DD 30: Englund Gambit Part 2

Englund Explained

Introduction
It’s been more than a year since I played the Englund Gambit. I enjoyed the experience, but decided it wasn’t viable against higher rated opponents. Even though I still hold a positive track record with it, I abandoned the opening and set out to study the Queen’s Gambit Declined. 
Recently, while talking to my chess buddies I had a lot of fun sharing some of the ideas in the Englund Gambit as well as some ideas against it. It made me realize how much I enjoyed it. This motivated me to write another article as a continuation of the previous one. In this article, I’m going to share:

• the essence of the Englund Gambit
• how to play against the Englund gambit

The essence of the Englund Gambit
On their official opening page the opening is characterized by chess.com as “not a sound opening”, while Wikipedia states “The gambit is considered weak”. On Chessbase it’s even called “the second worst opening in the whole of chess”. There are other characterizations found on other websites. One calls it “a highly rewarding trap for Black”. Or “an ambitious attempt by black to avoid the normal systems that lead to close positions”. The best one, however, is

“an ambitious attempt by black to lure white into making rational, but dangerous moves”.

My own words were that playing the Englund is fun, exciting and challenging, but the drawback is that it’s really bad, from an objectively standpoint.  The key to success is understanding how to play it. When you are playing an unsound but dangerous opening, you should not focus on accurate moves, but on moves that win.

Example game #1

To illustrate my point I’m going to use my game vs blackninjakills.

Example game phase 1: Typical Englund Gambit.

The game follows the typical main line of the Englund Gambit. Which leads to the following position.

Evaluation: White played all the best moves and now has a significantly better position (+ 3.13 with Stockfish 15 at depth 35). It will be difficult to defend the position.

Phase 2: Keep choosing aggression over accuracy

My priority seemed to pick aggressive moves as much as possible, at the cost of accuracy and quality. Annotated are moves to 26.

My position was bad after move 7, almost 20 moves later it's even worse. Simply put, my position went from bad to worse.

Phase 3: No strategy and no accuracy
Next move my opponent played 27. g5, which brought me back in the game. The engine evaluation dropped from ~ +7 back to ~ +1.

This phase did not go well. I missed some crucial moves, I decided to break through at the wrong moment and in between I was just shuffling pieces around. Simply put, my position went from worse to worser.

Phase 4: the Englund Effect.
We ended up in a very divisive position. The top 3 recommendations by Stockfish are completely winning for white. All other moves are completely winning for black. 

Stockfish evaluates the position somewhere between +11 and +12. White has multiple ways to secure a victory. Both moves Kb5 and Kc5 would make the position unwinnable for me. If you do the full calculation, you will find that g4 also leads to a totally winning position. 
However, there is still hope for me. Even though the top 3 engine moves lead to a +11 position or better, there is a steep drop-off between the third best move and the fourth. The difference is somewhere between -25 and -30. In other words, white has to play one of the top 3 engine moves to win. If they play any other moves, I will win. 

Because of the Englund effect, I end up winning.

.

“Chess is a simple game. Thirty two pieces chase a victory for up to 10 minutes each and in the end, the Englund always wins”

- Gary Lineker

How to beat the Englund
Directly contradicting the previous chapter, the Englund doesn’t always win. In fact, when players try to play it against me the odds are very much against them. Instead of playing Bf4, I go for Nc3. The best move for black is 4. Nxe5. You get this position:

This is where more than 90% of players miss an amazing opportunity. More than half of the players take back with Nxe5 (which is not good) and almost 20% of players go for e4 (which is fine according to Stockfish). But the move I recommend is Nd5!

• Almost 20% of players mess up immediately. Black should play Nxf3+, which most (over 80%) players do. Against the 19% or so that don’t, you will win over 71% of games.
• In the other games, where black does play Nxf3+ gxf3, almost 40% of players mess up anyway. there will be another 20% of games where you opponent messes up big time (Qd6) or 20% where you opponent messes up little time (Qc5). 
• The best thing about this line is that it’s virtually risk free. If black plays the best line, which is Nxf3+ first and then Qd8, you still have an expected winrate of 60-61% and an engine evaluation of roughly +1.00. 

Example game #2

An example of how winning can be easy.

Example game #3

An example of how winning can be hard.

What can I say about this last game. I had a winning position on move 10. According to Stockfish the position was around +8 and I had 9 minutes and 22 seconds left on the clock. That as winning as a position can be. 

I'm not going to dive into why I lost that game, because I have no good reason. Sometimes you screw up. Maybe it's the Englund Effect I mentioned in chapter one. Maybe Gary Lineker is right. In the end the Englund always wins.

That's it. I hope you enjoyed this.

Feel free to share your games with or against the Englund Gambit.