American chess player Paul Morphy was born in New Orleans on 22 June 1837. According to his uncle Ernest, nobody taught Morphy to pay chess, he was studying others playing. Once after watching one of Ernest’s long games he surprised everybody by announcing that Ernest should have won the match. Everybody was very surprised as nobody suspected that Paul even knew the moves. They were even more surprised when Morphy put the pieces back and showed them what moves Ernest should have made to win.  He never won official World Champion title as the first official championship was organised in 1866. Despite of that Morphy was considered to be World Champion in Europe between 1858 and 1862. His highest World Ranking is 1st (from September 1858 and November 1862). He was considered to be one of the best 10 players of the world between 1858 and 1862. According to Chessmetrics his highest rating is 2743.

 Upon his successes in the Continent between 1858 and 1859 he was admired widely. As it happened, on his visit to Paris, he became ill and undergone leech treatment and as a result he lost a lot of blood. In spite of being so weak that he could not stand without assistance, he insisted on continuing his match with visiting German master Adolf Anderssen, who was considered to be the best chess player in Europe at that time. He played against Anderssen in Paris in 1858-89. They played the match until 7 won games. Anderssen started with a victory, but in the end he won by 7-2 and became the best player of the world.

Interesting facts:

He participated in the American Civil War on the side of the Confederate States then he started to build up his law practice.

On 10 July 1884 he was found dead in his bathroom. It is assumed that he had a stroke from taking a cold bath on a very hot day. He was 47 years old.