300NE W ORLE ANS

TRICENTENNIAL

1718 ~ 2018

Morphy was a child chess prodigy who grew up in New Orleans, the son of a Louisi-ana Supreme Court justice who learned chess simply by watching the game. At the age of 12, he won two games and had one draw against a famous Hungarian chess player. The next year, Morphy went to Spring Hill College in Mo-bile, Alabama, and then attended Loyola Law School, finishing his law degree when he was 20, one year shy of being able to practice law. While he waited to practice law, he became determined to beat all the great chess players in the United States and Europe. He won the first American Chess Congress in New York in 1857 and received a prize from Oliver Wen-dell Homes. He traveled to England to play Howard Staunton, considered the best player in Europe. Staunton, however, refused to meet Morphy. Morphy defeated every other comer who would play him, including in a blindfold tournament in which he defeated eight op-ponents in another room. Morphy returned to New Orleans a celebrity. He attempted to start a law practice, but it was said he was un-able to get his clients to talk about anything but chess. He died of a stroke in 1884. In 1964, Chess great Bobby Fischer said of Morphy: “In a set match, Morphy would beat anybody alive today … Morphy was perhaps the most accu-rate chess player who ever lived.”

Paul Morphy took on Louis Paulsen in the first American Chess Congress in 1857.

The childhood home of Paul Morphy, 417 Royal St., is now Brennan’s Restaurant.

One of Paul Morphy’s moves against opponent Adolf Anderssen in a series of games played in Paris in 1858. Morphy won the series.

‘Paul Morphy - The Chess Champion’ illustration from Ballou’s Pictorial, 1859.

Paul Morphy, left, and a friend in a photo that appeared in the full-length biography of Morphy, ‘Paul Morphy: The Pride and Sorrow of Chess’ by David Lawson, published in 1976.

“ Genius is a starry word; but if there ever was a chess player to whom that attribute applied, it was Paul Morphy,” according to American chess Grandmaster Andrew Soltis.

Paul Morphy won the first

American Chess Congress

in 1857.

From Bienville to Bourbon Street to bounce. 300 moments that make New Orleans unique. WHAT

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