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 of 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.
Most players can't resist grabbing 5.Nxf7. If they do, you're ready with the theory that punishes it.
We are going to play pawn to e5 in this opening.
Guard the pawn with the standard knight to c6.
This is the Italian Game for White. Now bishop to c5 is the Giuoco Piano, but we are going to play the other major defense, knight to f6, the "Two Knights Defense".
Now the main defense to the classical knight to g5 in the Two Knights is pawn to d5, when after White takes on d5, we must not make the natural recapture with our knight, allowing either the Fried Liver with knight takes on f7 or the Lolli with pawn to d4, both very good for White. But in this course we are going to examine the potentially complicated Traxler Counterattack with bishop to c5?!
Most White players can't resist the obvious knight fork on f7. But after they take, we counterattack by taking on f2 with our bishop, giving check.
We must take the e-pawn with check, freeing our queen.
White only had two good moves: king to e3 and king to g1. The other moves lose. Here, after king to e3, we start a complicated counterattack with queen to h4.
Once more, capturing the rook is a mistake, this time leading to mate in 4 starting with queen to f4, giving check.
Mate in 2 with knight to b4, giving check.
Checkmate on this move with the queen to f2.
Once again White's mistakes have led to a quick checkmate for us!
Mate starting with queen to f2, giving check — we've seen this pattern in other mating lines.
Mate starts with knight to b4 with check (knight to c5 with check also leads to mate in 2).
Finish with queen to f4, checkmate.
Once again White's mistakes have led to a quick checkmate for us!
White's pawn to g3 is the best defense in this line. Take it with the knight even though the White rook on h1 is guarded this time.
Check on d4, starting a long sequence that leads to equality for us.
Now we should castle! Yes, it's legal, as the king is not in check and does not move through check or into check. It also pins the knight, so there is no discovered check for White.
Rook to h4! is the only move for White which does not lose. We should check with the pawn even though White can capture it. This also clears the e5 square for a knight check.
Capture the bishop.
The engine now likes queen to d4 best, with equal chances.
We have 2 pawns and a safer king. The engine rates the chances as equal, but there's a lot of game left to be played.
12.Rxe4 looks good but is incorrect. Now check with the knight. Remember the f7 knight is pinned and can't capture on e5 after 12...Ne5+
Take the bishop with the queen.
We will win the pinned knight. The engine rates this position as about 2 pawns better for us (-2).
We're now winning with queen to f2, giving check.
It's not easy to find the only easily winning move: pawn to b5! The engine rates the position as -6 for us!
The White king is in trouble and the attack on the bishop gives us the time we need to get more pieces into the attack.
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 116 lines against the moves real opponents play. The first lines are free.
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