games have been played during over the history of chess, but there is only very little percentage

of games that will be the most influential, most important and most instructive. And every

aspiring chess player just MUST know these few games. Today, we will talk about one of

them. The game played by Paul Morphy, one of the greatest chess players of the US, I

think, together with Bobby Fischer. These two are by far the greatest players of the

US, and maybe for the entire world as well. Just to give you an idea of his power, Morphy

played handicapped games - giving the extra pawn and extra move to any of his opponents.

I really doubt that Magnus Carlsen will be able to do the same 'trick' today. I'm Igor

Smirnov, International Grandmaster and a chess coach from the Remote Chess Academy. And my

point today is, not just to show you the game played by Paul Morphy, but to show you the

main ideas he used in his games, so that you can do the same in your own practice and get

the same brilliant results. We're going to see the game between Paul Morphy and Dukes

played in Paris, in the opera house. And let's just go ahead and get started. Now the game

started with 1.e4 1.e5 2.Nf3 d6 3.d4. And that's the first moment one I'd like to start

by highlighting the fact that Morphy was playing in a very straightforward, yet very effective

style. Now we know that the purpose of the game is to checkmate the opponent's king.

And that's what he really tried to do. He always tried to target and attack the opponent's

king. Of course there were some games that ended in an endgame, but I'd say that he normally

tried to finalize the game by the direct attack of the opponent's king. And if you can attack

the opponent's king, it's great and you should DO that! If you can't attack the king right

now, then at least attack something. At least, attack opponent's pawns or pieces or whatever

you can! And here by playing d4, White starts to attack the Black's pawn. So now Black already

has to react somehow. And that's the first MAIN RULE that you need to remember about

this style of playing - always ATTACK, especially, the opponent's king. So let's go ahead and

Black played Bg4, dxe5. Now if Black doesn't want to lose the pawn, he has to take White's

knight. You see that while playing attacking moves, White always FORCES the opponent's

reaction. Black can't do what he wants, he only has to react. Now what would you do here

as White? Still, ATTACK, so White played Bc4 and now the goal is to take Qxf7, winning

the game in one move. Black replied with Nf6. How would you play here? Remember, your goal

is to attack and primarily, attack the opponent's king. So White played Qb3. This time, this

is a double attack, both to the f7-pawn and the b7-pawn. And already Black suffers because

he can't protect both of his weaknesses. Black replied Qe7, protecting his king. And let

me ask you the same question once again. How would you play here as White? I'm pretty sure

that most of the players would like to grab that pawn on the b7. You just take the pawn

and you attack the rook and everything looks awesome. After that however, Black will play

Qb4+, will trade off the queens and although, of course, White has the serious advantage

in an endgame due to his extra pawn, still the game goes on. And as we already know,

Morphy tried to attack the opponent's king. He was not that much enthusiastic about playing

long endgames. I really want to develop on this topic. Because these principles that

I'm going to tell you right now was one of the critical points of the whole 'Morphy Strategy'.

Let's use an analogy. Imagine you're a commander of the army and you want to start a war to

defeat your enemy. WHEN will you start your attack? Obviously, it is better to do that

when your opponent is unprepared..when his forces are dozy. And that's why lots of wars

was started before the sun rise, somewhere around 4 A.M. Well, I hope that you will not

initiate the real war..you would better apply these principles for chess games. :) Anyway,

the bottomline is still the same. You want to attack when your opponent's forces are

unprepared..when they are dozy. And that's what Morphy always tried to do in his games.

If he is seeing that his opponent's forces are dozy on their initial squares, he always

tried to rush for the attack and begin that assault as quickly as possible. And that's

why he played Nc3. The lesson you can learn here is that you need to value quick development

more than material! You value QUICK DEVELOPMENT and ACTIVITY of your pieces more than the

material because you want to deploy your forces quickly and start the attack when your opponent

is still unprepared. Okay, let's move on, Black played c6, protecting his b7-pawn. Now

Bg5, White continues to develop his pieces. Black answered b5. Now that's another critical

moment of the game. How would you play here? Well, when your opponent just played b5, attacking

your bishop, then the very natural reaction is just to go back..to play Bd3 for example.

But, we already know that you want to play quickly...you want to attack when your opponent's

forces are dozy on the last rank. So you don't want to lose time, making backward moves.

So that's one thing. And there is another thing. Let me ask you this question. How can

White attack Black's king in this position? It's not so easy to find any direct way. Well,

you can say some moves that you can prepare..you can do this and you can do that..somewhere

in the future, you may hope to attack the king. But if you want to attack it right now,

how can you do that? That's a tough question. And here comes another principle of Morphy

Strategy. He was always willing to sacrifice a material to open up a position and start

a direct attack. That's why in this position, instead of retreating, he took Nxb5! This

sacrifice helps him to continue developing his pieces in a quick manner and at the same

time, right now, White can start attacking the Black's king directly. Now the bishop

is attacking the king and if required, the queen can join. So you can see that when you

open up the position, it enables your direct attack towards the opponent's king. Black

covered his king with Nbd7, 0-0-0, attacking that d7-knight once again. Black has to protect

it with Rd8. Okay, now let me ask you another question. We know that one of the key elements

of Morphy Strategy was to deploy all of your forces into the battlefield as quickly as

possible. At the moment, most of the White's pieces are very active. Except for the rook

on h1 which is still doing nothing. How can bring this piece into play? Well, ideally

speaking, you would like to have it on the d-file where it can support White's pressure

along the d-file. And one way to do that is..for example move the d1-rook to d2 and then bring

another rook to d1 - double the rooks along the d-file. And that's a good plan, generally

speaking. But the drawback is that you have to waste one move on the preparation..on playing

d1-rook to d2. So now let's reformulate the question. You know that you want to deploy

the forces as quickly as possible. Using the situation that your opponent is still unprepared..that

his forces are dozy. So the real question is - how can you bring the h1-rook into the

battle without wasting time? And the answer is Rxd7! White is vacating the d1-square without

wasting any time. Because now after the exchange, White simply brings the rook and it attacks

the opponent's rook on the d7-square. And here I'd like to tell you another concept

which is quite unknown and many players misunderstand it even though Morphy understood it 150 years

back! Okay, let me ask you one question. How do you evaluate a chess position? Well, you

look at the board and you see how many pieces White have, how many Black has and then you

compare and decide who is better. Right? Something like that. Of course, you may evaluate other

factors like activity, king safety and so on. But anyway, you look at the board and

you see who is better. There is another idea, though. We know that the goal of the chess

game is to checkmate the opponent's king. And therefore, the area around the opponent's

king has the greatest value. You don't have to dominate on the whole board. You need to

dominate only in the narrow territory around the opponent's king. So let's narrow our focus

to the area around the Black's king and evaluate the white's pieces that influence this territory

and the Black's pieces that influence this territory as well. If we talk about the Black's

pieces, he has the knight on f6 protecting the rook, the rook itself covering the king

and the queen protecting the rook. So Black has those 3 pieces in defense. Yes, Black

also has the rook on the corner and the bishop, but they are on their initial squares doing

nothing. So we can disregard them for the moment. If we think about the White's pieces

that are attacking..then these are the 2 bishops - both of them exert strong pressure, the

d1-rook, definitely very active. And the queen on b3, although not doing much right at the

moment, but still it's quite active. It can go to b8, for example, after Bxd7+ or it can

go to a4 and increase the pressure. Therefore, the queen also takes part into the White's

assault. We may conclude that White has four attackers against the three defenders. And

those three defenders are actually quite miserable because the rook is pinned, the knight is

pinned, so those defenders are very much restricted and can't do anything. And that's why when

you focus your attention on the battlefield, the area around the opponent's king, you can

very easily understand what you need to do. You need to get domination in this area. If

you get it, you will win the game easily. Black played Qe6 trying to somehow unpin his

pieces. White took the rook and now let me ask you to find the final blow. In fact, White

can win the game in 2 moves. Can you find the checkmating continuation? It's Qb8+, well

if you want to find a checkmate, you need to look for checks, right? So Qb8+, Nxb8 and

Rd8# Brilliant finish of the brilliant game! Now let's sum up the main key takeaways that

you need to remember from the Paul Morphy Strategy so that you can apply them in your

own games. The first rule that Morphy used in his games was to ATTACK. The purpose of

the chess game and the ultimate goal is to check your opponent. And that's why you want

to attack, especially, attack the opponent's king. That's pretty simple and very effective.

Secondly, bring your forces into the battlefield QUICKLY. You need to attack while your opponent's

forces are unprepared..when they are dozing on their initial positions or if they're stuck

somewhere on another side of the board, and you need to quickly get domination in the

area around the opponent's king and start the attack there. The third rule is to sacrifice

material for activity and opening of the position. Sacrificing material for activity should now

be something natural for you. You know that you need to value quick development and advantage

in activity more than material. You don't need to have so much material. You just need

to have domination in the narrow territory around the opponent's king. And if we talk

about sacrificing material for opening of the position, then it's pretty logical as

well. It connects to the first item - if you want to attack the opponent's king, first

of all you need to break up his defense. You need to open up the position. Only then, your

forces will be able to target the opponent's king directly. So these 3 rules are the essence

of everything that Morphy did in his games. And just by following these 3 simple ideas,

he managed to devastate all of his opponents whether huge score. And if you follow these

rules in your games, you will definitely achieve some good results. Otherwise, if you don't

follow Morphy's rules, you will fall into Murphy's rule. Sorry, I'm just kidding! :) And

to end up the lesson, let's test your skills with one another brilliant position from the

game of Paul Morphy. Here is another game of Paul Morphy - he is playing White. Now

your task is to find the right move for White. Of course, it's not that you just guess the

move - apply the rules that we discussed previously, and find the right move. Then, write your

answer in the comments area below. Once you have found your solution, then below the video

you can find the link for the solution, click there and check yourself. Thank you for watching!

I really hope it will help you win a lot of brilliant games and see you in the next lessons.

Bye-bye! :)