 Game Three: Morphy-Duke of Brunswick and Count Isouard, Paris 1858 "Chess is a sport. A violent sport. This detracts fromits most artistic connections. One intriguing aspect of the game that doesnot imply artistic connotations is the geometrical patterns and the variationsof the actual set-up of the pieces in the combinative, tactical, strategicand positional sense. It is a sad means of expression, though--somewhatlike 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 forits 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 Brunswickand Count Isouard, was then seated with his back to the stage and invitedto play a game of Chess. An impatient Morphy annihilated his opponents inonly 17 moves during The Marriage of figaro, a slaughter that wasbest described by the great German analyst, Helmut Jüngling, in hispivotal book Matings of the Masters. "This game--if, indeed,it merits the honorable distinction of being called a game--exhibited noneof the delicate foreplay of two sensitive virtuosi, but rather the frenziedbestial thumping of an impassioned hart driven to frenzied Wagnerian passions."Morphy, having withdrawn from the world of Chess after only 75 competitivegames, suffered from severe bouts of delusions and paranoia before beingfelled by a stroke while taking a bath on 10 July 1884. |
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