The immortal game is one of the most famous games ever played. It was played in 1851 as an informal game between Adolf Anderssen and Lionel Kieseritzky. According to Wikipedia:
Played between the two great players at the Simpson’s-in-the-Strand Divan in London, the immortal game was an informal one played during a break in a formal tournament. Kieseritzky was very impressed when the game was over, and telegraphed the moves of the game to his Parisian chess club. The French chess magazine La Régence published the game in July 1851. This game was later nicknamed “The Immortal Game” in 1855 by the Austrian Ernst Falkbeer.
As you can see in the figure above the game is so famous that the position after the 20th move is used as an illustration on this 1984 stamp from Suriname.
The Wikipedia article is fully annotated, but it may be a nice exercise if you first annotate the game yourselves, since the game contains a lot of nice combinations. If you are not familiar with this opening have a look at the lesson about the King’s Gambit.
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Immortal |
1.e4 e5 2.f4 exf4 3.Bc4 Qh4+ 4.Kf1 b5 5.Bxb5 Nf6 6.Nf3 Qh6 7.d3 Nh5 8.Nh4 Qg5 9.Nf5 c6 10.g4 Nf6 11.Rg1 cxb5 12.h4 Qg6 13.h5 Qg5 14.Qf3 Ng8 15.Bxf4 Qf6 16.Nc3 Bc5 17.Nd5 Qxb2 18.Bd6 Bxg1 19.e5 Qxa1+ 20.Ke2 Na6 21.Nxg7+ Kd8 22.Qf6+ Nxf6 23.Be7# 1-0
The next lesson is about Smothering the King, but you may also be interested in the Evergreen Game.
March 3rd, 2008 at 9:09 pm
Curious game. I cannot see what white gained by moving his rook to g1 and leaving his white bishop as a sacrifice. The move to Bd6 is curious as well. I can see the potential of the fork coming, but the rook at a1 is captured. After going through the rest of the scenario, it was deceptively brilliant on WHITE’s part for the Queen sacrifice to set position for checkmate. Good game