Paul Morphy (June 22, 1837 - July 10, 1884), "The Pride and Sorrow of Chess" was an American chess player. He is considered to have been the greatest chess master of his era and an unofficial World Chess Champion. He was also one of the first chess prodigies in the modern rules of chess era. Today many think of Morphy as a dazzling combinative player, who excelled in sacrificing his queen and checkmating his opponent a few brilliant moves later. While this was the case in some of his games, it was not the basis of his chess style. In fact, the masters of his day considered his style to be on the conservative side. Source: Paul Morphy's Chess Biography on Wikipedia.