Paul Morphy and the King´s Gambit

Paul Morphy, the famous chess genius, was a gambit player. This means he liked to sacrifice pawns and even minor pieces to launch an attack. His superior ability to see combinations, on the one hand, and the poor defensive skills of his opponents at the time, on the other, were the reasons why Morphy was so dominant. Morphy’s opponents mainly made the mistake of failing to develop their minor pieces and always accepting the gambit. Yet there are good alternatives to accepting the gambit. But back then, the f-pawn in the King’s Gambit was usually taken by Black. Anderssen himself was a great attacking player, but his defensive skills, by contrast, were very weak, as one game demonstrated.