by greenpawn34 on Jun 15 2011 00:29 | 13407 views | 2 edits | Last edit on Jun 17 2011 23:54
Hi
‘No More Heroes Anymore’ sang The Clash and this week…
(It was the Stranglers………..Russ)
‘No More Heroes Anymore’ sang a 70’s punk rock band
and this week I set out to prove them wrong.
Alas I am dejected and down in the dumps. There are no heroes.
My hero is Morphy. Paul Charles Morphy to give him his full name
and he was the greatest showman the game has known.
Here is an example of Morphy Showmanship. (there are hundreds to choose from).
Bird - Morphy London 1858. Black to play.
Morphy’s next was reprehended by Steinitz because Black has the safe
(and mundane ) 17.Bg4 and if he played it he would no doubt have won.
But PCM saw the chance to play an amazing combination.
FEN
1rb2rk1/p1p3pp/2pb4/3p4/3Pp3/4B2q/PPPQBP1P/2KR3R b - - 0 1
[FEN "1rb2rk1/p1p3pp/2pb4/3p4/3Pp3/4B2q/PPPQBP1P/2KR3R b - - 0 1"] 1... Rxf2 2. Bxf2 Qa3 {Don't you love it, if 3.bxa3 bxa3 mate. Spotting that and then going for it. Some guy.} 3. c3 Qxa2 4. b4 Qa1+ 5. Kc2 Qa4+ 6. Kb2 {Rumour has it that one week after this game someone discovered that 6...Kc1 drew and no one spoke to him for a week. (Reinfeld & Soltis - Morphy Chess Masterpieces.)} 6... Bxb4 7. cxb4 Rxb4+ 8. Qxb4 Qxb4+ 9. Kc2 e3 10. Bxe3 Bf5+ 11. Rd3 Qc4+ 12. Kd2 Qa2+ 13. Kd1 Qb1+ {White resigned , After Qxh1 Black mops up. Bird resigned at the right moment.}
Not for Morphy the crude silent way. He loved the gasps of admiration
and always if possible went the pretty way. One simple example.
P. Morphy - Amateur New Orleans 1850
No mistake in the set up, Morphy played without a Queen’s Rook.
FEN
rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/1NBQKBNR w Kkq - 0 1
[FEN "rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/1NBQKBNR w Kkq - 0 1"] 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. Ng5 d5 5. exd5 Nxd5 {This leads to the Fried Liver Attack and is not the only Fried Liver we will be seeing in this blog. No deep analysis but you will get ideas. Especially if you play without a Queen's Rook.} 6. Nxf7 Kxf7 7. Qf3+ Ke6 8. Nc3 Ne7 9. O-O c6 10. d4 exd4 11. Re1+ Kd7 12. Nxd5 cxd5 13. Bxd5 Nxd5 {Running with 13…Kc7 would have stretched PCM but it’s unfair to condemn weak 1850 players.} 14. Qxd5+ Kc7 15. Bf4+ Bd6 16. Qc5+ Kb8 17. Qxd6+ Qxd6 18. Bxd6 {Looking at final postion, always a good thing to do , you look at the corpse like they do in CSI - Chess Scene Investigation, a good title for a book that. You can see as with many of Morphy's games, he was all about development.}
The showmanship was of course 17.Qxd6+ instead of 17.Bxd6.
It adds a certain touch of humour, class, flourish…it’s Morphy.
So, just for a laugh let's see if we have any follwers on RHP?
Well none went the Morphy way though some had a chance and
alas we will never know if Ou Lei was going to show this same class.
After the same serious of moves Ou Lei - raven46 RHP 2007
(playing with the Queen’s Rook!) reached here.
When Black played 16…Kd7 and was mate after 17.Qxd5.
If Raven46 had played 16…Kb8 would we have seen 17.Qxd6! Qxd6 19. Bxd6 mate.
There is a curious mirror image mate in the Fried Liver.
If instead of 7…Ke6 Black plays 7…Kg8.
When can get: 8. Qxd5+ Qxd5 9. Bxd5+ Be6 10. Bxe6 mate.
10 times the opportunity for 8.Qxd5+ to be played has appeared on RHP
and only one guy. has applied the Morphy touch. with 8.Qxd5+
patserx - centerline RHP 2008. So we have in patserx a mini hero.
saffa73 - There IS a Light RHP 2005
The chance to morph Morphy was blown. Just shows the rich diversity of Chess
that these positions are cropping up from different openings.
Or is that infact proving the opposite?
1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nf6 3. Nc3 Nc6 4. d4 exd4 5. Nd5 Nxe4 {This is the Belgrade Gambit of the Four Knights. The chain of Knights, black, white,black, white from c6 to f3 makes a pleasing pattern.} 6. Qe2 f5 7. Ng5 Ne5 8. Nxe4 fxe4 9. Qxe4 d6 10. f4 c6 11. Nb4 c5 12. fxe5 cxb4 {We are now in the Knightless variation of the Four Knights.} 13. exd6+ Kd7 14. Bb5+ Kxd6 15. Qxd4+ Kc7 16. Bf4+ Bd6 17. Qc5+ Kb8 {18.Qxd6... 18.Qxd6... 18.Qxd6... 18.Qxd6...} 18. Bxd6+ {Boo!}
“Only 23 times.” Quotes Mad Rook in a thread on castling Kingside or Queenside.
Yes Morphy only castled Queenside in 23 of his 400 odd recorded games.
One of course was the famous Morphy at Opera. Not going to show that one.
Lets do one with 0-0 and one with 0-0-0.
P. Morphy Amateur New Orleans 1859
White is again playing without a Queen’s Rook.
Hey! I’ve know why Morphy never castled queenside as much as Kingside.
He played loads of games without a Queens Rook!!
FEN
rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/1NBQKBNR w Kkq - 0 1
[FEN "rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/1NBQKBNR w Kkq - 0 1"] 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. Ng5 d5 5. exd5 Nxd5 6. Nxf7 Kxf7 7. Qf3+ Ke6 8. Nc3 Nd4 9. Bxd5+ Kd6 10. Qf7 {The threat is 11.Ne4 mate.} 10... Be6 11. Bxe6 Nxe6 12. Ne4+ Kd5 13. c4+ Kxe4 14. Qxe6 Qd4 15. Qg4+ Kd3 {what is funny is that the coming mate would have been impossible had it not been a Rook odds game.}16. Qe2+ Kc2 17. d3+ Kxc1 {Illegal if a Rook had been on a1.} 18. O-O {Pretty good. Eh? What is it the good guys say? Don’t castle because you can, castle because you have to.}
I had better add that a player giving odds of a Rook can still
castle as though that Rook was still there.
Next a castles Queenside game and this features the Morphy Time Bomb.
PCM develops, builds up a great position and waits for his opponent
to make one slip as he is untangling trying to catch up on development.
A device used by all good players today but back then it was totally original
and of course Morphy does it with panache.
P. Morphy - Augustus Mongredien (sound like a character straight out
of a Dickens novel) Paris 1859.
1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 d5 {The Elephant, tricky and at least as good as the Latvian.} 3. exd5 e4 4. Qe2 Qe7 5. Nd4 Qe5 6. Nb5 Bd6 7. d4 {If now 7...Qxd5 8.c4 and c5.} 7... Qe7 8. c4 Bb4+ 9. Bd2 Bxd2+ 10. Nxd2 a6 {A lot of ink and been spent on 11.d6 for White here. But Morphy played it simple. The fuse has been lit. He is waiting for a clean cut kill.} 11. Nc3 f5 12. O-O-O Nf6 13. f3 {Taking on the advanced pawn head on to open lines. Today we all know this and it's thanks to games like this we do.} 13... O-O 14. fxe4 fxe4 15. Re1 b5 {Black is looking for activity on the Queenside. Morphy is not interested in a pawn to open up the a-file for Black.} 16. Ncxe4 bxc4 17. Qxc4 Kh8 18. Bd3 Bb7 {And there it is. Of course Black is toiling here but the Morphy Time Bomb strikes again. An unprotected piece and a weak back rank. That will do. The rest is forced and very instructive.} 19. Nxf6 Qxf6 20. Rhf1 Qd8 21. Rxf8+ Qxf8 22. Qb4 {Of course 23...Qxb4 24.Re1 mates and 23...Qc8 24.Qxb7 anyway.}
This delightful finish from an OTB game was posted on the forum.
I wondered if anyone had missed a chance to mate
with the two Knights like this.
Sadly I found one…….Where are the heroes?
ZorroTheFox - moma RHP 2008
Black here played Nf5 and Nxh4 and a draw was agreed.
It did not take long to find the mate, infact it was quite easy
because the White King is already hemmed in and it's a Rook's pawn
which throws up it's own unique mate.
[FEN "6K1/8/5k2/3n4/7P/6n1/8/8 b - - 0 1"] 1... Nh5 {First step is to block the pawn.} 2. Kf8 Nc7 {Next bottle up the King.} 3. Kg8 Ne6 4. Kh7 Kf7 5. Kh6 Nf6 {Now Black forces the White pawn down to smother White. All White's moves are forced from now on.} 6. h5 Ng4+ 7. Kh7 Ng5+ 8. Kh8 Nh2 {And this Knight can now go out to grass, it's not needed anymore. White's moves are still forced.} 9. h6 Kf8 10. h7 Nf7 {I'd love to pull that one off in a game. Moma had the chance but......}
Just found that Westlife also did a song called ‘No More Heroes’
Good Grief a Karaoke band. I’m not writing all this again.
Hi gp great blog as always!
I've been intrigued with your finding certain positions amongst the thousands of RHP games(quite useful if one wants to find out how good players solved a problem...).Since you cannot scan thousands of games individually - how do you do it?
I enjoyed my "15 minutes of fame", getting mentioned in a GP blog. However, the mention is undeserved, as it was Shallow Blue who did the research about Morphy's 23 queenside castles. (Can I take credit for it anyway?)
I have them all memorised it is easy.
99.99% of them are made with bad moves I too have played. 😉
I've been intrigued with your finding certain positions amongst the thousands of RHP games(quite useful if one wants to find out how good players solved a problem...).Since you cannot scan thousands of games individually - how do you do it?
((I've spent too much time editing my wife's college papers 😉
I put these errors in to see who is paying attention....🙂
Bird v Morphy, first full board, move 13. Qb1. The note reads:
"Black resigned , After Qxh1 Black mops up. Bird resigned at the right moment."
Shouldn't it read either "White resigned,..." or "Bird resigned,..."?
Tomtom pints on you.
as this blog is about morphy, the fried liver attack and your databases seems endless... do you know of the three morphy games mentioned here?
http://www.timeforchess.com/board/showthread.php?subject=A_successful_Fried_Liver_attack.&threadid=140125
So much for the GP memory - I'll let it go unedited
so people can go mad looking for you saying it.
See if I can find a Mad Rook game and give you another
15 miutes of infamy. 😉