Game Three: Morphy-Duke of Brunswick and Count Isouard, Paris 1858 "Chess is a sport. A violent sport. This detracts from its most artistic connections. One intriguing aspect of the game that does not imply artistic connotations is the geometrical patterns and the variations of the actual set-up of the pieces in the combinative, tactical, strategic and positional sense. It is a sad means of expression, though--somewhat like religious art--it is not very gay. If it is anything; it is a struggle."This match is well-known to every well-read Chess buff, albeit more for its anecdotal value than as an example of a Master's subtle brilliance. Paul Charles Morphy, having been invited to the opera by the Duke of Brunswick and Count Isouard, was then seated with his back to the stage and invited to play a game of Chess. An impatient Morphy annihilated his opponents in only 17 moves during The Marriage of figaro, a slaughter that was best described by the great German analyst, Helmut Jüngling, in his pivotal book Matings of the Masters. "This game--if, indeed, it merits the honorable distinction of being called a game--exhibited none of the delicate foreplay of two sensitive virtuosi, but rather the frenzied bestial thumping of an impassioned hart driven to frenzied Wagnerian passions." Morphy, having withdrawn from the world of Chess after only 75 competitive games, suffered from severe bouts of delusions and paranoia before being felled by a stroke while taking a bath on 10 July 1884. |
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