but to show
you the main ideas he used in his games, so that you can do the same in your own practice
and get the same brilliant results.
We're going to see the game between Paul Morphy and Dukes played in Paris, in the opera house.
And let's just go ahead and get started.
Now the game started with 1.e4 1.e5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4.
And that's the first moment one I'd like to start by highlighting the fact that Morphy
was playing in a very straightforward, yet very effective style.
Now we know that the purpose of the game is to checkmate the opponent's king.
And that's what he really tried to do.
He always tried to target and attack the opponent's king.
Of course there were some games that ended in an endgame, but I'd say that he normally
tried to finalize the game by the direct attack of the opponent's king.
And if you can attack the opponent's king, it's great and you should DO that!
If you can't attack the king right now, then at least attack something.
At least, attack opponent's pawns or pieces or whatever you can!
And here by playing d4, White starts to attack the Black's pawn.
So now Black already has to react somehow.
And that's the first MAIN RULE that you need to remember about this style of playing - always
ATTACK, especially, the opponent's king.
So let's go ahead and Black played Bg4, dxe5.
Now if Black doesn't want to lose the pawn, he has to take White's knight.
You see that while playing attacking moves, White always FORCES the opponent's reaction.
Black can't do what he wants, he only has to react.
Now what would you do here as White?
Still, ATTACK, so White played Bc4 and now the goal is to take Qxf7, winning the game
in one move.
Black replied with Nf6.
How would you play here?
Remember, your goal is to attack and primarily, attack the opponent's king.
So White played Qb3.
This time, this is a double attack, both to the f7-pawn and the b7-pawn.
And already Black suffers because he can't protect both of his weaknesses.
Black replied Qe7, protecting his king.
And let me ask you the same question once again.
How would you play here as White?
I'm pretty sure that most of the players would like to grab that pawn on the b7.
You just take the pawn and you attack the rook and everything looks awesome.
After that however, Black will play Qb4+, will trade off the queens and although, of
course, White has the serious advantage in an endgame due to his extra pawn, still the
game goes on.
And as we already know, Morphy tried to attack the opponent's king.
He was not that much enthusiastic about playing long endgames.
I really want to develop on this topic.
Because these principles that I'm going to tell you right now was one of the critical
points of the whole 'Morphy Strategy'.
Let's use an analogy.
Imagine you're a commander of the army and you want to start a war to defeat your enemy.
WHEN will you start your attack?
Obviously, it is better to do that when your opponent is unprepared..when his forces are
dozy.
And that's why lots of wars was started before the sun rise, somewhere around 4 A.M.
Well, I hope that you will not initiate the real war..you would better apply these principles
for chess games.
:) Anyway, the bottomline is still the same.
You want to attack when your opponent's forces are unprepared..when they are dozy.
And that's what Morphy always tried to do in his games.
If he is seeing that his opponent's forces are dozy on their initial squares, he always
tried to rush for the attack and begin that assault as quickly as possible.
And that's why he played Nc3.
The lesson you can learn here is that you need to value quick development more than
material!
You value QUICK DEVELOPMENT and ACTIVITY of your pieces more than the material because
you want to deploy your forces quickly and start the attack when your opponent is still
unprepared.
Okay, let's move on, Black played c6, protecting his b7-pawn.
Now Bg5, White continues to develop his pieces.
Black answered b5.
Now that's another critical moment of the game.
How would you play here?
Well, when your opponent just played b5, attacking your bishop, then the very natural reaction
is just to go back..to play Bd3 for example.
But, we already know that you want to play quickly...you want to attack when your opponent's
forces are dozy on the last rank.
So you don't want to lose time, making backward moves.
So that's one thing.
And there is another thing.
Let me ask you this question.
How can White attack Black's king in this position?
It's not so easy to find any direct way.
Well, you can say some moves that you can prepare..you can do this and you can do that..somewhere
in the future, you may hope to attack the king.
But if you want to attack it right now, how can you do that?
That's a tough question.
And here comes another principle of Morphy Strategy.
He was always willing to sacrifice a material to open up a position and start a direct attack.
That's why in this position, instead of retreating, he took Nxb5!
This sacrifice helps him to continue developing his pieces in a quick manner and at the same
time, right now, White can start attacking the Black's king directly.
Now the bishop is attacking the king and if required, the queen can join.
So you can see that when you open up the position, it enables your direct attack towards the
opponent's king.
Black covered his king with Nbd7, 0-0-0, attacking that d7-knight once again.
Black has to protect it with Rd8.
Okay, now let me ask you another question.
We know that one of the key elements of Morphy Strategy was to deploy all of your forces
into the battlefield as quickly as possible.
At the moment, most of the White's pieces are very active.
Except for the rook on h1 which is still doing nothing.
How can bring this piece into play?
Well, ideally speaking, you would like to have it on the d-file where it can support
White's pressure along the d-file.
And one way to do that is..for example move the d1-rook to d2 and then bring another rook
to d1 - double the rooks along the d-file.
And that's a good plan, generally speaking.
But the drawback is that you have to waste one move on the preparation..on playing d1-rook
to d2.
So now let's reformulate the question.
You know that you want to deploy the forces as quickly as possible.
Using the situation that your opponent is still unprepared..that his forces are dozy.
So the real question is - how can you bring the h1-rook into the battle without wasting
time?
And the answer is Rxd7!
White is vacating the d1-square without wasting any time.
Because now after the exchange, White simply brings the rook and it attacks the opponent's
rook on the d7-square.
And here I'd like to tell you another concept which is quite unknown and many players misunderstand
it even though Morphy understood it 150 years back!
Okay, let me ask you one question.
How do you evaluate a chess position?
Well, you look at the board and you see how many pieces White have, how many Black has
and then you compare and decide who is better.
Right?
Something like that.
Of course, you may evaluate other factors like activity, king safety and so on.
But anyway, you look at the board and you see who is better.
There is another idea, though.
We know that the goal of the chess game is to checkmate the opponent's king.
And therefore, the area around the opponent's king has the greatest value.
You don't have to dominate on the whole board.
You need to dominate only in the narrow territory around the opponent's king.
So let's narrow our focus to the area around the Black's king and evaluate the white's
pieces that influence this territory and the Black's pieces that influence this territory
as well.
If we talk about the Black's pieces, he has the knight on f6 protecting the rook, the
rook itself covering the king and the queen protecting the rook.
So Black has those 3 pieces in defense.
Yes, Black also has the rook on the corner and the bishop, but they are on their initial
squares doing nothing.
So we can disregard them for the moment.
If we think about the White's pieces that are attacking..then these are the 2 bishops
- both of them exert strong pressure, the d1-rook, definitely very active.
And the queen on b3, although not doing much right at the moment, but still it's quite
active.
It can go to b8, for example, after Bxd7+ or it can go to a4 and increase the pressure.
Therefore, the queen also takes part into the White's assault.
We may conclude that White has four attackers against the three defenders.
And those three defenders are actually quite miserable because the rook is pinned, the
knight is pinned, so those defenders are very much restricted and can't do anything.
And that's why when you focus your attention on the battlefield, the area around the opponent's
king, you can very easily understand what you need to do.
You need to get domination in this area.
If you get it, you will win the game easily.
Black played Qe6 trying to somehow unpin his pieces.
White took the rook and now let me ask you to find the final blow.
In fact, White can win the game in 2 moves.
Can you find the checkmating continuation?
It's Qb8+, well if you want to find a checkmate, you need to look for checks, right?
So Qb8+, Nxb8 and Rd8# Brilliant finish of the brilliant game!
Now let's sum up the main key takeaways that you need to remember from the Paul Morphy
Strategy so that you can apply them in your own games.
The first rule that Morphy used in his games was to ATTACK.
The purpose of the chess game and the ultimate goal is to check your opponent.
And that's why you want to attack, especially, attack the opponent's king.
That's pretty simple and very effective.
Secondly, bring your forces into the battlefield QUICKLY.
You need to attack while your opponent's forces are unprepared..when they are dozing on their
initial positions or if they're stuck somewhere on another side of the board, and you need
to quickly get domination in the area around the opponent's king and start the attack there.
The third rule is to sacrifice material for activity and opening of the position.
Sacrificing material for activity should now be something natural for you.
You know that you need to value quick development and advantage in activity more than material.
You don't need to have so much material.
You just need to have domination in the narrow territory around the opponent's king.
And if we talk about sacrificing material for opening of the position, then it's pretty
logical as well.
It connects to the first item - if you want to attack the opponent's king, first of all
you need to break up his defense.
You need to open up the position.
Only then, your forces will be able to target the opponent's king directly.
So these 3 rules are the essence of everything that Morphy did in his games.
And just by following these 3 simple ideas, he managed to devastate all of his opponents
whether huge score.
And if you follow these rules in your games, you will definitely achieve some good results.
Otherwise, if you don't follow Morphy's rules, you will fall into Murphy's rule.
Sorry, I'm just kidding!
:) And to end up the lesson, let's test your skills with one another brilliant position
from the game of Paul Morphy.
Here is another game of Paul Morphy - he is playing White.
Now your task is to find the right move for White.
Of course, it's not that you just guess the move - apply the rules that we discussed previously,
and find the right move.
Then, write your answer in the comments area below.
Once you have found your solution, then below the video you can find the link for the solution,
click there and check yourself.
Thank you for watching!
I really hope it will help you win a lot of brilliant games and see you in the next lessons.
Bye-bye! :)