I'm Paul Morphy And I Approve This Blog Post

MVP_Chess is my daily Twitch stream where you can join me on my road from USCF Expert to National Master. I hope you enjoy this highlight from today's stream! Click the button below to follow my Twitch channel and learn more about private chess lessons by visiting my website: www.mvpchess.com

In The Style of Morphy

Control the center, rapidly develop your pieces, and castle your king.  I can't count how many times I say this every week to my chess students. Paul Morphy won many beautiful attacking games following these opening principles. (Of course, Morphy was so good he probably would have beaten everyone with 1. a4.) Morphy's games offer a wealth of learning opportunities for the improving player, which is why I use them so often in my lessons.

During the last game of my stream today, I won a game that I think would make my chess hero proud. My opponent played the rare Ponziani Gambit. How did I fight for central control in this position?

I rapidly developed my pieces and castled my king to safety on the queenside. This was an easy decision to make because I wanted to use the open g-file to launch an attack on the enemy king. My opponent just played 13. Nc3 to attack my queen and we reached the critical position of the game. He decided to move the knight for the third time in the opening instead of developing the dark square bishop. Morphy always looked for forcing attacking moves before retreating, especially when his opponent was underdeveloped. 

Watch the highlight to see the conclusion of this game and leave your comments below!