The Immortal Draw

Carl Hamppe was one of the leading figures of the Vienna school of the mid nineteenth century, a style built on quick king side attacks even at heavy material cost, and this casual game against Philipp Meitner is that style pushed about as far as it can go. It is remembered as the Immortal Draw, a game where both sides give up huge amounts of material chasing checkmate and neither one gets there.

The game opens with a Vienna Game where Black grabs a pawn with check by 3...Bxf2+, dragging White's king out into the open on move four, and from there both kings go on the run. Black gives up his queen on move nine for a king hunt of his own, and by the later moves both sides are shuffling kings and pieces around a board stripped of most of its material, each one hoping the other runs out of checks first. Neither does: the position repeats itself and the game ends in a draw, both players having thrown almost everything at the opposing king without landing the final blow.

Club players often assume a draw cannot be an instructive game, and this one is the exception. It shows how far an exposed king can walk up the board and survive when the attacker's own king is equally exposed, and it is a good warning that a king hunt without a forced finish is really just a very long forcing sequence to a draw.