Karel Traxler Explained

Karel Traxler
Full Name:	Karel Traxler
Birth Date:	January 17, 1866

Karel Traxler (1866  - 1936) was a Czech chess master and composer of chess problems. He is best known for the hyper-aggressive variation named after him, the Traxler Variation in the Two Knights Defense.^[1]

Traxler Variation

The Traxler Variation was first shown in the following game against Reinisch, played in Hostouň in 1890:

Problem composer

Because Traxler was a Roman Catholic priest, he rarely played chess in serious competitions. As a composer of chess problems he pursued the style of Bohemian school. He wrote under a number of pseudonyms: Anonymus z Tábora, Karel Kaplan, Vis Maior und Karel Zboněk.^[2] From 1896 to 1899, he edited, in part, the journal České listy šachové (Czech chess letters). He composed over 900 chess problems, mainly 2-, 3-, and 4-move problems, but also multiple-move ones, and more rarely, selfmates. With his brother-in-law, Jan Kotrč, he published a selection of 247 problems that he'd composed by 1910.^[3]

Notes and References

1. Web site: The Traxler Counter Attack . 2004-06-13 . ChessBase . 2009-10-30 .
2. http://www.anders.thulin.name/SUBJECTS/CHESS/Chess_Pseudonyms.pdf Anders Thulin: Chess Pseudonyms and Signatures. An Electronic Edition, Malmö, preliminary 22. June 2008
3. Jan Kotrč and Karel Traxler, Schachprobleme aus den Jahren 1884–1910 [Chess problems from the years 1884-1910] (Vienna, Austria: (self-published), 1910).