Morphy number

The Morphy number is a measure of how closely a chess player is connected to Paul Morphy (1837–1884) by way of playing chess games.[1]

Morphy and Löwenthal

Paul Morphy

As of October 2019, there are very few known living players with Morphy number 3. Many ordinary players have a Morphy number of 6 or more.[2]

Description

People who played a chess game with Morphy have a Morphy number of 1. Players who did not play Morphy but played someone with a Morphy number of 1 have a Morphy number of 2. People who played someone with a Morphy number of 2 have a Morphy number of 3, et cetera.

The idea is similar to the Erdős number for mathematicians, the Bacon number for actors, and Shusaku number, the equivalent for the board game of Go.

Origin

Taylor Kingston states that the idea of the Morphy number may have originated in a June 2000 note by Tim Krabbé, who has Morphy number 4. Krabbé wrote "I once played an official game with Euwe, who played Tarrasch, who played Paulsen, who played Morphy."[2][3]

Morphy number of famous players

These are players who are important in making links for Morphy numbers.

Morphy number 1

Morphy is known to have played about 100 people, but all of the known links for players with Morphy number 2 go through the following five players.[1][4] A few years after the early lists of players were tabulated, it was discovered that Mortimer was Morphy's friend and he played casual games with him, so is MN1, so previous lists needed to be drastically revised to promote many players.[4][5] This is because Mortimer had a very long, if not particularly successful, career, including the Ostende-B 1907 tournament. This enabled many famous younger players to gain MN 2. These include Mieses, Tartakower, Znosko-Borovsky, and Bernstein, who played beyond WW2, enabling still younger players to become MN3. Some Irish players could go through the Rev. Dr George Salmon, who played in one of Morphy's blindfold chess simultaneous exhibitions.[6]

Adolf Anderssen Henry Bird James Mortimer

John Owen Louis Paulsen Other opponents

Morphy number 2

Everyone in this group played someone in the group above. The Australian champion Frederick Esling achieved MN2 by beating Anderssen in an offhand game[7] and another Australian champion, Julius Leigh Jacobsen (1862–1916)[8] achieved MN2 by beating Bird in a casual match +4-2=1, enabling many Australian players of the early 20th century to achieve MN3.[9] The following are some of the most important players who have achieved MN2.[1]

Semyon Alapin Ossip Bernstein Joseph Blackburne Amos Burn Mikhail Chigorin Eugene Ernest Colman[10] Oldřich Duras[11] Frederick Esling Isidor Gunsberg David Janowski Emanuel Lasker

S. Lipschütz George Mackenzie Frank Marshall James Mason Jacques Mieses[12] Géza Maróczy Reginald Michell Aron Nimzowitsch[13] Harry Pillsbury Akiba Rubinstein[14] Carl Schlechter

Edward Guthlac Sergeant[15] Jackson Showalter Rudolf Spielmann[16] Wilhelm Steinitz Siegbert Tarrasch Savielly Tartakower Richard Teichmann[17] Sir George Thomas[18] Szymon Winawer Eugene Znosko-Borovsky[19] Johannes Zukertort

Morphy number 3

Most of the masters in this group played several members of the previous group. This group includes some of the most important players for making connections to later generations. Botvinnik and Reshevsky played older masters such as Lasker and Janowski, had long careers, and played many younger players.[1] Najdorf was Tartakower's pupil and they played a number of published games together, and Najdorf played blitz right into his 80s, allowing many younger players to achieve 4. Smyslov and Keres had very long careers, so much younger players achieved MN4 by playing them. Gligoric also played Tartakover,[20] allowing many Yugoslav players to achieve 4. C.J.S. Purdy played Tartakower,[21] enabling many Australian players to achieve 4. Fairhurst, who played Tartakover,[22] was many times champion of Scotland, and later moved to New Zealand, so a number of players in these countries achieved 4 by playing him.

As of October 2019, some of the living players with Morphy number 3 are Leonard Barden, Melvin Chernev, Borislav Ivkov, Franciscus Kuijpers, Christian Langeweg, Aleksandar Matanović, Friðrik Ólafsson, Jonathan Penrose, and Oliver Penrose.[4][23][24]

James Macrae Aitken[25] Alexander Alekhine Conel Hugh O'Donel Alexander Leonard Barden Pal Benko Arthur Bisguier Efim Bogolyubov Fedor Bogatyrchuk Isaac Boleslavsky Mikhail Botvinnik David Bronstein José Raúl Capablanca Martin Christoffel Arnold Denker Jan Hein Donner[26] Marcel Duchamp Erich Eliskases

Max Euwe William Fairhurst Reuben Fine Salo Flohr Svetozar Gligorić Borislav Ivkov Paul Keres George Koltanowski Alexander Kotov Čeněk Kottnauer[27] Franciscus Kuijpers[28] Christian Langeweg[28] Bent Larsen[4] Edward Lasker Andor Lilienthal Aleksandar Matanović Stuart Milner-Barry

Miguel Najdorf Friðrik Ólafsson Jonathan Penrose Arturo Pomar Lodewijk Prins C.J.S. Purdy Samuel Reshevsky Stewart Reuben Friedrich Sämisch Vasily Smyslov Rudolf Spielmann Herman Steiner László Szabó Wolfgang Unzicker[29] Milan Vidmar Robert Wade[30] Norman Whitaker Baruch Harold Wood[31]

Morphy number 4

As of 2013 many of these players are still alive; a few (such as Short) are still active.[1]

Michael Adams[32] Viswanathan Anand[33] Ulf Andersson Lev Aptekar[34] Keith Arkell Yuri Averbakh Alexander Beliavsky Walter Browne[35] Donald Byrne Murray Chandler[36] Maia Chiburdanidze[37] Nigel Davies[38] Mark Dvoretsky Ben Finegold[39] Bobby Fischer Semyon Furman Nona Gaprindashvili[40] Paul Garbett[41] Efim Geller Florin Gheorghiu[42] Ewen Green[43]

Vlastimil Hort Robert Hübner Vassily Ivanchuk[44] Gata Kamsky[45] Anatoly Karpov Garry Kasparov Alexander Khalifman[46] Ratmir Kholmov Viktor Korchnoi Gary Lane Ljubomir Ljubojević Sergio Mariotti Tony Miles Predrag Nikolić[47] John Nunn Bruce Pandolfini Tigran Petrosian Judit Polgár[48] Susan Polgar Ruslan Ponomariov[38] Lajos Portisch

Lev Polugaevsky Hans Ree Zoltán Ribli[49] Ian Rogers[50] Valery Salov[51] Ortvin Sarapu[52] Jonathan Sarfati Yasser Seirawan Alexei Shirov[53] Nigel Short Vernon Small[54] Boris Spassky Peter Svidler[55] Richard John Sutton[56] Mark Taimanov Mikhail Tal Jan Timman Veselin Topalov Rafael Vaganian John L. Watson[57]

Morphy number 5

As of 2013 many of the top grandmasters were thought to be in this group (along with a large number of lower-rated players).[1] However several players initially thought to be in this group were actually MN4s[38], for instance based on playing Smyslov, who played Tartakower and Bernstein.

Magnus Carlsen Boris Gelfand Mikhail Gurevich Rustam Kasimdzhanov

Vladimir Kramnik Joël Lautier Péter Lékó

Karsten Müller Jon Speelman Artur Yusupov

See also

• List of chess players

References

1. Your Morphy Number is Up, Taylor Kingston, The Chess Cafe, 2005
2. Playing the Morphy Number Game, Tim Harding, The Chess Cafe, 2010
3. Tim Krabbé - see item #67
4. Frederick Rhine, Fun with Morphy Numbers
5. Taylor Kingston, Morphy numbers revisited: the Mortimer effect, ChessCafe.com, 1 Oct 2014.
6. Paul Morphy vs George Salmon, Blindfold simul, 8b (1858) (blindfold), Birmingham ENG, Aug-27
7. Frederick Karl Esling vs Adolf Anderssen, Casual game (1878), Frankfurt
8. Chesgames.com page on Julius Leigh Jacobsen
9. Hans Renette, H.E. Bird: A Chess Biography with 1,198 Games, p. 245, McFarland, 2016.
10. Played James Mortimer in the City of London Championship of 1910/11.
11. Played James Mortimer at Ostend, 1907.
12. Played James Mortimer at Ostend, 1907.
13. Played James Mortimer at Ostend, 1907.
14. Played James Mortimer at Ostend, 1907.
15. Played James Mortimer in several City of London Championships from 1906 to 1910.
16. Played James Mortimer at Ostend, 1907.
17. Played James Mortimer at Ostend, 1907.
18. Mortimer played Sir George Thomas in the Canterbury 1903 and Brighton 1904 tournaments. Gino de Felice, Chess Results, 1901-1920, McFarland & Co., 2006, pp. 26, 37.
19. Played James Mortimer at Ostend, 1907.
20. Svetozar Gligoric vs Savielly Tartakower, Budapest 1948
21. Cecil John Seddon Purdy vs Savielly Tartakower, Australia versus France Radio Match, 1946
22. Fairhurst v Tatakower games
23. Barden's comments to Tim Harding, Playing the Morphy Number Game Archived 2011-06-06 at the Wayback Machine, chesscafe.com, 2010.
24. Edward Winter, Chess Note 6614, June 11, 2010. Retrieved on September 15, 2010.
25. JM Aitken beat Savielly Tartakower at Southsea in 1949
26. Jan Hein Donner vs Savielly Tartakower, Amsterdam (1950), Amsterdam NED, rd 15, Nov-30
27. Čeněk Kottnauer played Tartakower at the Staunton Memorial Tournament, Groningen 1946.
28. Played Ossip Bernstein at the 1961 IBM Amsterdam tournament.
29. Eugene Aleksandrovich Znosko-Borovsky vs Wolfgang Unzicker, Lucerne (1949), SUI
30. Robert Wade played Savielly Tartakower twice, in 1951 (Staunton Memorial) and 1953 (Hastings). He also defeated Ossip Bernstein at the IBM Amsterdam tournament in 1961.
31. Played Eugene Znosko-Borovsky at Baam in 1947.
32. [https://chesstempo.com/gamedb/game/832386
33. Bent Larsen vs Viswanathan Anand, Tournoi de Generations (1989), Cannes FRA, rd 6,
34. William Albert Fairhurst vs Lev Isaakovich Aptekar, 83rd New Zealand Ch, 1976
35. Walter Shawn Browne vs Paul Keres, Vancouver, 1975
36. William Albert Fairhurst vs Murray Chandler, 83rd New Zealand Ch, 1976
37. Maia Chiburdanidze vs Samuel Reshevsky, Vilnius (1978), Vilnius LTU, rd 4
38. Morphy Numbers Revisited: The Mortimer Effect, by Taylor Kingston
39. Arthur Bisguier vs Benjamin Finegold, World Open (2000), Philadelphia, PA USA, rd 2, Jul-02
40. Robert Wade vs Nona Gaprindashvili, Reykjavik (1964), Reykjavik ISL, rd 9, Jan-26
41. Paul Anthony Garbett vs William Albert Fairhurst, 83rd New Zealand Ch, 1976
42. Florin Gheorghiu vs William Albert Fairhurst, Olympiad Qualifying Group 6 (1974), Nice FRA
43. Ewen McGowen Green vs William Albert Fairhurst, 83rd New Zealand Ch, 1976
44. Vasily Smyslov vs Vassily Ivanchuk, 55th USSR Championship (1988), Moscow URS, rd 9
45. Vasily Smyslov vs Gata Kamsky, New York Open (1989), New York, NY USA, rd 7
46. Vasily Smyslov vs Alexander Khalifman, 55th USSR Championship (1988), Moscow URS, rd 5
47. Vasily Smyslov vs Predrag Nikolic, 6th Vidmar Memorial (1985), Portoroz, rd 3
48. Judit Polgar vs Vasily Smyslov, Women-Veterans (1992), Aruba, rd 5
49. Vasily Smyslov vs Zoltan Ribli, October Revolution 60th Anniversary (1977), Leningrad URS, rd 15, Jul-16
50. Cecil John Seddon Purdy vs Ian Rogers, Sydney International Tournament (1979), Sydney, Australia
51. Valery Salov vs Vasily Smyslov, 55th USSR Championship (1988), Moscow URS, rd 4
52. Efim Bogoljubov vs Ortvin Sarapu, Oldenburg (1949), Oldenburg GER, rd 10, Jun-26
53. Alexey Shirov vs Vasily Smyslov, Keres Rapid Memorial (1996) (quick), Tallinn EST, rd 3
54. William Albert Fairhurst vs Vernon Albert Small, 83rd New Zealand Ch, 1976>
55. Peter Svidler vs Vasily Smyslov, Alekhine Memorial Open (1992), Moscow RUS, rd 4
56. William Albert Fairhurst vs Richard John Sutton, 83rd New Zealand Ch, 1976
57. Paul Keres vs John L Watson, Vancouver 1975

External links

• Chessgames.com