Houston Chess

"To this day Morphy is an unsurpassed master of the open games. Just how great was his significance is evident from the fact that after Morphy nothing substantially new has been created in this field. Every player- from beginner to master- should in this praxis return again and again to the games of the American genius." ~ Mikhail Botvinnik

The zwischenzug (German for "intermediate move"), is a chess tactic in which a player, instead of playing the expected move (commonly a recapture of a piece that the opponent has just captured) first interpolates another move, posing an immediate threat that the opponent must answer, then plays the expected move.

How good a chessplayer was Paul Morphy? Let’s look at a match he played against James Thompson, a man thought to be one of the top dozen American players. Giving him the outrageous odds of a Knight, Morphy beat him 5-2! After looking over Morphy’s games, Fischer said that, given time to study modern theory and ideas, Morphy would beat any modern player (except Fischer, of course!).

Karl Ernst Adolf Anderssen ... is generally considered to have been the leading chess player in the world from 1851-1858 and 1861-1866. He was "dethroned" temporarily in 1858 by Paul Morphy, who announced his own retirement from chess in 1859...

For the next few years Anderssen was considered by many people to be the world's best player, ... Then in late 1858 he was beaten 8-3 by the American champion Paul Morphy in a famous match held in Paris, France (2 wins, 2 draws, 7 losses). Although Anderssen knew as well as anyone how to attack, Morphy understood much better when to attack and how to prepare an attack...

Anderssen played the curious opening move 1. a3 in 3 games of his match against Morphy, and broke even with it (1 loss, 1 draw, 1 win). This opening move, now referred to as "Anderssen's Opening", has never been popular in serious competition.

He was one of the first masters to play a match against Morphy after the latter's arrival in London in 1858. Morphy won with a score of nine wins, three losses and two draws. "...I am convinced that I was vanquished by superior strength," Löwenthal said about the match, as reported by the Englishman Frederick Edge. No doubt aware that chess was Löwenthal's only source of livelihood, and conscious to not be considered a professional player himself, Morphy after winning the match stakes of £100, presented Löwenthal with a gift of furniture valued at £120 for his new house.

Jules Arnous de Rivière (4 May 1830–11 September 1905) was the strongest French chess player from the late 1850s through the late 1870s. He is best known today for playing many games with Paul Morphy when the American champion visited Paris in 1858 and 1863.

Harrwitz was born in Breslau (Wroc?aw) in the Prussian Province of Silesia. He established his reputation in Paris, particularly as a player of blindfold games. He lost a match in England to Howard Staunton in 1846 at odds of a pawn and two moves, and drew a match with Adolf Anderssen in Germany in 1848.

Harrwitz lived in England from 1849, and founded the British Chess Review. In 1856 he moved to Paris, where he won a match against Jules Arnous de Rivière. In 1858 he played a match against Paul Morphy in Paris. Harrwitz won the first two games, but lost the match 5½-2½. Harrwitz withdrew from the match, allegedly on grounds of ill health. He subsequently retired to the Austro-Hungarian county of Tyrol, dying in Bolzano in 1884.

The Opera Game was a famous chess game played in 1858 between the American chess master Paul Morphy and two strong amateurs, the German noble Duke Karl of Brunswick and the French aristocrat Count Isouard, who consulted, playing together as partners against Morphy.

The game is often used by chess teachers to demonstrate the importance of rapidly developing one's pieces, as well as other lessons.

In 1858 he lost a match to Paul Morphy at the age of 28, yet he played high-level chess for another 50 years. Although Bird was a practicing accountant, not a professional chess player, it has been said that he "lived for chess, and would play anybody anywhere, any time, under any conditions." In the New York tournament of 1876, Bird received the first brilliancy prize ever awarded, for his game against James Mason.

In 1858 he won a game against Paul Morphy, which led to a match between the two. Despite being given odds of pawn and the move (meaning he started the game with an extra pawn and always moved first), Owen lost the match 6-1, never winning a game.

His performance in the 1862 London tournament, the first international round-robin event (in which each participant plays every other) was more impressive - he finished third, ahead of future world champion Wilhelm Steinitz, and was the only player to win against the eventual tournament winner, Adolf Anderssen.

Barnes Defense is named after Thomas Wilson Barnes, an English master who, amazingly, defeated one of the greatest players of the time, Paul Morphy, with it in an offhand game played in London in July 1858