Talk:Opera Game

message: I can't read the algebraic notation and I don't know much about chess.  Morphy won, right?.  Maybe this fact could appear somewhere in the first paragraph.  Also, I wonder why this match mattered and what was so important about the players.  --Fazdeconta 16:03, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Who won? 

message: I have always refered to this game as the Opera House Massacre. I believe that this is a correct name for this game but I may be mistaken. I recomend that this game is given an alias of the 'Opera House Massacre'. I do not know how to do this. Also can anyone confirm whether or not this is a valid name for this game?
I think that before you make that addition, the onus is on you to find a credible source for this alias.  I have studied this game immensely and seen it mentioned many times in many different writings about chess, and I cannot recall it ever being called that.  The fact that you know it as such is not enough. You must confim, through credible thrid-party sources, that this game has been referred to by that name, BEFORE you make the change. 210.216.45.65 01:50, 21 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Other Names 

message: This article is a mess. It concerns one of the most well-known historical chess games and it gets many of the facts wrong, inserting extraneous and superfluous information. 
The problem is that the author extracted information from Frederick Edge's  Exploits of Paul Morphy without understanding that what Edge described had nothing to do with the subject game.
According to Edge, "We were frequent visitors to his box at the Italian Opera." Edge goes on to describe their first opera encounter.   The Opera Game [The usual sobriquet - not the Opera Massacre Game] was played in one of their subsequent visits during which Gioacchino Rossini's Il barbiere di Siviglia was performed. This is noted by David Lawson [Morphy's primary biographer] and supported by E. Winter, with some supportive documentation:
"On their first visit in October they played chess throughout the entire performance of Norma.... On the second of November they heard The Barber of Seville, during which Morphy played his most famous game, the Duke again consulting with Count Isouard [Count Isouard de Vauvenargue]."
-Paul Morphy: The Pride and Sorrow of Chess by David Lawson; pp. 159-160.
Winter's Chess Note #2895 reported that "Christian Sánchez has consulted the fortnightly magazine L’Univers Musical of October and November 1858. He reports that although Morphy’s name did not appear, the 16 October and 1 November numbers mentioned that the October performances at the Théâtre-Italien included Norma, while the 15 November issue stated that The Barber of Seville had been performed that month. This schedule is in line with the information quoted from Lawson’s book."  [The Opera Game was played on Nov. 2, 1858] -- Batgirl (talk) 13:33, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Article is a mess?

message: The move 8.Bxf7+ mentioned in the notes isn't actually any good. As Edward Lasker notes in "Chess Secrets", Black gets some nice counterplay by 8...Qxf7 9.Qxb7 Bc5! when either 10.Qxa8 O-O or 10.Qc8+ Ke7 11.Qxh8 Bxf2+! gives Black a dangerous attack for the material. Besides it wasn't Morphy's style to move his Q several times in the opening chasing material at the expense of the initiative. I doubt he even gave serious consideration to the move. MaxBrowne (talk) 09:29, 23 September 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  8.Bxf7+ isn't actually any good 

message: The article wrote; On several occasions, the Duke invited Morphy to the Italian Opera House in Paris, Salle Le Peletier, where the former kept a private box which was, according to Morphy's associate Frederick Edge, so close to the stage that one "might kiss the prima donna without any trouble", and which always contained a chess set, the Duke being a keen player as well as an opera lover.
Morphy was extremely fond of music and opera and was eager to see Norma, which played on his first visit. Unfortunately, his host had seen Norma countless times, and Morphy found himself forced to play chess, even seated with his back to the stage.
As the game progressed, the two allies conferred loudly enough with each other, debating their moves against the American genius, that it attracted the attention of the opera performers. Madame Penco, who had the role of the Druidic priestess in Norma, kept looking into the Duke's box, to see what all the fuss was about, even as she was performing the opera. The performers who were the Druids marched about the stage, "chanting fire and bloodshed against the Roman host, who, they appeared to think, were in the Duke's box", Edge recounted.
It is doubtful if the distracted opera singers had a good enough view into the box to know what the noise was about. Comically, Morphy created this brilliant game while spending his time trying to overcome his blocked view of the opera, while the performers tried to catch glimpses of what was going on in the Duke's box.
Norma was performed at the Italiens de Paris on 21 October 1858, with Rosina Penco in the title role, L. Graziani as Pollione and Cambardi as Adalgise.Cf. L’Avant-scène, «Bellini Norma», coll. Opéra no. 29, September–October 1980, p. 121. Some commentators would rather have the chess game taking place with The Barber of Seville, La Cenerentola, or else The Marriage of Figaro on stage.Cf. H. Golombek, A History of Chess, 1976, p. 142; cf. also R. Fine, The World’s Great Chess Games, New York, 1951, p. 25.
While certainy colourful, this sounds like storytelling and relevant sources are lacking, as noted for a long time. The story went through many hands. Have a look at what Edgar Winter writes, for instance. By the way, it makes little sense that Morphy's opponents talked loudly in his company about their plans. -- Zz (talk) 20:20, 22 May 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: This story is in EDGE, F. M. Paul Morphy, the chess champion, by an Englishman. IMO the backgroung of this game is important, but it wants shorten it and add other contexts. I wrote article on cswiki. OJJ (talk) 14:44, 8 June 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Circumstances 

message: It's not as simple as White winning a pawn. After 11.Qxb4 Bxb4+ 12.Nc3, Black has 12...Nxe4. This doesn't look very advantageous for White.--Jasper Deng (talk) 23:07, 26 June 2019 (UTC)
replies: text: You are right. But instead of 12.Nc3, it's better to play 12.c3 and white keeps his extra material. For example, 12...cxb5 13.Bxb5+ Nbd7 14.cxb4 and black can't take on e4 because Bc6 (forking knight and rook) will win even more material. 2601:646:8701:9740:29BE:86B0:1A15:FE0B (talk) 00:41, 29 September 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  10...Qb4+ 

message: It's hard to imagine that 3. ...Bg4 is really standard theory, when it is instantly refuted by what Morphy played, and dxe5 is a rather obvious move to consider. There is a link to a chess book from 1843 to prove the contention of the article, but I did not see the book actually recommend Bg4. Morphy, in his matches with professional players, faced the Philidor several times, and they did not play ...Bg3. They were obviously well aware it is a terrible move. The claim seems very dubious. 2603:8081:2603:E100:D536:3F91:B697:592B (talk) 22:44, 12 March 2021 (UTC)
replies: text: Fair point, I've edited the article to reflect this. MaxBrowne2 (talk) 23:37, 12 March 2021 (UTC)
thread_title: Bg4 Standard Theory

message: I see it as illogical to refer to Black as "he" in this game. Black was a team of two players working together, and it does not make sense to refer to a team of multiple people as if it consisted of only one of those people. For example, I imagine one would say, "Though the United States men's basketball team performed poorly in the first half, they managed to pull ahead in the second half," and that the word "he" would be incorrect in this case. ISaveNewspapers (talk) 10:43, 30 July 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. I found one more "he" referring to black which I rephrased. Qwaiiplayer (talk) 16:20, 30 July 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: OK but ISN was tying himself up in all sorts of knots with awkward phrasings. Keep things simple and natural sounding. MaxBrowne2 (talk) 17:03, 30 July 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pronouns for Black