London (offhand game), 1827

William Davies Evans vs Alexander McDonnell

The game that started it all. Evans — a Welsh sea captain who is said to have worked out the idea while pacing the deck of his mail ship — tried his new pawn sacrifice against Alexander McDonnell, one of the strongest players in the world at the time. The historical record preserves the opening clearly but the full score has not survived reliably enough to reconstruct here. Notice the move order: Evans castled first and only played b4 on move 5, not move 4 as everyone plays today.