Evergreen Game

The Evergreen Game is a famous chess game, played by Adolf Anderssen and Jean Dufresne in July 1852. Anderssen won this game.

At the time, there was no formal title of "World Champion", so the German mathematics professor Adolf Anderssen was widely considered to be the best player in the world after winning the first major international chess tournament in 1851. Though not in the same class as Anderssen, Jean Dufresne, a popular author of chess books, was also a strong player. This was probably an informal game, like the Immortal Game.

The game was originally published with minimal commentary in the September and October 1852 issues of the Deutsche Schachzeitung. The venue of the game is usually assumed to be Berlin, where Dufresne was resident and Anderssen was a frequent visitor, but no details of the circumstances of the game were provided.

Beginning with Howard Staunton in 1853, the game has been extensively analysed over the years, particularly the critical positions before and after White's remarkable 19th move, 19.Rad1!. Although defensive resources for Black have since been found, Anderssen's combination remains much admired.

Following Anderssen's death in 1879, Wilhelm Steinitz published a tribute in The Field in which he annotated Anderssen's two most famous games, the Evergreen and the Immortal Game against Lionel Kieseritzky. Annotating the famous move 19.Rad1, Steinitz wrote "An evergreen in the laurel crown of the departed chess hero", thus giving this game its name. Steinitz was writing in English, but he may have had in mind the German word Immergrün (Evergreen), which refers to a specific evergreen plant, called Periwinkle (Vinca) in English. The symbolic meaning is expressed in the French translation, the "Forever Young Game" (La Toujours Jeune).

White: Anderssen   Black: Dufresne   Opening: Evans Gambit (ECO C52)

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