The King's Move

By the time he was 20 years old, Paul Morphy was considered by many to be the greatest chess player in the world. Our story begins with Paul attending a dinner party at Reverend RR Harrison's home in the mid-1800s. Paul is admiring a work of art entitled "The Chess Players" by Moritz Retzsch. In the painting, we see a character who appears to be Lucifer playing a game of chess with a young man for his soul as a heavenly angel watches. It appears that the young man, who is portrayed as very distraught, is about to lose the game. His adversary, the devil, wears a gloating grin upon his face as the angel looks on in a concerned state. Upon observing the work of art, Paul Morphy tells the host of the dinner party, "I believe I can take the young man's position and win the game." To which the host responds, "Impossible. Not even you, Mr. Morphy, can retrieve that game." Paul suggests that they try and see if indeed it were possible to defeat the devil in such a contest. So, a board is set and the game played. As the game begins, we focus in on the painting and actually enter into it, bringing the classical artwork to life in a new scene. The devil taunts the young man, who believes he has already lost the game. However, the angel advises the youth to, "Look to your own, look to love." The young man looks and sees Paul playing the same game of chess in the real world and winning, giving him the key to defeat the devil; the fact that, "The King still has one more move." In the end, Paul defeats everyone at the dinner party from the "impossible" position, and when we look again to the painting we now see that it has changed. The young man is victorious and the devil defeated.