Adolf Anderssen's Immortal Game | The Evergreen Game
You've probably heard of the Evergreen Game. It's renowned as one of the most beautiful games ever played. It's been immortalized as people play through it more than 150 years later with wonder on their faces and inspiration in their mind. It was named when "An evergreen in the laurel crown of the departed chess hero." was described by none other than Steinitz. Perfectly named, it never fails to be evergreen and entrance players every time they see the final mating combination.
If you aren't familiar with this game yet, well then, all the better. You're in for a real treat. If you have, maybe my analysis of it will shed some light on how both players played and what they could have done better.
The German-born Adolf Anderssen was considered to likely be the strongest chess player in the entire world at the time. Until a young fellow named Paul Morphy game along and destroyed all of the top European players, that is. But after Morphy's short-lived but glittering career in chess, Anderssen regained his unofficial title of the best player in the world. And then lost it again when the first official world champion came along, a great man known by the name of Wilhelm Steinitz sauntered onto the scene. A bumpy road for Anderssen, although he created many dazzling works of art in his life, one of which we're going to look at today.
Jean Dufresne, also German, was actually the student of Anderssen. He was a master who also wrote about the game and composed problems and studies. Below is a fairly easy study of his.
Enough history. Let's get on to the Evergreen Game. It was played in Berlin in 1852, smack in the middle of the romantic era of chess. You can tell straight out of the opening that it is. Everything is about attack, attack, attack, sacrifice to attack, speed up development to attack, and attack more. Of course, the game is flawed. It would be hard to find a game played in that time (and also in this time) that isn't. But those flaws are what make this game amazingly beautiful. Dufresne could have saved the game at the end with a computer-like resource that Andersson unknowingly allowed, but missed it, and white finished the game off with an astounding barrage of sacrifices and mate. All of you heartfelt attackers are going to love this. Even if you're not, you're still going to love this.
A fine fitting finish for a beautiful game.
This is the kind of play that the Evans Gambit can lead you to if your opponent doesn't know better and forgets to castle.
Soon I'll post more immortal games with my analysis of them, if there's a specific one you want to see analyzed by me you can post it in the comments or send me a message and I'll gladly do it.
I hope you liked it, and I'll be back soon with another post!
