Paul Charles Morphy (June 22, 1837 – July 10, 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. He was a chess prodigy. He was called "The Pride and Sorrow of Chess" because he had a brief and brilliant chess career, but then retired from the game while still young.

Morphy was born in New Orleans, Louisiana to a wealthy and distinguished family. He learned to play chess by simply watching a game between his father and uncle. His family soon realized the boy’s talent and encouraged him to play at family gatherings and by age nine he was considered one of the best players in New Orleans. At just twelve years old, Morphy defeated visiting Hungarian master Johann Löwenthal in a match of three games.

After receiving his degree in 1857, Morphy was not yet of legal age to practice law and found himself with free time. He received an invitation to play at the First American Chess Congress in New York City and, at his uncle's urging, accepted. Morphy won the tournament which included strong players of the day, such as Alexander Meek and Louis Paulsen. Morphy was hailed as the chess champion of the United States and stayed in New York playing chess through 1857, winning the vast majority of his games. In 1858, Morphy travelled to Europe to play European Champion Howard Staunton. While negotiations for a match proved problematic, Morphy played every strong player in Europe, usually winning easily. While the match with Staunton never came about, Morphy was hailed by most in Europe as the world's best player.

Ben Finegold (born September 6, 1969 in Detroit, Michigan) is a chess Grandmaster.

Finegold was born into a chess family and became a USCF Master at the age of 14. He became a Life Master at 15, Senior Master at 16, and International Master at 20.

Ben has tied for first place in the 1994 (Chicago, IL) and 2007 (Cherry Hill, NJ) U.S. Open Chess Championships. He tied for first (and achieved a GM-norm) in the 2002 World Open (Philadelphia, PA), and also tied for first in the 2005 and 2008 National Open Chess Championships (Las Vegas, NV). He is ranked as one of the top 20 players in the United States on the October 2009 USCF rating list. Ben has played in eight U.S. Chess Championships: 1994 (Key West, FL), 1999 (Salt Lake City, UT), 2002 (Seattle, WA), 2005 (La Jolla, CA), 2006 (San Diego, CA), 2008 (Tulsa, OK), 2010 (Saint Louis, MO), and 2011 (Saint Louis, MO).

In September 2009 he earned his third GM Norm which will qualify him as an International Grandmaster, and he is currently the Grandmaster-in-residence of the Chess Club and Scholastic Center of Saint Louis (Missouri).

Robert James "Bobby" Fischer (March 9, 1943 – January 17, 2008) was an American chess Grandmaster and the 11th World Chess Champion. He is widely considered one of the greatest chess players of all time. Fischer was also a best-selling chess author. After ending his competitive career, he proposed a new variant of chess and a modified chess timing system. His idea of adding a time increment after each move is now standard, and his variant Chess960 is gaining in popularity.

A chess prodigy, at age 13 Fischer won a "brilliancy" that became known as The Game of the Century. Starting at age 14, he played in eight United States Championships, winning each by at least a point. At age 15½, he became both the youngest grandmaster and the youngest candidate for the World Championship up to that time. He won the 1963–64 U.S. Championship 11–0, the only perfect score in the history of the tournament. In the early 1970s he became one of the most dominant players in modern history—winning the 1970 Interzonal by a record 3½-point margin and winning 20 consecutive games, including two unprecedented 6–0 sweeps in the Candidates Matches. According to research by Jeff Sonas, in 1971 Fischer had separated himself from the rest of the world by a larger margin of playing skill than any player since the 1870s. He became the first official World Chess Federation (FIDE) number-one rated chess player in July 1971, and his 54 total months at number one is the third longest of all time.

The Classic (Hangul: 클래식; Keulraesik) is a 2003 South Korean melodrama / romance film directed by Kwak Jae-yong.

The film tells the parallel love stories of a mother and daughter. The story of the mother is told partially in flashbacks.

The movie starts in the present day. The daughter, Ji-hye (Son Ye-jin), is cleaning-up around her house when she comes across a box full of old letters and a diary that detail the story of her mother, Joo-hee (who is also played by Son Ye-jin). Periodically in the movie, Ji-hye reads one of these letters, which starts a flashback scene in which the story of the mother is told. These flashbacks are intertwined with Ji-hye's own story, in which she falls for a fellow student, Sang-min (Zo In Sung), who is involved with the school theater.

The movie tells the story of both relationships. The mother, Joo-hee, visits the countryside as a student one summer and meets Joon-ha (Jo Seung-woo). Together they explore the countryside, playing near a river which they both will always remember as their special place. When a storm starts they take shelter together under a tree, but not before Joo-hee twists her ankle and is rendered helpless. Joon-ha carries her on his back and they struggle home, only to be confronted by her angry parents. Before they separate, Joo-hee gives him a necklace, which he keeps close as a precious reminder of their time together.

Karl Ernst Adolf Anderssen (July 6, 1818 – March 13, 1879) was a German chess master. He is considered to have been the world's leading chess player in the 1850s and 1860s. He was "dethroned" temporarily in 1858 by Paul Morphy.

After his defeat by Steinitz in 1866, Anderssen became the most successful tournament player in Europe, winning over half the events he entered—including the Baden-Baden 1870 chess tournament, considered comparable in the strength of its contestants to recent "super GM tournaments". Remarkably, Anderssen achieved most of these successes when he was over the age of 50.

Anderssen is famous even today for his brilliant sacrificial attacking play, particularly in the "Immortal Game" (1851) and the "Evergreen Game" (1852). He was a very important figure in the development of chess problems, driving forward the transition from the "Old School" of problem composition to the elegance and complexity of modern compositions.

He was also one of the most likeable of chess masters and became an "elder statesman" of the game, to whom others turned for advice or arbitration.