Romantic school

The Romantic school is a historical label applied mainly to nineteenth-century chess. It is associated with open positions, rapid piece development, meaning bringing pieces from their starting squares to useful squares, and direct attacks on the king. An open position has relatively few pawn blockages, allowing bishops, rooks, and the queen to become active quickly.

Romantic play placed great value on the initiative, meaning the ability to create threats that force the opponent to respond. Gambits were common: a gambit deliberately offers material, usually a pawn, to gain time or activity. Material means the pieces and pawns each side still possesses. Sacrifices, voluntary offers of material to gain another advantage, were also common, as were combinations, calculated sequences designed to produce a concrete result.

Adolf Anderssen and Paul Morphy are two central names. Anderssen's famous Immortal Game against Kieseritzky in 1851 became an emblem of the Romantic aesthetic because of its attack and sacrifices. Still, it is misleading to reduce every great Romantic player to reckless sacrifice. Morphy, for example, combined brilliant attacks with extremely efficient development.

The later Classical school, associated with Steinitz, placed more emphasis on grounding an attack in objective positional advantages. The Romantic school was not a club with official rules; it is a useful but simplified label for an era and a set of common playing preferences.