Monday 29 October 2007

The earliest recorded Traxler

As part of my duties as editor of Australian Correspondence Chess Quarterly (link on left, subscription button top right etc etc) I was flipping through the MegaCorr 4 database the other day. To my surprise I came across a Traxler (Wilkes-Barre) from 1873. As many of you no doubt know, the Traxler is the greatest opening ever, and the sole reason why chess was invented. But until now most works dealing with the Traxler start with games played by Karel Traxler in 1896.
Intrigued I looked through the game, and was surprised at how modern it seemed. This provoked me to do some searching on the players involved. Not only had they played a match in 1873, it seems they also played in the 1970's and 1980's. While I may have also discovered the worlds oldest chess players, a more likely explanation is a typo in the game record on MegaCorr4. Most likely the game occurred in 1973 (100 years after the given date).
Here is the game anyway, with the observation that Black must have misplayed it at some point, given that he lost.

Graf,N - Muller [Müller],W [C57]
Germany (match) corr., 1873(sic)

1.e4 e5 2.Nf3 Nc6 3.Bc4 Nf6 4.Ng5 Bc5 5.Bxf7+ Ke7 6.Bd5 Rf8 7.0-0 d6 8.h3 Qe8 9.c3 h6 10.Bxc6 bxc6 11.d4 Bb6 12.Nf3 Qh5 (D)
13.Nbd2 Bxh3 14.gxh3 Qxh3 15.Nh2 exd4 16.Qf3 Qh4 17.Qg2 dxc3 18.Ndf3 Qh5 19.e5 dxe5 20.bxc3 e4 21.Ba3+ Bc5 22.Bxc5+ Qxc5 23.Nh4 Rf7 24.Ng6+ Ke6 25.Nf4+ Ke7 26.Ng6+ Ke6 27.Nf3 Nh5 28.Qg4+ Kf6 29.Nfe5 1-0

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