The immortal game is a famous chess game played in 1851 by Adolf Anderssen and Lionel Kieseritzsky. It is one of the most famous chess games of all time.

Adolf Anderssen was one of the strongest players of his time, and was considered by many to be the world champion after winning the 1851 London tournament. Lionel Kieseritzky lived in France much of his life, where he gave chess lessons or played games for 5 francs an hour at the Cafe de la Regence, Paris, France. Kieseritzky was well-known for being able to beat lesser players in spite of great odds.

This was an informal game played between these two great players at the Simpon’s on the Strand Divan in London. Kieseritsky was very impressed when the game was over, and telegraphed the game moves to his Parisian chess club. The French chess magazine “La Regence” published the game in July 1851. This game was later nicknamed “The Immortal Game” in 1855 by the Australian Ernst Falkbeer.

The immortal game has resurfaced in many unusual guises. The town of Marostica, Italy has replayed the immortal game with living persons every year, beginning on September 2, 1923. The position after the 20th move is on a 1984 stamp from Surinam. The final part of the game was used as an inspiration for the chess game in the movie Blade Runner in 1982, though the chessboards are not arranged exactly the same (in fact, in the movie Sebastian’s and Tyrell’s board do not even match each other).

This game is an excellent demonstration of the style of chess play in the 1800s, where rapid development and attack were considered the most effective way to win, where many gambits and counter-gambits were offered (and not accepting them would be considered slightly ungentlemanly), and where material was often held in contempt. These games, with their rapid attacks and counter-attacks, are quite fun to review, even if the some of the moves would no longer be considered the best ones by today’s standards.

In this game, Anderssen demonstrates amazing cleverness - he sacrifices a bishop on move 11, then sacrifices both rooks starting on move 18, and wraps it up with a queen sacrifice on move 22 to produce checkmate. Anderssen later demonstrated the same kind of extraordinary cleverness in the evergreen game.

References

• Burgess, Graham, John Nunn, and John Emms. The Mammoth Book of the World’s Greatest Chess Games. 1998. New York: Carroll and Graf Publishers, Inc. ISBN 0-7867-0587-6. This detailed summary unfortunately has an error starting in move 18.

• Chernev, Irving. The Chess Companion. 1968. ISBN 0-671-20104-2.

• Eade, James. Chess for Dummies. 1996. Foster City, CA: IDG Books Worldwide, Inc. ISBN 0-7645-5003-9.

• Kavalek, Lubomir. Chess (newspaper column). Washington Post. July 2003.

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.

Video: The Immortal Game - The movie

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