Paul Morphy: Part 3, Lecture by GM Ben Finegold

Check out Ben's Chessable courses here! www.chessable.com/author/BenF... Part 3 of 4 of the Paul Morphy Lecture Series by GM Ben Finegold. This lecture focuses on four of Morphy's odds games against James Thompson in 1859.
Living before chess had a formal world championship, Morphy was widely acknowledged to be the greatest chess master of his era. He won the tournament of the First American Chess Congress of 1857, winning matches with each opponent by lopsided margins.
05:11 Paul Morphy vs. James Thompson, Match 1859
17:45 Paul Morphy vs. James Thompson, Match 1859
22:14 Paul Morphy vs. James Thompson, Match 1859
32:49 Paul Morphy vs. James Thompson, Match 1859
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[@askthepizzaguy]

Shout outs to Bill Wei for sponsoring this third installment of the best chess content.

[@Rspknlikeab0ssxd]

Agreed Lil Ceez

[@juan-ramonmunuera4080]

He is the bestest

[@griffinbur1118]

💯

[@winstonsmith7293]

Where would Morphy rank amongst today's lineup of GMs /Super GMs, in your estimation?

[@seanosull2884]

Does anyone know how much it costs to sponsor a lecture?

[@StuartReid999]

"I've never played a move like that. Morphy does it every other game." That last remark from Ben in the video captures for me why chess has the potential to be beautiful.

[@lluisalles]

Ben is being too humble, he has played some incredible moves like the rook sacrifice against Gert Jan de Boer in 1992. But I do get his point with that phrase.

[@anonvideo738]

Read this just as he said it (22:05)

[@ultimateman55]

Agadmator: Here you resign because | *proceeds to describe all of the six lines that lead to checkmate* | Ben Finegold: And then he resigned because...this is the worst position that's ever been played ever. lmao I love your style! I'm really enjoying your Morphy lectures. New subscriber here. : )

[@gmatsue84]

Agadmator gets his engine and narrates and shows things you didn't need because you could do by yourself at home

[@rossdixonellis]

I think the reason Morphy hated Thompson was that when he'd say "hello Mr. Thompson" and press down on his foot, he thought he was talking to someone else.

[@mjkaelbling]

I give; somebody explain this to me

[@Botmoot]

@@mjkaelbling Simpsons quote when homer and the family go into witness protection and homer cant grasp the idea of being given an Alias

[@rakib17874]

​@@Botmoot 🎉

[@griffinbur1118]

*blankly stares*

[@AG-ld6rv]

13:12 The knight sac was the #1 engine move, according to Stockfish 14 + NNUE. At shallow depth (~15-20), it was about +0.5 and the only move. After letting it sit for a bit, (depth 35), it evaluates that move to +0.5. It's a complex position for the engine though as I saw it say +0.7 at depth 30, so it changes it evaluation as it searches further. The second best move, according to the engine, is Qc4 @ -1.0. Then there is b4 @ -1.5. Moves below that are getting into -2 territory. That means it wasn't just a sweet sac and it wasn't just winning, it was the only move. 21:13 in that "puzzle" position, there are 5 moves by black that draw in the table base (thanks Lichess). Nd5, Nc6, Bc4, Bd5, and Kd7. All other moves are losing.

[@RMF49]

Interesting. I played it out using SF no table base and it couldn’t hold the position.

[@griffinbur1118]

amazing

[@Me-uv6kc]

I love morphy, as a newer player I feel like his games really help me understand what I'm supposed to be doing - not durdling around with pawns, but getting my pieces into good spots. I can't calculate as well as he could, but it helps to not lose in 20 moves because all your pieces on are on the back rank.

[@Botmoot]

Morphy games never get old

[@fundhund62]

Morphy and Finegold is an unbeatable combination!

[@TheKeithIvar]

I really appreciate this lecture! Morphy has always been my "favorite" player, and this lecture perfectly and thoroughly reflects why. I really love to see GM B Finegold getting passionate as Morphy shows us just how beautiful and brutal chess can be.

[@random9-548]

Men, Im loving this series... thanks a lot for the sponsor so everybody can have a GM lesson like this...

[@smijam361]

Loving the series. I actually feel like I've been playing a bit more Morphy-esque the last couple of days since watching these videos - and by that I mean mostly trashing weaker players in under 25 moves 😅

[@Travizeno92]

I love how humble you are. "Ive never played a move like that, morphy does it every other game" just to get the point across that morphy was a fantastic calculator despite not knowing the theory we know now.

[@hurricaneplayer066]

Thanks Ben for the tip on what to do in a sacrifice. I’ve heard from Danya that comparison is a powerful tool in calculation, but I never really thought too much about it. I’m going to apply that in my games!

[@elcid451]

I hope the 4th lecture is on the Harrwitz vs Morphy (1858) match!

[@Halibut86]

This is the perfect lecture for Ben! Thanks for donating for this content!! I wonder if they could feed an Engine all of Morphy's games to get a similarly styled bot to practice with. That could be really fun!

[@manmanman2000]

Amazing how you seemingly can give such great lessons effortlyless

[@masobe6425]

“Effortletletless”-Ben Finegold

[@chucknola484]

Effortlessless

[@josefserf1926]

11:42 + 37:51 Great points! Not always easy to understand those concepts.

[@answeris4217]

This is an awesome series Ben

[@petargadev6630]

Amazing lecture as always

[@MrSupernova111]

Phenomenal lecture and beautiful games! Thanks!

[@cliffmcnamara6266]

Thanks Ben! I'm with you on the Morphy train.

[@cooperjudson5807]

Thanks Ben and Bill Wei

[@Bassboin]

really great video series !

[@trout3685]

Awesome series. Best chess content i ever watched and ive watched a lot of morphy and fischer videos. This series is my favorite by far!!

[@user-re7jn4os5u]

Thanks .. best GM, streamer and singer !

[@trout3685]

This is great content thanks

[@A51838]

love these lectures. thanks, whoever sponsored this

[@chesswithivan8346]

Re6 was amazing! I love how nowadays you have to be doing a puzzle AND be Hikaru, and then you will prob solve it

[@hapeenes2927]

i went on your wiki and article about you in polish is longer than Thompson's so go Ben!

[@mcronrn]

Thx Bill Wei!

[@rnhubble]

I love anyone that loves Morphy... especially if they work in a Bunny of Seville reference... kudos sir!

[@AC-xq4hh]

Some quality content here, needs more views

[@thegreatestalive]

Would love a a video on games morphy lost

[@zancospancos]

Wonderful

[@mandotherapper2586]

Im getting to the point where Im screaming at my phone "bro just castle!"

[@andrewslough]

Missing the f-pawn should be an advantage because you can never play f6.

[@LukePettit]

4:00 that was on Derren Brown about 15 years ago

[@markritchie8874]

Morphy a scholar and a gent, but also very charismatic I think, you feel it even 150 years on.

[@ghfdt368]

That rook E6 move at 20:11 is so brilliant and masterful that if any other chess player today made a move like that it would be studied and debated for years to come. It's moves like that which really makes you realise that Morphy wasn't just a 2000 elo player, his ability was of a far greater magnitude of that.

[@lollycopter]

Not to mention that this was also at a time before when most chess studies that we see today had been composed!

[@TheKeithIvar]

Loved the Spassky quote...makes me want to look up some Spassky games.

[@RMF49]

Spassky must have been a good humble guy. He stood and applauded Fischer after one of Fischer’s brilliant wins vs Spassky in their world championship match.

[@Rubrickety]

That's funny that some kids actually did the "copycat simul" trick against Ben. I first heard of this as a Richard Feynman bet that he could play a chess simul against a bunch of grandmasters and win half his games.

[@Rspknlikeab0ssxd]

In my second semester as an undergraduate (4 years ago) one of my Professors told me about that match, without saying how he tricked them. But I figured what Feynman must have been up to when he said it was a simul against a bunch of Gms lmao

[@kmarasin]

@@Rspknlikeab0ssxd This must be an urban legend as Feynman wouldn't have hesitated to put the story in one of his books

[@Rspknlikeab0ssxd]

@@kmarasin Yeah lmao to be fair maybe it is in one of his books, I've never read them- or I am not remembering another giy who did it

[@joepierecipes5432]

Ty wei ty ben

[@Gush27]

That last game is absolutely ridiculous

[@Tocinos]

🙏

[@Deucely]

As some wise man once said, Yes! Etc. Mainly, Etc.

[@emanueledimo713]

i agree

[@maxirhyme]

on Game 2 the last move I ever would've considered was Kh8 and the first was funnily Re6 but only for the reason that I initially didn't realize thst the bishop guards that square...am I still as good as Morphy? 😅

[@chrispratt3666]

28:16 "..it's the same deviled egg." Ben your random AF references always make me laugh.

[@Elbownian]

Sack the exchange! Hard to judge for a sub-1000. I've been trying this and. . . not failing completely! (My heart though...) ROAD TO 800!!!

[@poolzokka]

15:53min. ...but if he would have gone KG8 and loosing his Bishop with check, then white will loose the Queen by preventing checkmate!! ...am I right?

[@robertomariani626]

27:52, about trying to play a friend with a knight handicap, actually already beaten multiples with a queen handicap! However we're talking 1400 at best vs 700 at best, at that rating I believe the handicap ends up being worth less because the lower rated player blunders more easily. Obviously this is way more difficult if we're talking GM vs IM etc.

[@AR-ln7ip]

I spotted all my pieces except pawns and my queen to my kid and still won. 😂 He's better now, so I can't get away with that anymore, but I could still easily spot a piece or two.

[@valeriekeefe8898]

8:12 why not Qb5+? Doesn't that win a knight? I guess Nc6... But then Bd5, Nxd5, exd5, winning a knight or making white scramble their pawns?

[@night_inhale]

me, 1300, "I would def see the rook sac" sure. sometimes i worry about ben saying that peopel can't play certain types of moves bc then im like if i get really good is it like a right of passage to get accused of cheating

[@Al.2]

20:10 ok, you may not believe me but I did figure it out in a couple of minutes and I used to be be about 2000 ELO many years ago.

[@Al.2]

I've seen the follow up of Kf6 winning the knight too in case of Bc2, and how Re6 stops the knight jumps. There are not so many moves to consider without immediately losing with white.

[@Al.2]

But of course in many cases Morphy played the move I didn't see. Just this one I saw.

[@liamkiney4124]

I was rooting around on chessgames and they have the final game ending after 16. exf6+. Did the final few moves shown here actually occur in the game, or was it analysis?

[@tellahsage6477]

These chess games from very long ago tend to be a little innacurate in their records due to many different sources existing Take the immortal game for example. Nobody actually knows if the queen sac checkmate at the end actually happened or if black resigned after Qxa1.

[@dabeamer42]

"You're so next" (22:11) -- yes! Someone knows his Warner Bros.

[@kathryncollings9421]

Stock fish says …Na5 gets Bxf7+ then Qa3 and whites up by nearly a pawn.

[@kenallen4175]

Morphy’s games are the best

[@alfiecollins5617]

17:45

[@answeris4217]

Guessing next is just craziness like only Murphy could

[@JanjuaGamerRajpoot]

And My Dog Agrees Legend Ben 😍

[@daveminion6209]

i am happy to see that Ben is finally back to focusing on CHESS, classical, historical games, and how to learn to get better from the MASTERS. (as opposed to saying stupid crap about other "influencers " and streamers. nuf said)

[@simonl1135]

Nxe5 is the top move for my engine and it believes it's not even losing, but between 0.1-0.5 depending on time it gets to analyze it. All other moves are at least -1. The truth hurts.

[@DocUK123]

Would like to see your games vs. Komodo.

[@luxwutang]

Go Paul Go Ben Go Bill but stay there

[@Linkfanoftheyear]

Amazingly the tablebase says Morphy wins there. Many one move win positions in the line to victory though.

[@undertwotimes]

So in these old games with no clock, would people get mad if they took like an hour per move? I always wonder how that worked.

[@JacquesduPlessis11]

Well if you ever played chess in your family, or with a friend you usually play no clock. And while people generally are allowed to take as long as they want there is a kind of unspoken ettiquette against someone taking all night for a move. I am assuming it was similar in those days. But against a player as good as Morphy it probably became more common to take "too long" on a move. He probably didn't mind, until he saw the quality of their move... haha

[@kmarasin]

Just so you know, Ben, I just saw an ad from "Never Back Down" which is a PAC supporting Ron DeSantis.

[@mcronrn]

Ben supports DeSantis??

[@josefserf1926]

Why not? It's a free country.

[@RMF49]

Bens good at chess should stay outta politics tho.

[@askthepizzaguy]

@ Ben- you pretty much think if Morphy was in this era, and had a chance to play against modern grandmasters, he'd beat you, right? So that would put him as a strong GM strength. Unless your friends think you'd just crush Morphy and you're like 600 points higher rated than him? Where is this he's 2000 strength coming from, because I'm taking your side here and I just don't think you're crushing Morphy every game, which you would IF he were 2000 strength as your friends have argued.

[@askthepizzaguy]

I will say, I think you could beat Steinitz and Staunton and the like, from that era. Even if they had a chance to study up.

[@karlmason7985]

I remember reading (or hearing) somewhere that Morphy had an almost photographic memory and could recall from memory almost every game he played or read about. With the sort of brainpower you're looking at the very best that ever lived at any time.

[@SenatorBluto]

​@@karlmason7985 Oh yeah, he memorized the entire legal code for his state as a law student and spoke perfect French. Massive brainpower!

[@RMF49]

I suspect Morphy is much stronger than Ben. Recency bias is all over the place: Soccer, Basketball, Chess, etc.

[@askthepizzaguy]

@@SenatorBluto To be fair, a lot of people in France have also mastered the French language. So Morphy is strictly average. (joke)

[@-_Nuke_-]

I also like this game by Morphy but I don't remember who he played it against... I just remember the entire game by memory... [Variant "From Position"] [FEN "rnbqkbnr/pppppppp/8/8/8/8/PPPPPPPP/R1BQKBNR w KQkq - 0 1"] 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Bc5 4. b4 Bxb4 5. c3 Bc5 6. d4 Bb6 7. O-O d6 8. dxe5 dxe5 9. Qb3 Qf6 10. Bb5 Be6 11. Qa4 Ne7 12. Bg5 Qg6 13. Bxe7 Kxe7 14. Bxc6 bxc6 15. Nxe5 Qf6 16. Nxc6+ Kf8 17. e5 Qg5 18. h4 Qg4 19. Qa3+ Kg8 20. Ne7+ Kf8 21. Ng6+ Kg8 22. Qf8+ Rxf8 23. Ne7# With a brilliant finish!

[@12jswilson]

19:30 I found Re6 as soon as I saw that h7 didn't work

[@bjorneriksson6480]

Ben looks good, healthy!

[@zmercespiloy5551]

Morphy is a genius..

[@dannygjk]

Was he one of the Tintin Thompson and Thomson guys? If so it is understandable that he was much weaker than Morphy.

[@kmarasin]

18:00 the last move I'd play is possibly Kh7 or Kh8, blocking my pawn and hanging my rook. So here I was, waiting for Morphy to play one of those and pull a rabbit out of a hat, and he plays a rook move instead. Very disappointing.

[@mosiyo9678]

Paul Murphy is the goat because if you analyse his games usually its above 90% very suspicious he must be good:)

[@dank2476]

How much did Bill sponsored for the series ?

[@LukePettit]

probably 100 per video

[@ep-wz8fu]

I'm feeling pretty good as a 1000 ish player who guessed Re6

[@seinfan9]

22:12 How many people would know that's a Bugs Bunny reference?

[@matthewpaul985]

My house is 19th century! Yay

[@King.Mark.]

makes for a great bed time story 👁👄👁

[@yotoober1]

I can't take it anymore!! 🙄 Just saw a one minute clip of hikaru (Gabi's apologist) saying that he knows Gabi and what Gabi was thinking when he saw Ian butcher the Ruy opening and loose the match, that Gabi should have tried for second in the candidates because with his prep, he could have beaten either of these guys. DOES IT EVER END!!?? The guy that bets the horse that could, shoulda, oughta, have won, IF ONLY.....??? Will they ever give it up?? Again I ask, with all your superior prep, WHY DIDN'T YOU EITHER WIN OR COME 2ND IN THE CANDIDATES?? GIVE IT UP ALREADY. the 2 challengers outplayed you. I mean y'all super GMs, true, but let's not get confused with Fischer, Capablanca, Lasker, Kasparov, Botvinnik, Karpov, etc

[@vikinggoats4209]

Gabi?

[@Eidenhoek]

Yaaaaaaaaaay I thought of rook e6 (and nothing of a continuation) yaaaaay

[@dabeamer42]

me too. one thing at a time, no?

[@BrianStone0]

Piece odds more like peace out

[@RMF49]

Stockfish couldn’t hold that KQ v KNBPP endgame either.

[@andsviat]

I actually found Re6. When you understand the problem, it's easy to find the solution.

[@chrisSo91]

I'm 1300 and I saw re6 instantly lmao

[@anonymousAJ]

Go Morphy! But stay dead

[@pawnpusher]

Why didn't they like each other?

[@michaelf8221]

There's good and there's not good. Morphy's opponent was not good.

[@rickdynes]

so the Question is.... Was Morphy the Greatest Chess TALENT ever? because there really does seem to be a Shocking ratio of brilliant moves to suboptimal/mistakes... is there any real Theme of TYPICAL Logical Errors that Morphy makes? are there enough games of Morphy playing slower positional moves when necessary, so that we can conclude.. "Morphy is a Genius at Positional Play"?? the thing of it is... I'm not that great at chess but I watch a lot of chess games with GMs commentating ... Lots of interviews with the Best players ... Lots of chess analysis videos ... Casually but for many years ... When I first saw the Alpha Zero games, I knew that Magnus would learn more quickly what was being revealed by those games, because Magnus has that incredible Memory YES ... but Also because Magnus *like EVERY One of the All-time Greatest Chess Players* Magnus is a Conceptual BEAST; Magnus is unbelievably strong at understanding how Concepts are incorporated into THE Very Best Games ... *Concepts, Themes, IDEAS: PHILOSOPHY* ... ..and players like Kasparov, Fischer etc. would have also Demonstrated roughly equivalent gains in overall chess strength .... demonstrated newly acquired ideas, insights.... a few things I noticed.. Alpha Zero is much more interested in and Great at making sure All his pieces have free and easy movement *easily moving rooks on the back rank, sacrificing pawns, even giving His KING a rather Breezy and Quite Mobile House* Greater than Any other chess entity Ever certainly.. Greater at evaluating Ever-changing relative piece strength... turns out bishops are stronger than rooks Much more often than anybody expected *for example* Greater understanding of how pieces *especially but not exclusively Bishops* can operate remotely, closer to home and quite far from the action be effective and often Dominate the opponents position. And, of course, AZ is Great at preventing his Opponent from following through on these And Many, MANY more Themes that have been detected, mapped ... but many of these themes could remain undetected for a long Long time ... maybe til the end of time ...... essentially referring to these themes of Alpha Zero's Bishops in a recent interview, Kasparov concluded that Fischer was correct after All about how Much more valuable the Bishop was than his poor equivalent the knight... Fischer: Bishop value= 3.25 Kasparov previously: Bishop value 3.15 in any event, Morphy played more like Alpha Zero than any great chess ever.... I don't mean it in a general stylistic sense; I mean that in an extremely precise/special stylistic sense ... i dunno .. maybe I'm speaking out of turn ...... my 2 cents😂 -signed, Francis Albert Tiberius Sinatra

[@rickdynes]

😂

[@josefserf1926]

Thanks Mr Sinatra

[@OblateBede]

No, tablebase says white wins.

[@willwright6447]

"I hope he resigns here...." 😅

[@jeffreyfisher3115]

Wikipedia states James Thomas was born in England, qualifying him as an English Grandmaster

[@kmarasin]

Man, Thompson is a "master"? He plays about 1400 strength.

[@DrDeuteron]

really on the cheating board, you should have made a blunder, one from which you can recover. And the other player cannot.

[@tobiaszeller4323]

First

[@peterflom6878]

It's remarkable. Thompson doesn't seem to blunder, but then he's lost.

[@bparrish99]

Frankly, ridiculous.

[@Brian-ve7ds]

Thanks. Ben got Parkinson?

[@JuhoLepisto]

Just some NEAT fidgeting.

[@Brian-ve7ds]

@@JuhoLepisto I hope.

[@tellahsage6477]

Chair's probably just got a loose screw or something