In London in 1851, two of the strongest players of the day sat down for a casual game. Within twenty moves the player with the white pieces had given away a bishop and both of his rooks, and in the version of the game that has been printed ever since, his queen as well — and still he won. Four years later the game was already being called “immortal”, and the name stuck.
It is also a game with a secret, which modern chess engines have made plain: the most famous move in it should not have worked. That does not make it any less beautiful. It makes it more human.
Adolf Anderssen (1818–1879) was born in Breslau, then in Prussia — today Wrocław, in Poland — and spent most of his life there, teaching mathematics at a secondary school. Chess was his passion rather than his profession, but in 1851 he travelled to London for the first international chess tournament ever held, and won it. For the rest of the decade he was widely regarded as the best player in the world, until he lost a match to Paul Morphy in 1858 — the same Morphy of the Opera Game. He was also a gifted composer of chess problems, and the author of a second famous brilliancy, the “Evergreen Game” of 1852.
Lionel Kieseritzky lived most of his life in France, where he taught chess and played for five francs an hour at the Café de la Régence, the great chess café of Paris. He was at his best giving odds to weaker players, and less convincing against masters. At the London tournament he was knocked out in the very first round — by Anderssen. He also helped edit a Paris chess magazine, La Régence, and it was there that he published this game: his own defeat. He died in Paris two years later, in 1853.
The game was an informal one, played in London during a break in the 1851 tournament. Beyond that, the details are less settled than most books suggest. It is often said to have been played at Simpson’s Divan, a chess café in the Strand, but the chess historian Edward Winter has found evidence pointing to the St George’s Chess Club instead. Sources give different dates, too: 21 June, or late May. The name is usually credited to Ernst Falkbeer, who published an analysis of the game in 1855 describing it as “immortal”.
The biggest question is how it ended. When Kieseritzky published the game in July 1851, he gave it as finishing after White’s twentieth move — in other words, he resigned. The famous finish, with the queen sacrifice and the checkmate, is the continuation that has been printed ever since; an article of 1893 suggested that Kieseritzky played one more move and Anderssen then announced the mate. Either way, it may never have been played out on the board. Below, the game is given as Kieseritzky recorded it, and the famous finish is marked as such.
1.e4 e5 2.f4 — The King’s Gambit, the favourite opening of the romantic era. White offers a pawn to open the f-file and get the pieces out fast. Modern engines regard it with some suspicion; in 1851 it was simply how you played. 2…exf4 3.Bc4 — the Bishop’s Gambit.
3…Qh4+ 4.Kf1 — White can no longer castle, but the king is safe enough on f1, and the black queen will soon be chased. 4…b5 — the Bryan Countergambit: Black gives back a pawn to pull White’s bishop away from its attack on f7. 5.Bxb5 Nf6 6.Nf3 — a developing move that gains time by attacking the queen. 6…Qh6 7.d3 Nh5 — eyeing a knight check on g3. 8.Nh4 Qg5 — the black queen’s third move in eight.
9.Nf5 c6 — Black attacks the bishop on b5. 10.g4 Nf6 11.Rg1 — Anderssen simply ignores it. He drives the knight back with his g-pawn, defends that pawn with the rook, and leaves the bishop where it can be taken.
11…cxb5 — Black takes the bishop. According to a modern engine, this is where the game really turns. Declining it — with 11…h5, for instance — would have given Black the better position. Taking it gives White a lasting attack, because every move Black spends on material is a move not spent on development.
12.h4 Qg6 13.h5 Qg5 14.Qf3 — The pawns drive the queen back, and White’s own queen joins in, preparing Bxf4 with an attack on the black queen. 14…Ng8 — a sad retreat, clearing the f6 square so that the queen has somewhere to go. It is the king’s knight’s fourth move, and it has ended exactly where it started.
15.Bxf4 Qf6 16.Nc3 Bc5 — Black finally develops a piece and attacks the rook on g1. But it is a mistake: the engine’s verdict swings sharply in White’s favour. 17.Nd5 — Anderssen ignores the threat and hits the queen. 17…Qxb2 — Black grabs a pawn, and now attacks the other rook too.
Look at Black’s position. The queen has made seven of Black’s seventeen moves. The knight on b8, the bishop on c8 and the knight on g8 are all still on their starting squares. Black has more material; White has almost every piece in play.
18.Bd6!? — Anderssen leaves both rooks to be taken. The bishop shuts the black king in, controlling e7 and f8, and prepares mating threats with the two knights.
This is the move that made the game immortal — and it is the move that should not have worked. Before it, White was winning comfortably; a modern engine prefers a quiet move such as 18.Re1. After it, Black had a defence. In 1879 Wilhelm Steinitz, who would later become the first official world champion, pointed out that Black should take the other rook first, with check: 18…Qxa1+ 19.Ke2 Qb2. A modern engine agrees with him: after that, the position is level. With one move, Anderssen had thrown away a winning game.
But Kieseritzky did not find it. 18…Bxg1? — he took the rook on g1, and White was winning again.
19.e5!! — the quiet move at the heart of the attack. The pawn blocks the long diagonal from a1 to h8, cutting the black queen off from the defence of her king, and it threatens 20.Nxg7+ Kd8 21.Bc7, mate. A modern engine prefers 19.Re1 here too, but 19.e5 also wins, and it is by far the more beautiful move.
19…Qxa1+ 20.Ke2 — and the second rook is gone. White is now down two rooks and a bishop. Black still has every one of its pieces, and has lost only two pawns.
This is where, by Kieseritzky’s own account, the game ended. Look at where the pieces stand: Black’s extra material is on the far side of the board, while White’s pieces are gathered around the black king.
This is the continuation that has been printed with the game for well over a century.
20…Na6 — the knight covers c7, stopping the mate on that square. It is not enough; now White has a forced mate in three. (The engine’s best defence was 20…Ba6, but Black would still have been losing.) 21.Nxg7+ Kd8 22.Qf6+!! — the queen, the last heavy piece White has left, offered where it can simply be taken. 22…Nxf6 — taking is forced in all but name: the only other move, 22…Ne7, allows mate at once.
23.Be7# — Checkmate, with three minor pieces. The bishop gives check and is protected by the knight on d5; that same knight covers c7; the knight on g7 covers e8; and Black’s own bishop on c8 and pawn on d7 fill the last two squares.
Look at the last diagram. Black has every single piece. White has three. It is checkmate anyway, because every one of White’s pieces is doing something and almost none of Black’s are.
Anderssen would lose a match to Morphy seven years later, beaten by a player who understood development better than anyone before him. You can see what Morphy did with that understanding in the Opera Game, and replay more great games of chess history in the Classics section under Learn.
Chess pieces: “cburnett” set by Colin M. L. Burnett, CC BY-SA 3.0.
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