Morphy numbers

Morphy numbers are something new to me.
It is the degrees of seperation small world phenomenon for chess players.
I was searching Gligoric and found he had a Morphy number of 3.
So Morphy (1837-1884) has a Morphy number zero.
Anyone who played him has a Morphy number of 1.
Anyone who played a Morphy number 1 has a Morphy number 2 and so on.
I played John Littlewood in a simul.
John Littlewood had played Botvinnik who has a MN of 3.
That gives me a MN of 5.
Anand,Kramnik and Gelfand also have MNs of 5.
Small world I have only 5 degrees of seperation from Morphy who was born in 1837.

Do simultaneous displays over the Internet count ?

If so, I have a friend who played againt Anand in an Internet simultaneous, so if Anand have a Morphy number of 5, mine is 7.

Unfortunately net simuls don't count, normal OTB simuls do.

I've played Oliver Penrose three times in league matches.
Oliver has a Morphy number of 3 so I am a 4 😏

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morphy_number

You mentioned John Littlewood.

Oliver played John Littlewood in Cambridge in 1952.
They never played each other again until Edinburgh 2002! a 50 year gap.
(Olver won both games.)

5

Originally posted by jb70
Morphy numbers are something new to me.
It is the degrees of seperation small world phenomenon for chess players.
I was searching Gligoric and found he had a Morphy number of 3.
So Morphy (1837-1884) has a Morphy number zero.
Anyone who played him has a Morphy number of 1.
Anyone who played a Morphy number 1 has a Morphy number 2 and so on.
I played John ...[text shortened]... ave MNs of 5.
Small world I have only 5 degrees of seperation from Morphy who was born in 1837.

Hi jb
thought you might be interested to know i have a Morphy number of 1!
I popped into my time shifting aparatus i have in my garage at home and headed for paris in 1858. managed to catch up with Morphy in the cafe de la Regence. It was pretty difficult to get near him to be honest. There was a lot of fuss being made over an upcoming match with a guy called Harwitz.
Anyway Morphy was at first reluctant to play me. He was slightly fatigued from his travels through Europe and wanted time to relax and prepare.
After some sweet talking from yours truly he eventually decided to play me in a casual informal game. He said i was a tad irritating but an obvious enthusiast and agreed to just one game of chess.
We sat in the corner of the cafe with a view out of the window onto a busy Parisian walkway.
We sipped very bad tea while we played which tasted more like battery acid!
while we played i spoke to Mr Morphy about the upcoimg wonders of electricity and of course football.
My ramblings were met with blank looks. I did eventually shut up and began to concentarte on the game. I had the pleasure of the white pieces and was a little suprised at Morphy's choice of opening. A very modern looking Bogo Indian type set up.
He carved out a typically brilliant tactical masterpiece making mince meat of me very easily. I really had no defence to such mastery.
before bidding farewell i asked him about his choice of opening. He said he had a far wider knowledge of openings than was generally accepted.
His parting words were " i have also travelled beyond the 3 dimensions that are generally thought to inhibit our movements on this planet" very eery stuff.

Anyway here's the pgn of the game. I'm afraid i can't get the game viewer thingy to work so would be obliged if you could help.

[Event "Off hand game Paris cafe"]
[Site "?"]
[Date "1858.09.08"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Talisman"]
[Black "Morphy"]
[Result "0-1"]
[ECO "E11"]
[PlyCount "74"]
[EventDate "2012.??.??"]

1. d4 Nf6 2. Nf3 e6 3. c4 Bb4+ 4. Bd2 a5 5. Bxb4 axb4 6. Nbd2 O-O 7. e4 d6 8.
Bd3 e5 9. d5 Nbd7 10. Bc2 Nh5 11. O-O Qf6 12. g3 Nc5 13. Ne1 Qg6 14. Ng2 Bg4
15. f3 Bh3 16. Rf2 Ra6 17. Nb3 Rfa8 18. Nxc5 dxc5 19. Qb1 Nxg3 20. hxg3 Qxg3
21. f4 b3 22. Bxb3 Bxg2 23. Rxg2 Qe3+ 24. Rf2 Rg6+ 25. Kf1 Rh6 26. Kg1 Raa6 27.
f5 Rh4 28. Qc1 Qxe4 29. Rh2 Rg4+ 30. Kf2 Rh6 31. Qxh6 gxh6 32. Rf1 Rf4+ 33. Kg1
Qe3+ 34. Rhf2 Rg4+ 35. Kh2 Qg3+ 36. Kh1 Rh4+ 37. Rh2 Rxh2# 0-1

Ok there it is. I'm off to Moscow 1960 now to try and get a game with Tal!

Originally posted by Talisman
Hi jb
thought you might be interested to know i have a Morphy number of 1!
I popped into my time shifting aparatus i have in my garage at home and headed for paris in 1858. managed to catch up with Morphy in the cafe de la Regence. It was pretty difficult to get near him to be honest. There was a lot of fuss being made over an upcoming match with a guy ca ...[text shortened]... ere it is. I'm off to Moscow 1960 now to try and get a game with Tal!

That story is made up. There is no way Morphy would play the Bogo-Indian:-)

Originally posted by hedonist
That story is made up. There is no wah ay Morphy would play the Bogo-Indian:-)

No honest!!
I actually liked Morphy's use of the c5 square in that game against me. His doubled b pawn was never in danger of being attacked and it just gave him use of c5 for his Knight.When i played 17.Nb3 i thought yeah i'm going to get rid of that Knight.
It didn't sink in until i played Nxc5 that he had already placed his Rook on a6 to foil such an idea. The third rank was opened up for said RooK to swing over to the K side where he already had superiority!!
yes the rank. How often do we only think of open files. Ranks are just as important. Such vision, such brilliance.

With these Morphy numbers the routes are very interesting. The shortest path for most British players goes;

Morphy - Henry Bird (they played in the 1850s so Bird has a Morphy number of 1)

Bird- Jacques Mieses (Bird was the oldest player at Hastings 1895, the greatest tournament ever in my opinion, so all the other participants have Morphy numbers of 2. Mieses was one of them)

Mieses (born 1865) was a legendary figure, an Anglophile who moved to England when the Nazis took over Germany and was still a strong player in his 80s. Anyone who played him in the post WW2 years (eg. Leonard Barden) has a Morphy number of 3. Presumably this includes Oliver Penrose.

For myself, I think (not sure) I have a Morphy number of 5 thanks to Michael Franklin, who I played in a 1990s rapidplay congress.

but does anyone know the route from Morphy to Gligoric?

I have a Morphy number of 4 via the route described above!

Morphy -> Bird -> Mieses -> W H Pratten -> Me

Originally posted by Talisman
Hi jb
thought you might be interested to know i have a Morphy number of 1!
I popped into my time shifting aparatus i have in my garage at home and headed for paris in 1858. managed to catch up with Morphy in the cafe de la Regence. It was pretty difficult to get near him to be honest. There was a lot of fuss being made over an upcoming match with a guy ca ...[text shortened]... ere it is. I'm off to Moscow 1960 now to try and get a game with Tal!

Oh yeah? 😠
Well I am Morphy. Morphy number 0, top that. 😛

Originally posted by Fat Lady
I have a Morphy number of 4 via the route described above!

Morphy -> Bird -> Mieses -> W H Pratten -> Me

I'm not sure of the exact route, I googled Morphy number, Reshevsky, who was a 3, my coach played Reshevsky (postal 😳) Coach played Petrosian in a simul when he (coach) was a youngster. Not sure of Petrosian's#

Petrosian=4

Originally posted by ChessPraxis
Oh yeah? 😠
Well I am Morphy. Morphy number 0, top that. 😛

Hello once again. That tea really was awful wasn't it!

Hi guys.

Just back from trying to lower my Morphy number.
My mark III time machine bought on E-bay for 99p (free listing) worked perfectly.

Arrived at the cafe de la Regence but no sign of Morphy.

Instead this idiot turned up, ordered tea (everyone knows the cafe de la Regence
only served coffee) and challenged me to a game.

The bloke yakked on about electricty, a subject he knew little about and football.
Him being a Millwall supporter he knew even less about that than he did electricity.

Anyway we played a game, I was black and hammered him using an opening
that will not be invented for another 70 odd years.

After the game he ran out the cafe clutching the score sheet and disappeared.

Suddenly Morphy turned up.

"I'm glad you got rid of that fellow. I'm fed up with time travellers coming
back here to lower their Morphy number." he said.

"They are driving me crazy," he added, "I think I'm going to give up the game after a few years."

"You are not a time traveller are you?"

"No." I replied, "I'm...er....The Duke of Brunswick, I'm in town for the Opera."

"Ah good," replied Morphy. "I like the opera also, if I see you there I'll give you
a game."

Well that meant me staying till Ocotber. It was not bad because Fat lady turned up.
(a Time Turbo Mk IV. It cost him over £1,000) 🙂

I advised him to adopt the name Count Isouard and we have a date at the opera
with Morhy in October. We both knew what moves we had to play.

Me and Fat Lady have a MN of 1.