How to Play - and Play Against - the Englund Gambit: An In-Depth Guide

The Englund Gambit is one of the most venomous openings in Chess, and in this blog, you'll learn both how to utilize it to win fast as well as how to defend against it.

The gambit occurs after white moves their pawn to D4 and Black responds with the daring move, E5. The position looks like this:

The simplest and easiest way to avoid becoming ensnared in a trap in the Englund is just to not take the E-pawn. Some ways to do this include moving your pawn forward to D5 so that an exchange is no longer possible, or by moving to E3 so that the D-pawn is protected and you can trade.

However, while these are easy, lazy, and completely viable methods, they are not the best moves possible. If you know how to properly defend against the Englund, accepting the gambit will likely lead to a middlegame where you have a positional or material advantage. Due to this, I have presented information on how to play and stop the Englund Gambit below. I hope you use this knowledge to trap your opponents or avoid being destroyed early on via this trap!

The Most Popular Version of the Englund:

Firstly, let's start with what is easily the most popular variation of the Englund Gambit. This line involves attempting to win White's BB-pawn and potentially their queen or the game if they play this variation incorrectly.

GothamChess made a great video about this version, and Eric Rosen has attempted it in a number of videos on Youtube. Without further ado, let's listen to my trash but comprehensive explanation of how this trap works.

Here's what it looks like if your opponent falls for this deadly trap:

Here, Black sacrifices a pawn and forks White after they develop their bishop to protect their newly acquired material advantage. Naturally, White blocks the check with the bishop to defend both pieces.

This drops the B2 pawn, but that's perfectly fine because Black's queen will be in a bad position as long as you play it right. The crucial blunder in this line is Bc3, because the next move pins that piece and White will have to sacrifice something if they want to defend their undefended rook.

The move Qd2 just further imperils the player who is getting destroyed by the Englund, because the queen can't defend the bishop and guard the C1 square which is why Black can take the bishop and win the game if White takes it back.

So, what is the main line here for White to maintain their advantage and not lose the game like this? Well, here it is:

By the end of the first variation, White earned a pawn in the center while giving up a pawn in the corner and they now have a 0.9 advantage according to Stockfish. They can continue to develop pieces or attack Black's poorly placed queen, and I personally like the move E4 to open up the light-squared bishop so that it can go to a square like C4 (to pressure the F7 pawn) or B5 (so that the knight is pinned if whoever played the Englund decides to move the D-pawn.

In the other variation shown, Black makes the nasty move Nb4, threatening to capture the C2 pawn for a fork and a check that mandates either the loss of White's queen in order to stop checkmate.Oftentimes, you will likely see moves like Rb1 here that actually blunders the queen.

The way to stop this is for White to move their knight to D4 to defend the pawn that's under threat. As Black, when you see this move, it's best to try and develop or retreat your pieces that are in the now stagnant attack so that they aren't estranged from the rest of your position forever.

However, the move A6 seems quite logical as it threatens the knight that is trying to hold off the attack. Unfortunately, the move Rb1 here attacks the queen, and Black has to move that piece away to A3 and forget about the knight temporarily. Next, White moves the hanging knight to B5 where it attacks the queen and threatens to fork the king and the rook. Moving the queen to A5 temporarily stops both threats, but it overlooks the stunning move Nd5. This move is now threatening the same fork discussed above twice. and while both knights are hanging, neither of them are takeable. If the queen takes the knight on B5, Nc7+ is a royal fork. And if Black's knight takes the knight on D5, then that's a free queen because the piece is pinned.

With all this covered, are there any simpler ways to try and defend the pawn or come out with a strong position because of the gambit? The answer is yes, so here's another one of the paths that lets you come out of the Englund with a better position. This time, you focus on keeping the pawn your opponent sacrificed to you.

If Black plays the move Qb4 as opposed to moving the knight to that square, then you can just block and develop a piece via the move Nc3. Your bishop defends the B-pawn, and you can push that pawn or attempt to kick the queen out of your territory so that you can move the bishop out without gift wrapping the pawn for your opponent.

There is one more approach to try and keep your small material advantage when you have the White pieces and are playing against the Englund gambit. Here's how it looks if Black tries to follow the same trap they're used to when combating this approach:

As you can see, White is a pawn up and developmentally destroying Black if they try this trap in response to the move F4, which is a simple pawn move that defends the E5 pawn. Personally, that's the move I play when defending against this version of the gambit.

The Eric Rosen Variation:

International Master Eric Rosen runs a YouTube channel where he talks his viewers through some of the most devious and dangerous traps in the game that your opponent has only a minuscule chance of seeing. One of the cooler traps he's popularized is a sneaky version of the Englund Gambit where you sacrifice a knight and a bishop  in exchange for a full queen. 

Here's how this line looks if White falls for this version of the Englund:

As you can see, while the knight blunder may look suspicious at certain levels, this trap is pretty easy to fall into. Even if you do get tricked however - unlike in some of the other traps - you may be losing but still have a decent chance at winning the game because the computer only evaluates this at -1.7, though I think it's a bit harder to play against in practice.

As I said in some of my annotated comments above, this trap is easy to avoid if you play Nc3 instead of Nf3, or if you move your E-pawn instead of either of your options. The reasoning behind this is that Nc3 defends your queen so that it isn't hanging after Black sacrifices their bishop to draw your king away. If you move your E-pawn, you have another square opened up to move your king to and still defend the queen even after the bishop sac checks. If the Englund player keeps going with their sacrifices even after you've made moves like this, then they've just given you tons of free material for nothing.

Additionally, even if you play through the first couple of moves of the Eric Rosen variation, your queen is still safe and secure as long as you don't take the "free" knight or pawn. In fact, you might want to play a sneaky move like Nc3 to defend your queen and develop, and it's very possible that the player with the black pieces won't realize that their knight is actually free then and will just proceed to play something else.

All in all, this is a decent trap that comes out of this version of the Englund, but you will likely come out of it a pawn down if both players play correctly.

The Englund Gambit: Soller Gambit (AKA "OH NO MY QUEEN")

The final subvariation of the Englund that we'll be discussing in this blog is the Soller Gambit. This trap revolves around a beautiful queen sacrifice that leads to a quick checkmate, and I would be shocked if most players under 1100 had any idea how to stop it.

This version of the Englund isn't just a one trick pony. If the player with the White pieces doesn't stumble into your main trap, they may inadvertently walk into another one that lets you win back a pawn and prevent their king from castling.

So, how do you stop this? Well, it's quite simple: Just play e3 before you play bg5.

This stops any and all traps that the player with the Black pieces may attempt, and you have a very solid position at the end of this variation.

Conclusion

There are other variations of the Englund Gambit, but you need not be worried about any traps in them unless there's something that has just completely flown under the radar and next to no one knows about.

I hope this convoluted and dull guide has helped improve your Chess!