Lose to Win

According to Charles A. Buck, the author of the controversial booklet ”Paul Morphy: His Later Life” (Newport, Kentucky, 1902), once back home after his triumphal European tournée, “Morphy issued a final challenge, offering to give the odds of Pawn and move to any player in the world, and receiving no response thereto he declared his career as a chess player finally and definitely closed, a declaration to which he held with unbroken resolution during the whole remainder of his life”.

Paul Charles Morphy playing (and gallantly losing) Queen Victoria in the gardens of Buckingham Palace in 1859. Photo courtesy of Chess.com.