1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. Ng5 Bc5
The Traxler Counterattack is a chess opening for Black that arises from the Two Knights Defense: 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. Ng5 Bc5. White’s knight attacks f7, and instead of defending it with the main move 4... d5, Black ignores the threat entirely and aims a bishop at f2. If White grabs material with 5. Nxf7, Black answers 5... Bxf2+ and drags the white king into the open. It is one of the sharpest replies to 4. Ng5 in all of chess — objectively risky, practically ferocious.
The Traxler only appears through the Two Knights move order: 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6. White then plays the aggressive 4. Ng5, attacking the f7-pawn twice and threatening the Fried Liver Attack. Black’s standard defense is 4... d5; the Traxler instead plays 4... Bc5!?, offering the f7-pawn (and often the h8-rook) to open lines against White’s king. The position branches immediately: 5. Nxf7 forks queen and rook and is met by 5... Bxf2+, when White must choose between 6. Kxf2 and 6. Kf1. The alternative 5. Bxf7+ Ke7 keeps the game quieter — White wins a pawn but concedes the initiative Black wanted to fight over.
1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. Ng5 Bc5 5. Nxf7 Bxf2+ 6. Kxf2 Nxe4+ 7. Kg1 Qh4 8. g3 Nxg3 9. hxg3 Qxg3+ 10. Kf1 Rf8
White takes both offered pieces and tucks the king on g1, the most natural-looking defense. Black sacrifices again with 8... Nxg3, ripping open the king, and 10... Rf8 hauls the last piece into the attack against the stranded knight on f7. White’s extra material sits at home on the queenside while every Black piece points at the king — exactly the trade the Traxler is built on.
1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. Ng5 Bc5 5. Nxf7 Bxf2+ 6. Kxf2 Nxe4+ 7. Ke3 Qh4 8. Nxh8 Qf4+ 9. Kd3 Nb4+ 10. Ke2 Qf2#
Walking the king up the board with 7. Ke3 looks active but steps into the full force of Black’s attack. After 7... Qh4, greed with 8. Nxh8 lets Black drive the king across the center with checks and deliver mate on move ten. The pattern — queen and knights herding the king while White’s army watches from its starting squares — repeats across many Traxler lines and is worth knowing cold.
1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. Ng5 Bc5 5. Nxf7 Bxf2+ 6. Kf1 Qe7 7. Nxh8 d5 8. exd5 Nd4
Declining the bishop with 6. Kf1 is White’s most testing try after 5. Nxf7, dodging the forced king walks. Black calmly plays 6... Qe7 and 7... d5, opening the center while White’s knight goes pawn-grabbing on h8. With 8... Nd4 and ...Bg4 coming, every Black piece joins the attack on the uncastled king; the knight in the corner may never escape. These are the lines where exact preparation pays off most.
1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. Ng5 Bc5 5. Nxf7 Bxf2+ 6. Kxf2 Nxe4+ 7. Ke1 Qh4+ 8. g3 Nxg3 9. hxg3 Qxh1+ 10. Ke2 Nd4+ 11. Kd3 Qxd1
Retreating to e1 runs into 7... Qh4+ at once. The forced 8. g3 is demolished by 8... Nxg3, and after recapturing Black wins the h1-rook with check. The follow-up 10... Nd4+ drives the king forward again and 11... Qxd1 removes White’s queen — a material and attacking rout born entirely from the f2 sacrifice.
1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. Ng5 Bc5 5. Bxf7+ Ke7
The bishop check is widely considered White’s safest route: White wins a pawn and avoids the mating nets of 5. Nxf7. Black answers 5... Ke7 — the king is surprisingly secure there, since the center stays closed for now. Black’s plan is to harass the loose bishop and knight, gain time with moves like ...h6 and ...d6, and use the half-open f-file and lead in activity as long-term compensation for the pawn.
If you play 4. Ng5 as White, you must have an answer ready for 4... Bc5 — the Traxler punishes improvisation harder than almost any opening. The practical advice is simple: take with the bishop, not the knight. 5. Bxf7+ Ke7 6. Bd5 (or a retreat along the a2–g8 diagonal) keeps an extra pawn, denies Black the forcing king hunts, and is the line modern engines prefer for White. Your plan afterwards is unglamorous and effective: avoid opening lines near your king, develop quickly, be willing to return the pawn to trade queens, and let Black’s displaced king on e7 matter in the long game. Grabbing material with 5. Nxf7 is critical but dangerous — after 5... Bxf2+ you are defending a forcing attack where a single natural-looking move loses. If you do enter it, 6. Kf1 (declining the bishop) is considered more testing than 6. Kxf2, which invites the famous king walks; either way you need concrete preparation, not general principles. Finally, remember you can avoid the whole discussion: nothing forces 4. Ng5. Quiet Italian setups with d3 and c3, or 4. d4, keep the game in territory where Black’s preparation does nothing. Against a known Traxler specialist, that is often the wisest choice of all.
Survive, consolidate, convert. After 5. Bxf7+ Ke7, retreat the bishop, develop fast, keep the center closed enough that Black’s activity has no targets, and steer toward simplification — every trade favors the side with extra material against a committed attacker. In the 5. Nxf7 lines, the king is the only piece that matters: avoid greedy detours like Nxh8 at the wrong moment, give back material to blunt the attack, and aim for an endgame where the sacrificed pieces are simply gone.
Everything targets the white king. The bishop hits f2, the f6-knight crashes through on e4, the queen swings to h4, and rooks come to f8 against the f7-square. Material is irrelevant in the sharp lines — the h8-rook is routinely abandoned — because tempo is the real currency: every check and threat keeps White from developing. If White bails out with 5. Bxf7+, switch gears: play against the loose pieces, occupy the f-file, and trust activity to offset the pawn.
The opening is named after Karel Traxler, a Czech player who employed it in the late nineteenth century. In American chess literature the same line is known as the Wilkes-Barre Variation, after the city in Pennsylvania — one of the rare openings carrying two established names on different sides of the Atlantic. Analysts have attacked and defended it for well over a century, and the computer era delivered a measured verdict: engines give White an edge with the calm 5. Bxf7+, while the greedy 5. Nxf7 leads to positions where White must defend with near-perfect accuracy to prove anything. That gap between objective evaluation and practical difficulty is exactly why the Traxler endures — online and in club play it remains one of the most feared answers to 4. Ng5.
Let's play the Traxler Counterattack!
Let's learn the Traxler Counterattack! It's a cold, evil, vicious response to the Fried Liver Attack. It's so poisonous, that I... well I don't even know what to say. I really just want to jump right in and show you. First up, pawn to e5.
White attacked our pawn, knight to c6 defending it. Standard stuff.
We now invite the Fried Liver Attack with knight to f6.
And yep, White's going for the Fried Liver Attack—a sneaky opening where they dive straight for our weak f7 pawn. White might even think they already have a winning position, with the knight coming to f7 on the next move forking our queen and rook. Here, we COMPLETELY IGNORE that threat and play bishop to c5, pretending that we've blundered.
White fell for the bait. They think they've successfully forked our rook and queen, and believe they're winning the game. But here, we redirect lighting. Bishop takes f2 check.
We have sacrificed our bishop, and our queen/rook are forked. The good news: we have a necessary check on the exposed White king. Knight to e4.
White's king is brave, coming into the center. Queen to h4 to defend our knight.
OMG what a BLUNDER. Mate in 4. Move 1: Queen to f4.
Move 2: Knight to b4.
Move 3: Queen to f2. Checkmate.
Sheesh.
Move 2: Queen to f2.
Move 3: Knight to c5.
Move 4: queen to d4
You're playing like Magnus
This is completely losing for White. Queen to h4 check.
A very common Traxler idea: Knight takes on g3.
Now we get the rook with check. Yum. Queen to h1.
Let's add a knight to this party! Knight to d4 check.
Can you find the best move? There's a free queen on d1 for our queen to take!
Look at white's queenside! It's the exact starting position, except the White queen has turned black.
White didn't take the bait, bringing us to the declined variation. Don't worry, we still have winning chances. Now, our queen is ACTUALLY under attack so we have to move it to the only safe square: queen to e7.
We need to open up our bishop: pawn to d5. This is a very common traxler idea.
Blunder! We have the amazing bishop to g4, actually just trapping their queen. No, seriously, their queen has nowhere to go.
Bishop takes queen on d1 of course.
Game is as good as over.
Our knight is under attack. Now we want to hop it into the center. Knight to d4.
This is white's most common move, and its actually VERY bad. All their advantage is lost. However, only one move wins for us: Bishop to g4 attacking the queen.
One more time, we only have one move that wins: Knight back to d7 to block check.
We're literally down 9 points of material, but let's keep going. Queen to f6, threatening a discovered check against white's king.
Do NOT capture back, as we lose the threat of discovered check. Instead, keep our queen on the f-file with Queen to f4.
Well done! We're down TEN points of material but our attack is so strong that Black wins 90% of the time here. I have never seen anything like it.
Not fully — with best play, engines prefer White after the calm 5. Bxf7+, so Black is fighting for practical compensation rather than objective equality. But the lines after 5. Nxf7 are a minefield where natural White moves lose by force, which is why the Traxler keeps scoring heavily at club level and in fast time controls.
In many lines the knight grabs h8 while Black’s attack arrives first. A famous example: after 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. Ng5 Bc5 5. Nxf7 Bxf2+ 6. Kxf2 Nxe4+ 7. Ke3 Qh4, the greedy 8. Nxh8 allows a forced mate in three beginning 8... Qf4+. The rook is bait — Black’s real targets are f2 and the white king.
Yes. Traxler Counterattack and Wilkes-Barre Variation are two names for the same opening: 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. Ng5 Bc5. European sources generally credit Karel Traxler; American sources named it after Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania.
It sidesteps it entirely. The Fried Liver requires 4... d5 5. exd5 Nxd5, when 6. Nxf7 sacrifices on f7 with a strong attack for White. By playing 4... Bc5 instead, Black never allows that structure — and turns the f-pawn sacrifice idea back against White.
Excellent. The defender has to find precise, often counterintuitive moves with the clock running while the attacker plays prepared patterns. Most players who push 4. Ng5 are hunting quick wins and have never studied 4... Bc5 — turning their favorite weapon into a defensive nightmare.
Reading about an opening is step one. The trainer at the top of this page drills all 26 lines against the moves real opponents play — the first lines are free.
Train the Traxler Counterattack now