Jacques François Mouret
He used to be in a continual state of semi-intoxication",[2] and George Walker wrote that "His brain was consumed in the Brandy".
[7] In 1836 a book The Treaty Elementary Game of Chess,[8] appeared which is often attributed to Mouret on the basis of the preface, but it seems that he was only the "corrector" as evidenced by an advertisement found in a newspaper after his death.
[9] He ended his life in a state of severe physical and mental deterioration, without a penny to his name.
After the death of Kempelen in 1805 it came in possession of the German engineer Johann Maelzel who exploited first in Europe and then from 1826 in the USA.
Mouret was one of many strong players who played hidden in the Turk (others being Johann Baptist Allgaier, who defeated Napoleon in 1809, Schlumberger, Boncourt and Lewis).
[11] Fifty games of the Turk during his exhibition in London in 1819, while the machine was operated by Mouret, are collected in a book published in 1820.
[12] The preface states that to February 1820 (date of publication of the book), The Turk had played about 300 games giving the advantage of pawn and move to his opponents and he only has ever lost six.
Mouret's weakness for drinking often left him penniless and, to survive, he probably revealed in 1834 to Le Magasin picturesque[13] the secret of the Turk.
The article, titled An attempt to analyze the automaton chess-player of M. Kempelen, explained how an ordinary-sized man could play a chess game inside the Turk.
After a certain time, however, Maelzel remained debtor to his assistant for a considerable sum and after a year he still had not paid this debt to Mouret.
One day, when the Automaton was in Amsterdam, invited by the King of Holland, Maelzel found Mouret in bed seized with a convulsive trembling.
Of Mouret's playing style, Le Palamède stated: Son jeu était très correct et d'une très grande force, principalement sous le rapport de la défense.
These games contain a fair specimen of Mouret's great skill, and embody some beautiful emanations of genius.
The analysis of those games, however, reveals that the large majority of them were won by Mouret on the basis of simple tactical mistakes or even blunders by his opponents (also those called by Walker "some of the first chess-players of the time").
Qd1 Bxe2 0-1 Analysis assisted by the chess engine Firebird 1.2[2] Archived 2010-05-29 at the Wayback Machine shows that White could have played much better at his 12th move with 12.
Mouret seems to have a “blind spot” for this tactical pattern (sacrifice in d5 followed by e5-e6), which could have occurred in various games played by the Turk.
In Diagram 1, for instance, the position of another game Cochrane – Mouret, London 1819, after Black's 15th move is reported.
The most remarkable aspect of these games, however, is Mouret's treatment of the pawn structure similar to that derived from today's Advance Variation of the French Defence, which the Automaton approached in a fashion very close to the modern standards.
It is an Evans Gambit of a certain theoretical interest for the time, which was reported both in Le Palamède[21] and the Chess Player's Chronicle[22] and was quoted by the 7th edition of the Handbuch des Schachspiels.
