From the desk · the game on the chess board
The Opera Game
Paris, 1858. Paul Morphy against the Duke of Brunswick and Count Isouard, in a box at the opera. Seventeen moves, and one of the most famous mates ever played.
An evening at the opera
In the autumn of 1858, Paris had a visitor everyone wanted to play. Paul Morphy, twenty-one years old and from New Orleans, had won the First American Chess Congress the year before and crossed the Atlantic to take on the best players in Europe. Within months he had beaten nearly all of them.
One evening he was the guest of Karl II, Duke of Brunswick, in the Duke’s box at the opera. The Duke had lost his throne in 1830 and lived in Paris, a keen amateur of chess; with him was another, Count Isouard de Vauvenargues. A board was set up, and the two of them took Black together, consulting over every move, against Morphy alone.
The story, as it is usually told, is that Morphy would rather have been watching the stage (the opera is most often said to have been Bellini’s Norma, though tellings differ) and played quickly, as if to get back to it. Whatever the truth of the evening, the game was written down, and it has been shown to new players ever since.
The game, move by move
Step through it with the buttons, the arrow keys, or by choosing a move. Morphy has White.
The start
Morphy has White; the Duke and the Count, consulting, have Black.
- e4 e5
- Nf3 d6
- d4 Bg4
- dxe5 Bxf3
- Qxf3 dxe5
- Bc4 Nf6
- Qb3 Qe7
- Nc3 c6
- Bg5 b5
- Nxb5 cxb5
- Bxb5+ Nbd7
- O-O-O Rd8
- Rxd7 Rxd7
- Rd1 Qe6
- Bxd7+ Nxd7
- Qb8+ Nxb8
- Rd8#
Why it is still taught
The Opera Game is a lesson in a few lines. Morphy brings a new piece into play almost every move, opens the files towards the enemy king, and keeps the initiative with every capture. Then he spends material to finish: a knight on move ten, a rook on thirteen, and his queen on sixteen.
Look at the final position. Black is ahead in material, yet the king on e8 is shut in by its own pieces: the bishop on f8 and the rook on h8 never moved all game. Morphy mates with just two pieces, a rook supported by a bishop. Development, open lines and time are worth more than pawns and pieces; that is why coaches still use this game to show it.
Morphy went home to New Orleans the following year as the unofficial champion of the world, and soon gave up competitive chess altogether. He died in 1884, at forty-seven. His games, this one above all, outlived him.
On the desk
In the Company31 Radio scene, the developer replays this game against the electronic chess board while the music plays: the developer moves Morphy’s pieces by hand, the board answers for the Duke and the Count, and when Morphy mates, the board sets itself up and they play it again.