Fix My Chess
A Fix My Chess master
Morphy
The Pride of New Orleans
“Develop your pieces, and the attack finds itself. First the work, then the fire.”
What it cures in your game
If your dominant leak is king safety, Morphy is your antidote. The way he plays — the same you see in these games — is exactly what you need to internalize. In Fix My Chess you choose him as your master and train under his style, game by game, until that leak closes.
His life in chapters
- 1837–1856
New Orleans
I was born in New Orleans in 1837, into a family where chess was an evening pastime. By twelve I had beaten the strongest visitor our city had seen. I studied law and finished too young to practise it — so, while I waited, there was chess.
- 1857–1857
The First American Congress
New York, 1857. The first great American tournament, and I won it losing almost nothing. The country needed a champion; suddenly it had one, twenty years old and unwilling to boast. Europe was the only question left.
- 1858–1859
The conquest of Europe
London, then Paris. Löwenthal, Harrwitz, and finally the great Anderssen — I beat them all, and at the opera, between acts of Norma, I played the little game the world still replays. Staunton avoided me. I had come for a match with everyone; I left with something rarer: nothing left to prove.
- 1860–1884
The silence
I came home, announced I would play no more serious chess, and kept my word. The game had given me everything it had; what remained of my life it could not fix. They call me the pride and sorrow of chess. Study my development, not my ending.
Games to relive
- Morphy — Duke of Brunswick & Count Isouard
Is this your master?
Diagnose your latest games and find out which master cures your dominant leak. Free, in a minute, no account.