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A First Book of Morphy

by Frisco Del Rosario

213 pages; quality trade paperback (softcover); catalogue #04-1714; ISBN 1-4120-3906-1; US$18.95, C$23.00, EUR14.95, £10.36

A First Book of Morphy illustrates basic principles of chess with more than 60 brilliant and instructive games played by the first American chess champion, Paul Morphy.

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About the Book      About the Author      Excerpts      Catalogue Information

About the Book

A First Book of Morphy aims to illustrate the teachings of three great chessplayers with games played by the first American chess champion, Paul Morphy. The book presents more than 60 of Morphy's brilliant and instructive games in demonstration of basic chess principles written by grandmasters Reuben Fine and Cecil Purdy.

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About the Author

Frisco Del Rosario is a chess teacher and writer. He was named Chess Journalist of the Year by the Chess Journalists of America in August 2005, and Teacher of the Week by the San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News in July 2004, the first time a chess teacher was so honored. He edits the Success Chess School Dragon, which won the CJA award as Best New Magazine in 2005. He edited the California Chess Journal from 2001 to 2003, when that magazine won awards for analysis and general excellence. He resides in San Mateo, California, where he writes about basketball for a local newspaper.

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Excerpts

''Morphy was the first known genius at chess, whose games were first to show the relationship between the attack and the positional features development, center control, and king safety.''

''People get very tied up in their material. Watch your opponents as they clutch their captured chessmen in their hands, or twiddle a pawn between their fingers. It's the same for their real world material. People know how much they owe for their houses and their cars, and they remember the last sticker price for some company in which they are too heavily invested or not invested enough.

If you ask them if they'd give all that stuff up - the mortgages and car notes and antique furniture - for a chance to travel and some free time in which to do it, almost every one of them would agree in a heartbeat.

People think they want lots of material, but it becomes such a chore to maintain it all, and eventually they become bogged down in it. They really want the freedom to move around and tavel-mobiltiy-and the time to do it-development. Time and space!

It is much easier to learn this lesson at the chessboard than after you have taken out that second mortgage.''

-- Frisco Del Rosario

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Catalogue Information

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