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Chess Openings Explained: Vienna Game

Chess Openings Explained: Vienna Game

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The Vienna Game is one of the most fundamentally sound openings in chess. It follows all basic opening principles and allows creativity for both aggressive and non-aggressive players.

Black has three main options to respond to the Vienna Game. They are 2... Nf6, 2...Bc5, and 2...Nc6. Each response from black opens the door for white to choose how the game will proceed. 
White can play a quiet game, simply developing minor pieces toward the middle of the board and try to stay ahead in time and space, or white can play a gambit with f4, transposing into various King's Gambit lines. 
Falkbeer Variation: 2... Nf6
After this move, white has three main options. They are 3. f4, 3. Bc4, and 3. g3. Note that 3. Nf3 transposes to the Petrov's Three Knight's Game.
3. f4
At grandmaster level, the gambit move 3. f4 is considered too risky of an opening. It is best met with 3... d5, striking back at the center. However, this move is a good choice for aggressive players at lower levels, where opponents are unlikely to know that 3...d5 is best. 
 3. Bc4
The move 3. Bc4 leads to a position that can also be reached from the Bishop's Opening. Black has several choices here; 3...Bc5 can transpose into the King's Gambit Declined, 3...Bb4 leads to wild, but probably equal play, 3...Nxe4 is also possible, leading to many branched-out positions.

Mieses Variation: 3. g3

The move 3. g3, the Mieses Variation, is a quiet continuation in which White fianchettoes his kingside bishop, a line played by Vasily Smyslov on a few occasions, most notably in a win over

Lev Polugaevsky in the 1961 USSR Championship. 

3. a3

In addition to these lines, the late American master Ariel Mengarini advocated the whimsical 3. a3, sometimes called the Mengarini's Opening. It is not a serious try for advantage, but is essentially a useful waiting move that gives White an improved version of Black's position after 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6.

Conclusion

In this blog, we went over the Falkbeer Variation in the Vienna Game. The well though-out diagrams for each move you might see give you enough information on what to expect from the Falkbeer. The Falkbeer is a very solid opening, but some variations can be dense and complex. I hope you learned something from this blog, and write down in the comments which opening I should go over next.