Paul Charles Morphy (1837 – 1884) was an American chess player. He is considered to have been the greatest chess master of his era and an unofficial World Chess Champion. A chess prodigy, he was called "The Pride and Sorrow of Chess" because he had a brilliant chess career but retired from the game while still young. Bobby Fischer ranked him among the ten greatest players of all time and described him as "perhaps the most accurate player who ever lived".