Saturday
Jun132015
Fischer on Morphy vs. Count & (=?) Duke
Saturday, June 13, 2015 at 1:01AM
I'm guessing that upwards of 90% of my readers are familiar with Paul Morphy's "Opera Game" vs. the Count Isouard and the Duke of Brunswick (who may be one person with two titles). If not, you're in for a treat, but even if you know the game by heart you may still enjoy Bobby Fischer's presentation of the game on Yugoslav television. It's not just that it's Fischer doing the presenting, but that there's material you might not have seen before. (His discussion of Steinitz's suggested 5.gxf3 was new to me, and may be new to many of you as well.)
tagged Bobby Fischer, Paul Morphy
Reader Comments (5)
God, Bobby sounds so New York in this, almost early DeNiro. I've heard him speak plenty, but he sounds like a NY movie character here. A guy I used to work with went to his Columbus. Ohio simul in '64 (I think). He didn't play him, he was pretty young, like four years old, but he did remember going. Wish I had that memory. (I wasn't quite born, unfortunately)
On second thought, he almost sounds like Sylvester Stallone. Just a heavy east coast accent of the time.
5. gxf3(!): I first saw this move in a book by Luděk Pachman, "Offene Spiele" (open games), almost 50 years ago.
"who may be one person with two titles"
Quite unlikely, because Brunswick is German and Isouard is French.
Charles II Duke of Brunswick was from a (then) well known noble family.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_II,_Duke_of_Brunswick
Count Isouard (without "of") was from a far less known family. According to French Wikipedia he was not the same guy:
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partie_de_l'opéra
"La partie de l'opéra est une célèbre partie d'échecs jouée en octobre 1858 par Paul Morphy (les Blancs), le duc de Brunswick (les Noirs) et le comte Isoard de Vauvenargues (les Noirs) en consultation."
"The opera game is a celebrated game of chess played in October 1858 by Paul Morphy (white), the duke of Brunswick (black) and count Isouard de Vauvenargues (Black) consulting."
http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k5695277q
@MNb Thanks, I eliminated the "of". I'll keep the rest, but in the future (after double-checking the article) will presume they were two distinct people.