The Legend: Paul Morphy - GM Ben Finegold - 2014.12.18 

Paul Morphy won because he was not only a brilliant tactician, but also understood development and controlling the center. He was a player ahead of his time.

I have watched most of the Finegold lectures and only now realized Ken West is not a GM.

"If you play g5 check, suggested by Ken West in his head ..." Killed me!

I like the humor Ben Finegold. People who don't appreciate Paul Morphy don't understand chess.

'And then he died... Coz that's what happens when u r born 1837.'-GM Ben Finegold

The guy who play with Morphy and Stainitz was Anderssen.

If I taught a Legends class, it would be on GM Ben Finegold.

"It's not clear how he got good." That's actually an extremely interesting question.

Thanx to GM Finegold for mixing humour n teaching helps me remember alot n thanx to the producer Ben Simon for giving us access to the videos keep up the good work👏👏👏

A new Finegold lecture on Morphy? Sweet!

17:38 for those of you that don't know: answer to ..Kb6-c6, is Nf7-d8#

I never thought that it was possible to hear about Vasilios Kotronias at a lecture about Paul the First.. Nice presentation btw, thanks GM Finegold :)

thanks for this video ben, I've been working towards seeing thousands of moves ahead ever since watching this.

I'd like to see a game between Morphy vs GM Ken West ;)

excuse me Ben, imma let you finish, but Beyonce made the greatest video of all time. The greatest video of all time.

Hello GM Finegold, I like your lectures and am a great fan of your teaching. One lesson that stuck with me from your lessons is 'use all your pieces'. Below is a game where I used all my pieces(sacked most of them, dare I say Morphy style) , and checkmated my opponent, who didn't move three of his pieces. I know the game is 'very suspicious' , but I thoroughly enjoyed playing it, thanks to you. [Event "Live Chess"] [Site "Chess.com"] [Date "2015.01.06"] [White "puttaloo"] [Black "Dan-27"] [Result "1-0"] [WhiteElo "1475"] [BlackElo "1550"] [TimeControl "30|0"] [Termination "puttaloo won by checkmate"] 1.e4 e5 2.f4 exf4 3.Nf3 h6 4.d4 g5 5.Bc4 Bg7 6.b3 c6 7.Ne5 Bxe5 8.dxe5 b5 9.Bxf7+ Kxf7 10.Qh5+ Kg7 11.Bb2 Qe7 12.Nd2 Qe6 13.Nf3 c5 14.O-O-O Kf8 15.Rd6 Qe8 16.Qg4 Rh7 17.Nxg5 hxg5 18.Qxg5 Qf7 19.Rf1 Rg7 20.Qd8+ Qe8 21.Rxf4+ Rf7 22.Rxf7+ Kxf7 23.Rf6+ Nxf6 24.Qxf6+ Kg8 25.e6 Qxe6 26.Qg7# 1-0

Paul Morphy was such a beast! By far the best player of all time when compared to his peers.

Murphy didn't hate chess after 1859. He just had no competition. And as for his disregard of chess as a profession... I wrote a paper on this in my PhD program. It was a common thing in the mid 19th century. Chess was considered akin to whist.

28:32 "They're like _'Wow, a pawn_! Wow!'" LOL! I almost choked to death on my sandwich laughing at that. GM Finegold is seriously hilarious. He should do stand up.

at 15:28 Nf5 loses to Qb4+ Nd2 hxg5, very suspicious

My favourite player that ever lived is ben Finegold

Morphy was a machine

Morphy😘💪💪💪💪💪

Love Finegold !!!

ahh.. what a shame that the bronstein lecture is unavailible! I really like his style, and I bet gm finegold showed some awesome moves and combinations of his.. Well, you can't have everything I guess.

Hey, anyone new watching here ?? I see comments form 6-4 years ago...

I could beat morphy if he didn't have atleast one of his pieces That piece is the king.....

Morphy truly was the greatest!

i rofled when Vasilios Kotronios name came..And all the answers were like wtf to me,cause yeah.. I am Greek too :D

I was really looking forward to the Bronstein Lecture! Please post it!

Mr. Ben is funny, would love to meet him :D

In this lecture GM Finegold mentioned his own RU-vid channel but I can't find it. Anybody know the channel name?

"Or, it's move 38 and they have 1 minute on their clock and they blunder, and then somebody wins." Is he taking about Nakamura vs Carlsen in the 2014 Zurich Chess Challenge, Round 3 (the Swiss Miss), with Nakamura's d6 blunder?

Hey, in the last game, isnt it R4f3? With R1f3, it makes no sense because after h5 black could play Nxf4, and after Bg4 white could just play Rxg4 both instantly winning. It makes sense if the rook is on f1 in stead of f4 though.

Great presentation on Morphy ... I agree, the best there ever was, but I'm not too sure how he'd come out against a Fischer..

I like the outro song

36:42 yes it was. 5 moves :)

What does he mean when he says "check with advantage" or "mate with advantage"?

With Nakamura looming in the background 🎉

4 matches who would win Fischer,Capablanca, Murphy or Carlsen? Ofc without any tactical advantages like game theory.

A lot of people like to speculate on what Morphy's rating would be if he played today. In my opinion, that's the wrong question. We should be asking: If any other notable player was born in 1837, would they have been as good as Morphy?

In the last game we have an appearance by T.H. Worrall in New York. I recall the name of an opening line called the Worrall attack. Q: Same guy?

At 17:25 when black king on b6 was checked by bishop he had another move...moving to c6, did anyone else catch that?

I don't know if that was the year Michigan became a state, but I think 1837 was the first year they played in the Rose Bowl.

The funny thing at 15:18 is that the guy couldn't move a piece even if he wanted to. His options are to move one of his knights to side of the board, move a knight where a pawn will take, move his queen for the tenth time in a row, move his king or push a pawn. Knights have no good squares and bishops and rooks are all blocked because all he's done is move his Queen around.

I have this hypothesis that when Morphy played amateurs, there was a rule: if I spot you a piece, you have to accept any advantageous piece exchange that I offer you on the board, unless you can show it leads directly to mate. Weird rule: why wouldn't you accept it? Until you see games like this. One wonders if any amateur ever found accurate defenses and won through material advantage...

1858 - Morphy - Anderssen, Paris 1866 - Andressen - Steinitz, London

His opponents were even worse than me but still Paul Morphy plays very unique ..

unsurpassed chess beauty !!!

Ben, don't bust on Rex! We need him to keep up his philanthropy!

the legend Paul Dwarfy

37:23 Nxf4 draws with best play. Worth at least mentioning. Maybe Ben forgot.

Yeah, Ken West!

did paul Morphy have any influence in the morgan freeman charachter of Morpheus in the film the matrix also with sandra bollocks? Also did Paul MOrphy invent morphine while he was working as a chemist with bayer pharmaceutical?

It's been brought up several times in the comments, but still hasn't been addressed... at 16:10 ...Qb4+ and Morphy will lose his choice of knight or rook and pretty much lose the game from there... unless someone says different...

He’s a bit morph obsessed but a pleasure to listen to.

Amazing games ! Too bad Morphy quit so young.

is makoveiv good now? idk who that is

whose the kid he was talking about at the end mako veo?

26:28 man black's mistake was to have a rook on a8 this game ahahahha

Who is Julian?

Morphy the goat

39:20 you missed ...Qe7 which is the best defense for black, he would end up 2 pawns down at the end of the attack.

Was Ben Finegold dissing Yasser?

Morphy is my favourite too. but never call him a player, he was just a robot.

I'm afraid I can't do that, Mr. Anderssen

9:40 if anyone doesn't want to hear finegold yapping and get right to the games.

#StayStrongKen

This guy is good ij jokes

Maybe he meant Loewenthal? NN is nomen nescio

Around 39:00- He played Qg6 for black, what about Qe7?

What a legend

Why not Qb4+ instead of Qe6? Seems like a pretty obvious move to miss.

17:40 if Kc6 then Nd8# so thats why he didnt play it

actually you missed force mate at 36:49 with Rf8 instead of Rf1f3 with Rf8 then Qxf8 Qg5+ Qg7 Qd5+ be6 Qxe6 Qf7 Qxf7 mate

at the point 28.59 instead oe Rae1 bh6 was mate

I don’t know who Ken West is, but I’m glad he isn’t me.

"Implied" is the correct word.

Morphy went to Europe at Staunton's insistence because America was involved in a civil war at the time. Staunton never intended to play a match with Morphy. He had retired from chess and devoted his time to writing scholarly works on Shakespeare which are even today seminal. The whole Staunton-Morphy controversy was something ginned up by a journalist.

poor ken west😅

"You missed the bishop on b2... Also, so did black" 😂

Огонь .

@28:40 Why not Be5+ for white?

+1 for morphy at starbucks...hahah! u are funny!

Bh6#, Nxh6, Qf7+ is a mate at 28:42 Bh6#, Kf8 is another discovered check with the bishop, easy win

who is ken west

poor julian always take the beating

Who is Ben West and why is Feingold so in love with him?

GM Finegold has the perfect mix of cocky, funny, and instructive. I love this guy.

I love how I have no idea who Ken West is, but Finegold shits on him every lecture, so I have this image in my head of him being an awful player.

Got into chess about a month ago, trying to learn as much as I can but most informative videos are just so boring. This guy gives good ideas, humiliates you for bad ideas, and is hilarious if you appreciate his sort of comedy. Well done

So i was reading the wiki page out of curiosity. Morphy only ever played on and off. Never had any formal training. never a day in his life took the game seriously. He never played competitive matches due to his families moral code against gambling. Stopped playing all but entirely as he went to u of louisiana. Graduated early (because obviously hes a fucking genius) and had some 'free time' on his hands before he hit the minimum age for a legal servant, so he just decided to go become world chess champion? Im speechless.

Morphy was also well known for his subtle intense smile appearing during a lot of his middle games realizing he still had his rook on a1

Ben: "He's threatening mate. Which one is it, Ken?" - "That one" "Correct"

Morphy was pure talent and it is talent in what we have to think if we want to compare him with today's players, if we bring morphy to the present day in order to be fair we should fill his brain with today theory or if we pick any gm from the present and take him or her to the past we should empty gm's head of theory and once we've done that see who is better.

And Ben Finegold is the Paul Morphy of chess lecturers. Great stuff, as always!

17:37 "Oh, Kc6? I missed that. Okay. But that blocks the knight, that's ridiculous." He was messing with that dude, right? That's a mate in one with Nd8. Moments like this are why Finegold is my favorite lecturer.

"He likes to retreat, like any frenchman." Man, a lot of trash talking goes on in St Louis.

21:33 - Ben: "White resigned" - Sweet-ass crowd: "Ooooowww :("

Morphy: most entertaining chess player Ben finegold: best entertainer when talking with peeps