0:00

Welcome to Stuff you missed in History

0:02

Class from how Stuff Works dot com.

0:12

Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm to bling a chocolate

0:14

boarding and I'm fair and I have

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been knee deep in chess

0:18

research this week, of all things, inspired

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by a listener named Brandon who is an avid

0:23

chess player, and he wanted

0:25

a podcast about chess, anything

0:27

to do with chess. He didn't really seem too picky about

0:29

what the exact topic was, as long as it was chess

0:32

related. Of course, in his

0:34

email, Bobby Fisher's name did come up. And

0:36

when you start researching the greatest chess

0:38

players of all time, all signs do

0:40

kind of point to him. Even if you don't know anything about

0:43

chess, you know Bobby Fisher exactly.

0:45

After all, he did become the youngest grandmaster

0:48

in history at age fifteen and nineteen fifty

0:50

eight, and he's also the first native

0:52

born American to hold the title of world

0:54

champion in nineteen seventy two. But

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what really sparked our interest is that chess

0:59

prodige you the Bobby Fisher. It was there

1:01

was someone else that Fisher himself referred

1:03

to as the greatest chess genius in history.

1:06

And that was another American, a New

1:08

Orleans native named Paul Morphy. Yeah,

1:11

and like Fisher, Morphy was kind of a

1:13

child prodigy, and he had

1:15

made his mark on chess at a

1:17

very early age, of surprisingly early age.

1:19

And he also completely went against

1:21

the old ways of playing chess, which

1:23

is what really made him stand out, and it's

1:26

what I found really interesting about this subject.

1:28

But strangely, his illustrious

1:31

chess career only lasted two

1:33

years, something that makes him even more amazing

1:35

that he had such an impact, such an effect

1:38

in so short a span of time. Yeah,

1:41

just when he seemed poised to do bigger

1:43

and better things, he sort of faded into

1:45

obscurity. So it was kind of strange. Nowadays

1:48

only aficionados know much about him,

1:50

even though in the day he was really well known to

1:52

people even outside of the chess community,

1:55

the Bobby Fisher of his day, right, So we

1:57

want to look into that mystery a little bit. What's the

1:59

real story behind why Morphy abandoned

2:01

chess so abruptly even though he was

2:03

so well suited for it, so good at it,

2:06

And why is he called the Pride and Sorrow

2:08

of Chess the title of our podcast. But

2:11

Of course, before we get into all of that, we

2:13

need to talk about how Paul

2:15

Morphy got into chess in the first place,

2:17

because New Orleans is not really known

2:19

as being the center of the American

2:22

chess scene, or it certainly wasn't back

2:24

in eight thirty seven June two

2:26

when he was born, and his family

2:29

wasn't the type that would drive

2:31

their son into some sort of professional

2:33

chess career either. His father, Alonzo

2:36

Morphy, was a successful lawyer

2:38

and he served in the Louisiana House of Representatives

2:41

and later went on to become the state's Attorney

2:43

general and serve on its Supreme Court. Well.

2:46

His mother was this prominent member

2:48

of the New Orleans Creole society, so his

2:50

family was very wealthy, they were influential.

2:53

He seemed more destined for a

2:55

career as a lawyer, not a chess player, and

2:57

that's exactly what his family, especially his move

3:00

or, really wanted him to do. Chess

3:02

was always kind of in the background of this,

3:04

though. His father and grandfathers taught

3:06

Paul how to play, and Paul's uncle,

3:08

Ernest Morphy played and was also a

3:10

pretty well known chess analyst of the time,

3:13

but by around age nine, Paul

3:16

had his own sort of reputation. He had a local

3:18

reputation as an accomplished player, and by age

3:20

twelve, he was considered New Orleans

3:23

strongest player. Yeah, but his greatest

3:25

feeder. His first great feat came in eighteen

3:28

fifty. He had just turned thirteen

3:30

and he played a three game match against

3:32

the Hungarian chess master janos

3:35

Ja Lowenthal. And this guy was

3:37

considered to be one of the best, one of

3:39

the top ten players in the world, and

3:41

this little thirteen year old kid

3:44

defeated him in all three games,

3:46

and it was just an amazing feat

3:48

for the chess world at the time. But

3:50

between eighteen fifty and eighteen fifty

3:52

seven, Paul actually took a little break

3:54

from chess. He went to spring Hill College

3:56

in Mobile, Alabama and graduated

3:58

from there with honors at age seventeen.

4:01

Then he went on to finally earn that law degree

4:04

as planned from the University of Louisiana

4:06

in eighteen fifty seven at age twenty.

4:09

So he apparently had this amazing

4:11

memory which came in handy and studying law, and

4:13

he could recite the entire Louisiana

4:15

Civil Code by heart. But unfortunately

4:17

he wasn't allowed to take the bar yet and practice

4:19

law until he came of age. Maybe not so unfortunately,

4:24

but that amazing memory is remember that part

4:26

because it's going to come into play a little later. But

4:29

in the meantime, while he's waiting to get

4:31

old enough to actually practice law, he

4:34

got thrown back into the world of chess.

4:36

And the first American Chess Championship

4:39

tournament was being organized

4:41

that summer in New York City, and Morphy's

4:44

friends convinced him, well, you're really good

4:46

at chess, maybe you should enter this tournament.

4:49

Yeah, and at that time Morphy was pretty

4:51

much an unknown on the national scene, but that

4:53

didn't last very long at all, because he

4:55

walked away with first prize in this

4:57

tournament after finally defeating Lou

5:00

Paulson, who was one of America's premier

5:02

chess players at the time, in the first

5:04

game of their match, though Morphy actually lost

5:06

because of Paulson's extremely slow style

5:09

of play. Paulson would apparently take

5:11

up to two hours between moves,

5:14

sounds like an agonizing amount of time

5:16

to wait. Having to wait this long actually

5:18

frustrated Morphy into making a mistake, but

5:21

fortunately he came back and he won five

5:23

games over Paulson to take the championship,

5:25

which I think this sort of illustrates even

5:28

my trouble with chess today, Like it just

5:30

takes a really long time between moves, but the idea

5:32

of two hours, I cannot get

5:34

over that. But it's a good point

5:37

to to stop a little and talk about Morphy's

5:39

style of play, because we mentioned

5:41

in the introduction that he did sort of put

5:43

a new spin on the game. And the

5:46

game was quite old though, so putting a new

5:48

spin on it in the eight hundreds was

5:51

a pretty revolutionary thing to do. Yeah,

5:53

the game had been around since the sixth century

5:56

a d. And if you need a little background

5:58

on this, we actually have an article goal on our website

6:00

called house Chess Works and it will give you us illustration

6:03

it does, and it can teach you the rules of the game

6:05

and also give you some of this history that we're going to give you right

6:07

now. So it started way back then an

6:10

Indian and gradually spread to the rest

6:12

of Asia, the Middle East into Europe.

6:14

The rules and the playing style, however, developed

6:17

really slowly. They experienced the most

6:19

growth over the last couple of centuries

6:21

actually, and around the time of our story.

6:23

Competitors would still display a lot

6:25

of reserve and deliberation during

6:28

sometimes two hours worth, and

6:30

they fought really for every chess piece.

6:33

Yeah, and Morphy took a different approach. He

6:35

didn't fight for every piece. He was willing

6:37

to sacrifice them. He played quickly, and

6:40

often he made unconventional

6:42

sacrifices, so it would seem like

6:45

he was starting out badly and then he

6:47

would suddenly recover. And just

6:49

to give you an idea of a few of his tactics,

6:51

if you even have a basic understanding of chess,

6:53

this will resonate. So he would often

6:56

give up his center ponds and

6:58

then develop the stronger piece, so

7:00

put each chessman at its best

7:02

advantage, instead of bringing those

7:04

into play later in the game, playing

7:06

with the ponds first and trying to keep them all or

7:08

as many people did at the time. Yeah, but

7:10

he avoided premature attacks. So just because

7:13

he's trying to bring the stronger pieces into

7:15

the game earlier doesn't mean he's being

7:17

reckless with them once they are in the game, right,

7:19

And he never took more than twelve minutes to

7:22

ponder a move, So I think he would have preferred watching

7:24

him as a chess partner for him. Yeah,

7:26

so these strategies may not seem so radical today,

7:29

but at the time they really threw Morphe's

7:31

opponents off their game. So he not only

7:33

won this national championship, he then went

7:35

on to play nine seven unofficial

7:37

games with his competitors and he won eighty

7:40

five of them, which is truly remarkable.

7:42

And at that point he's considered America's

7:45

best, so his supporters started

7:47

thinking, well, what is the next move he can

7:49

make? And morph he thought this himself started

7:52

thinking, well, if he's America's

7:54

best, then it's time to take on the

7:56

best in the world, and so he

7:58

sent a challenge to England's

8:01

Howard Staunton, who proved to

8:03

be kind of an interesting character himself.

8:05

He was at the time there wasn't really an official

8:08

world chess championship, but Staunton

8:10

was considered the best because he had beaten

8:12

the French champion. He also

8:14

wrote a regular chess column for the Illustrated

8:16

London News, and he had created this

8:18

chess player's handbook that he had published.

8:21

Another kind of unrelated, unchess

8:23

related side note, he was also a Shakespearean

8:26

scholar and that was kind of his excuse for

8:28

not taking Morphy's challenge to come to America

8:30

and face him. He had a gig

8:32

annotating Shakespeare plays at the time, so he

8:34

was a little busy. But he did say,

8:37

Hey, if you come over here instead,

8:39

then I might play you. So Morphy

8:42

hopped on a ship in June eight

8:44

and went to Europe. Yeah, but once he was there,

8:47

Staunton wasn't willing to play. This kind

8:49

of reminded me if you've ever seen that documentary

8:51

King of Kong. There's a lot of drama

8:54

and the people refusing to play. But to

8:56

really make things worse, Staunton didn't

8:58

just refuse to play or sort of dodge

9:01

the challenge. He have so bad mouthed

9:03

Morphy and its Chess column, saying that

9:05

Morphy was only interested in winning money.

9:08

And this really really offended

9:10

Morphy because he had always said

9:12

that he just played chess for the enjoyment

9:14

of the game. He didn't see it as a profession. He

9:17

had a profession. This was not it. Yeah,

9:20

So he waited around for Staunton in England

9:22

for three months and then finally moved on to

9:24

Paris. He was really disappointed, not

9:26

just because of the insults, because he really actually wanted

9:28

to play Staunton, but he left

9:31

August thirty one and he stayed in

9:33

Paris for six months after that, taking

9:35

on several distinguished chess players there.

9:37

And it's there that he really got to display those

9:39

awesome memory capabilities that we mentioned

9:42

back in his school days. He

9:44

became the first chess player at this time to

9:46

put on blindfolded exhibitions, so

9:48

late that September, he took on eight opponents

9:50

simultaneously. He would sit on

9:53

a chair with his back to the chess boards,

9:55

and he called out his moves in order,

9:57

speaking in French. At the time, he was fluent in

9:59

French, and he would make instantaneous

10:02

responses when his opponent's moves were announced.

10:04

So again, just an amazing feat

10:07

of memory. He had to not only remember

10:09

the moves he made, but also remember all the

10:11

moves that all eight of his opponents had made and

10:13

visualize everything on the board. He had juggle

10:16

all these games at the same time. Yeah, it took

10:18

more than ten hours, mostly interestingly

10:21

enough because of his opponents

10:24

taking so long to make their decisions, not

10:26

him. And he won six of these

10:28

games, and he drew two of them, So

10:31

again just an amazing example of his analytical

10:34

skills, his memory skills, and it made him

10:36

something of a hero in Paris, I would imagine

10:38

a celebrity. Pretty impressive display.

10:40

But the most notable matchup

10:43

that occurred while he was in Paris was

10:45

was not one of these blindfolded displays.

10:47

It was a match against Carl Ernest Adolph

10:49

Anderson, who was considered Europe's

10:52

best chess player, and Morphy had

10:54

the flu when he was supposed to play Anderson,

10:57

and he was getting the common treatment at the time,

10:59

which sounds like it would make matters a lot

11:01

worse. Leeches were sucking

11:03

out four pints of his blood. He

11:05

was laid up in bed, but he still played

11:08

Anderson in his hotel in

11:10

one seven games to two, so

11:13

pretty remarkable. He I guess

11:15

he didn't feel lightheaded enough to to

11:18

have any confusion. Yeah, apparently he

11:20

was able to stay clearheaded enough to win this match

11:22

and convince people, as

11:24

you might imagine, that he was the best player in the world

11:26

by the time he left for America

11:29

again in April eighteen fifty nine. That's what

11:31

he was considered, even by non chess

11:33

players like people like Oliver Wendell

11:36

Holmes, Henry Wats, with longfellow

11:38

Samuel F. B. Morse, who invented

11:40

the telegraph. Even President Van

11:42

Buren's son John, All these people celebrated

11:44

him and honored him as the chess champion

11:47

of the world. Yeah, so the New York Ledger asked

11:49

him, well, why don't you write your own chess

11:51

column. But his stand there only lasted

11:54

about six months, and by December

11:57

eighteen fifty nine, he was back to New Orleans.

11:59

And then the real shocker

12:01

came early eighteen sixty

12:04

he announced that he would never play

12:06

chess competitively for money again.

12:09

And at the same time, though, he issued this

12:11

challenge that he would meet any player

12:13

in the world at any time

12:16

and give the other player the odds

12:18

of pawn and move, which means that he

12:21

would remove one of his pawns from play

12:23

at the start of the game, and then he'd also give

12:25

his opponent the white pieces, which always get

12:28

the first move. So this

12:30

remarkable retirement and challenge issued

12:32

at the exact same time. Yeah. No

12:35

one ever took him up on that challenge, though, so

12:37

he really never played chess officially

12:39

competitively again. He only played

12:42

casual games with friends and acquaintances

12:44

after that, he tried to establish

12:46

a law practice, since that was his chosen

12:48

career, but he never really had any success

12:51

with it, possibly because of the Civil

12:53

War starting or his lack

12:55

of participation in the Civil War was another thing.

12:57

He decided not to fight in the Civil

13:00

War and a lot of people in his native

13:02

New Orleans didn't like that very much. Um,

13:04

so they didn't really want to become his clients. Well,

13:07

and then there was just the issue of his being a

13:09

famous chess player, which

13:12

maybe that wasn't what people were looking for

13:14

in their lawyer at the time. Yeah, and I think

13:16

you also get maybe people are just walking

13:18

through your door because you are this with

13:21

you. So he spent the war

13:23

years in Havannah and in Paris with his mother

13:25

and his sister, but eventually returned and

13:27

lived the rest of his life in New Orleans and his

13:30

family home on Royal Street, which if

13:32

you have ever been to New Orleans or know anything about it,

13:34

it's the building where Brennan's restaurant is now

13:36

located. And he eventually died

13:38

there of a stroke while taking a bath July four

13:42

So that leaves this with a question,

13:45

though, why did he give up chess so

13:47

so suddenly what happened? I mean, it surely

13:49

wasn't just so he could devote himself fully

13:52

to his legal career. There are

13:54

a few furies out there about why

13:56

he left the game. Yeah. One is that

13:58

Morphy was deeply hurt by Staunton's

14:00

insults and refusal to play him, and

14:02

that affected him so much that he wanted to give up

14:04

the game. Another theory suggests

14:07

that it involves his failed law practice

14:09

somehow. And still other people

14:12

think that he gave up chess in pursuit of

14:14

a woman who wasn't interested in being

14:16

with quote a mere chess player. But

14:19

today a lot of experts think that

14:21

maybe mental illness, specifically paranoia,

14:24

had some part in this abrupt

14:27

quitting of chess. And there's no concrete

14:29

evidence, just recollections of his

14:32

behavior, but his behavior does

14:34

start to seem kind of strange. His attitude

14:36

started changing by the time he got back from Europe,

14:38

and he was just increasingly moody.

14:41

And then later in life he thought that people were out

14:43

to get him. He would take these long

14:45

walks along Canal Street and sometimes

14:48

forget who he was entirely and asked

14:50

people to lend him money. Up to two hundred

14:52

dollars worth of money, and his paranoia

14:55

might have made him partly shunned by

14:57

society, and he himself stayed secluded

15:00

from his friends, so he seemed like a different man.

15:02

Yeah, But the main thing that his paranoia seemed

15:05

to hone in on, seemed to focus on,

15:07

was chess. By the early

15:09

seventies, he started to develop these

15:11

ideas that he didn't want to be associated

15:14

with the game. He basically refused to be whenever

15:16

anyone wanted to sort of name him an

15:18

association or interview

15:21

him for something as the world's

15:23

best chess player. He kind of wanted to shrug

15:26

that identity off. He didn't want to be a part

15:28

of it. Ironically, though,

15:30

it's exactly for that reason that he's

15:32

remembered. It's for the game of chess. People

15:35

still study his games. Late chess

15:37

master Fred Hinfield put it like

15:39

this, Morphy was the memorable

15:41

genius who wrenched chess out

15:43

of the rut in which it had sluggishly dawdled

15:46

for a thousand years. So

15:48

it's why he still admired. Yeah, I think you mentioned

15:50

me earlier that people still leave chess

15:52

pieces on his grave. Yeah, people

15:54

visit his grave and they leave chess pieces there. And

15:56

you know, I've read, you know, different

15:59

pieces of research and blogs about this, and

16:01

some people wonder what would he think of that? Since

16:03

he wanted to not be identified as a chess

16:06

player, what would he think of would rather have the legal

16:08

code on his grave? And there are some obvious

16:10

parallels here to Bobby Fisher, who we talked

16:12

about an introduction to this podcast. He's

16:15

also thought to have been paranoid um.

16:17

And actually there was a story in Time magazine

16:19

from two thousand five by Charles kraut Hammer,

16:22

and he was kind of exploring that connection between

16:24

madness and genius and chess. Does

16:27

it make you crazy? Well? And that question

16:29

out there we can one up that question.

16:31

We really can't. Well, we can say we don't

16:34

know the answer that question. I don't know if anyone truly

16:36

does. I mean, it does seem kind of

16:38

coincidental that there that

16:40

connection comes up a lot. But what we do

16:42

know is that chess will not make

16:44

your head explode, Thank goodness, Thank

16:46

goodness. Yeah. And if you're wondering why were you bringing

16:49

this crazy thing up? I when I was researching

16:51

this week, Julie Douglas from

16:54

Stuff to blow your mind. Mentioned

16:56

she was like, oh, well, did you know that there was this urban

16:58

legend a few years ago that chess

17:00

players had exploded? And sure enough, there

17:02

was a story in the Weekly World

17:04

News that a chess players had exploded

17:06

during a match because of a rare electrical

17:09

imbalance. Luckily, though,

17:11

snowstot Com

17:13

dispelled the smith and they said

17:15

that, no, that does not happen. Although

17:19

you know, I think that if I had to wait two

17:21

hours for my opponent, my head might implode

17:23

while I was sitting there. It's got a boredom.

17:27

Yeah, you might want to bring a book or something with you,

17:29

but don't think too hard. Because Snopes had this

17:31

little excerpt from kind

17:33

of an Internet rendition of the myth, and

17:35

one of the quotes from it that was my favorite was doctors

17:39

urged people to take it easy and not think

17:41

too much for long periods of time. So

17:44

don't listen to too many podcasts in a row. Don't

17:46

do it. So, in order

17:49

to not make you guys think anymore, we're

17:51

going to end our discussion of Chester Were for

17:54

your own safety, but we will encourage

17:56

you guys to write to us um. You can reach us

17:58

at History podcast at how stuff Works

18:00

dot com or you can look us up on Twitter at

18:02

Myston History or on Facebook. Yeah, and if

18:04

you want to learn a little bit more about chaff,

18:07

we do have that article that we mentioned, how

18:09

chefs Work, if you can find it on our homepage

18:11

by searching for chess at www

18:14

dot how stuff works dot com.

18:20

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