Vienna Game

also known as: 2.Nc3

1. e4 e5 2. Nc3

Named after

Named for Vienna, whose coffee-house masters — Carl Hamppe above all — analyzed it in the mid-19th century.

Origin

Hamppe's games from the 1840s–50s established 2.Nc3; the Vienna Gambit (2.Nc3 and 3.f4) was its fighting form.

The story

Vienna's chess cafés — the Café Central chief among them — were an institution: Hamppe, a government official, ruled them for decades, and the city's opening deferred the f4 break by one move so it could be played without allowing the equalizing ...d5 counter. The delayed King's Gambit proved a clever container for romantic ideas in a slightly safer bottle, and the Frankenstein–Dracula Variation (a monstrous piece-sacrifice tangle named by Tim Harding in 1975) still lurks inside it as one of chess's wildest named lines.

Why it matters

A flexible cousin of the King's Gambit: White keeps the attack in reserve. Enjoying a genuine modern revival as a surprise weapon with real bite (the Vienna Gambit scores brutally below master level).

Notable games

• Hamppe–Meitner, Vienna 1872 (the "Immortal Draw")