Morphy v The French

PAUL Morphy was hailed in his lifetime as being clearly the best player in the world, and is often listed as an unofficial world champion before the generally-recognised first titleholder, Wilhelm Steinitz.
ChessBase's 2019 Mega database lists 408 games by Morphy (along with a handful of games in which he played consulting with a partner).
Just 59 of the 408, according to Wikipedia, were "serious," ie played in tournaments or matches.
But it should be remembered that in Morphy's heyday, the late 1850s, so-called serious chess was very rare - the first international tournament had only been held in London in 1851.
Morphy's many "casual" games were anything but. However, it is striking that of the 408 games, Morphy had the white pieces, or at least moved first (the rule that White always moves first came after his time), in 284.
In other words he had white 69.6% of the time, which presumably reflects that in a lot of the games he was giving odds or giving a simultaneous display. In both cases the master often moves first.
In any event, Morphy's record in games when he had the white pieces was +221=24-39, which is an 80% score.
Just six of the games began 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5, with Morphy scoring +5=1-0. That is 91.7%, and the only draw he conceded was in a blindfold simul in which he had what may have been a disappointing score, for him, of +2=6-0 (62.5%).
His experience against the French constitutes a small sample size, but his record is impressive enough to suggest that a modern 1.e4 player could do a lot worse than adopt Morphy's anti-French repertoire.
As is commonly known, Morphy played the Exchange Variation (3.exd5) against the French, which is often, quite reasonably, put down to being due to his fondness for open positions in which piece-play dominates.
All six games featured Morphy following up 3.exd5 with 4.Nf3, 5.Bd3 and 6.0-0, with 7.Nc3 coming in all but one game.
These moves can be taken as something of a Morphy mantra as he played them even though his opponents varied their moves, at least in a small way.
The first of the six was played in Paris in 1858 against a consulting team, according to Johann Löwenthal in his famous 1860 work Morphy's Games Of Chess (I have the 1985 Batsford facsimile reprint).
Morphy - Jacques Chamouillet* & Allies
1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.exd5 exd5 4.Nf3 Nf6 5.Bd3 Bd6 6.0-0 0-0 7.Nc3 c5?!
Black could not keep the symmetry for ever, but this is a radical way of breaking it, and is not liked by Stockfish10 or Komodo9.
8.dxc5
Komodo9's choice, although Stockfish10 prefers 8.Bg5. The position after Black's seventh move features in four modern games, none featuring strong players, in Mega19 - no one played Morphy's move. Presumably Morphy's idea was to give Black a weakness (an isolated queen's pawn) without it costing a tempo as Black has to recapture with a piece that has already moved.
8...Bxc5 9.Bg5
We have transposed to a position that occurs 23 times in Mega19, with the Swedish grandmaster Stahlberg among those to have played the same Black reply as in this game, although his game quickly varied.
9...Be6 10.Qd2 Nc6 11.Rad1 Be7 12.Rfe1

Barely 12 moves into the game, and White has seven pieces developed to Black's four

White's numerical advantage in development is striking, and the quality of his development is better in that both white bishops are more active than their black counterparts. How did Morphy achieve this?
One of White's three extra development tempi is a natural consequence of having first move.
Another is down to Black playing the non-developing 7...c5?! Morphy met this with a non-developing move of his own, 8.dxc5, but he did not lose developing time as Black was obliged to reply 8...Bxc5.
The capture 8.dxc5 isolated Black's d pawn, which left Black feeling obliged to play the somewhat passive 9...Be6 and to later lose a third developing tempo with the retreat 11...Be7.
12...a6!?
Having written the above, you may not be surprised to find I prefer getting on with development with, say, 12...Re8. However, the text wavers between being Komodo9's first and second choice (behind ...Re8).
13.Qf4 Nh5?
Black cracks under the pressure. Best still seems to be ...Re8.
14.Qh4 g6 15.g4?
A rare tactical error by the great American. Simple and good is 15.Bxe7 Qxe7 16.Qxe7 Nxe7, when any hopes Black had of attacking with the help of the IQP are gone, and he is left with the pawn's weakness, a bad bishop and a continuing lag in development.
15...Nf6?
Löwenthal's suggested 15...Ng7? is, if anything, even worse, eg 16.Bxe7 Qxe7 17.Ng5 h5 18.gxh5 Nxh5 19.Bxg6! etc,
However, the engines point out 15...Nd4! 16.Nxd4 Bxg5 17.Qh3 Nf4, when White's king looks the shakier.
16.h3 Rc8
The engines suggest 16...Re8, but with a large advantage to White after 17.Bc4 (Stockfish10) or 17.Bf5!? (Komodo9).
17.a3?!
This seems rather slow. The engines like 17.Bf5!? or 17.Ne2, the point of the former being that 17...gxf5 18.gxf5 Bxf5 loses to 19.Rxe7! Nxe7 20.Bxf6, when White gets a huge attack for the exchange.
17...Re8 18.Ne2 h5?
Black is still in the game after 18...Nd7 19.Bxe7 Qxe7, although Morphy, as in the note to White's move 15, would have had a pleasant positional edge.
19.Nf4 Nh7
Black now collapses, but 19...Bd7 also lost material, eg 20.Rxe7.
20.Nxe6 fxe6 21.Rxe6 Bxg5 22.Rxg6+ Kf8 23.Qxh5 Rc7 (1-0, 26 moves)
*His first name is rather improbably spelt as Jackcues in ChessBase, and there is no mention of it being a consultation game. Chamouillet is given an estimated best-rating of 2405 by Chess-DB.com.
To be continued