Grand Masters Are Frightened Of This Gambit!

In today’s blog I am going to tell you about the Portuguese  Gambit a sub line of the Scandinavian Defense that not many people now about but is incredibly dangerous for even Grand Masters! so lets get into it shall we?

The Portuguese Gambit starts like any normal Scandinavian defense, with 1.e4 d5 2.exd5 however instead of playing Qxd5 like usual, we play Nf6, which is the move that starts the Portuguese Gambit.

Line 1 (beat 1900’s)

After Nf6 the most common move for white is 3.Nc3 after this you play Nxd5 and they follow up with 4.Nxd5, whites most common response, however this is an error by white as it activates blacks queen after Qxd5, they will play 5.d4 then you go Nc6 and they have to go 6.Nf3 you continue with Bg4, they go 7.Be2 O-O-O they go 8.c3 defending the pawn and the you go e5 and here many players go 9.dxe5 thinking they are trading but you then go Qe4 and you have won! As your position is completely winning, say they play the most popular move 9.Qb3, you go Nxe5 and there whole falls apart as they cant defend the bishop on e2. And know I will show you why this works so well against high rated players, as when white played 5.d4 , the more common moves are c4 and Nc3, however the average player to play d4 is much more higher rated then people that play c4 and Nc3, so it works better against higher rated opponents.

Line 2

After Nf6 they may also go 3.c4, if c4 you go e6, they go 4.dxe6 Bxe6, even tho we are a pawn down we have the advantage in mobility as we are better developed. White then plays 5.d4 you go Bb4+ they go 6.Nc3 Ne4 and we are putting a lot of pressure on the knight and we know this as after Ne4 black has a 65% win rate. Say they go 7.Ne2 we go Bxc4 and look how much pressure we have on white! If 7.Bd2 then Qxd4 and they go 8.Nxe4 Qxe4+ and after this there is way to many threats for white to handle, but say they play the best moves 9.Be2 Nc6 10.Bxb4 Nxb4 11.Qa4 Nc6 12.Nf3 O-O-O and still the centralized king is still in so much danger and black should win, and by the way, the most popular move here is actually 13.Ng5 which looses the knight to Qxg2!

After Ne4 another move white plays is 7.Qd3 then you go Bf5 8.Qe3 O-O and we are preparing Re8 say 9.Bd2 Re8 10.Nxe4 Rxe4 11.Bxb4 Qxd4 and you win. Or 9.O-O-O then Nxc3 and you win again.

Line 3 (destroy grand masters!!)

After Nf6 they may also go d4, the best move for white, however this doesn’t put white out of danger, as there are still many pitfalls, which GM Wang,Z learned the hard way against IM Damaso,R ,after Wang played 3.d4 Damaso followed with Bg4, and Wang blocked with 4.f3 Bf5 5.c4 Damaso followed up with e6, gambiting his pawn, 6.dxe6 but instead of fxd6 Damaso went Nc6 developing further and attacking the d pawn,by the way even tho this wasn't played in the game, but just in case your opponent makes this move, if here they go 7.d5 you can go Nb4 and you win!But in the game Wang went 7.Be3 Damaso played Bb4+ 8.Nc3, just covering and Damaso played Qe7 and Wang played 9.d5?!, trying to attack the knight, but Damaso completely ignored it and played O-O-O, as both pawns are pinned down. And here Wang played 10.Qa4??, which at first looks good for white but white is already lost due to Nxd5!! 11.cxd5 Qh4 12.Kd1?? Rxd5!! 3.Nxd5 and Damaso finish's it off with Qe1# and remember folks, white was a Grand Master!!

A game from the GOAT

In our previous game after Nc6, Wang played Be3, however what if your opponent played exf7+ instead? I will now show you what to do. First of course you go 7...Kxf7 black played 8.Be3 Bb4+ and now here white can ether play Nc3 or Kf2 but it doesn’t really matter as it usually leads to the same position, after say 9.Nc3 you go Re8 they go 10.Kf2 and it all looks fine but here the black player played Rxe3!! 11.Kxe3 Nxd4 and here white didn’t play Qxe4 because of Qe7+ and wherever the white king goes you will skewer the king and queen, so after Nxd4 white played 12.Kf2 Bc5 13.Na4 but black played Bc2! Which forks the queen and knight so white went 14.Nxc5 as his only option Bxd1 15.Rxd1 Qe7 16.b4 Re8 threatening checkmate so 17.Bd3 Qe3+ 18.Kf1 and here the black player played b6 and won comfortably but he could have played Ng5!! 19.fxg5 Qf4 20.Nf3 Nxf3 21.gxf3 Qxf3 and the game is pretty much over with this lovely family fork. And now you may be wondering, what is so special about this game? Well, the white player was Grand Master Vaibhav.S ! And his opponent? It was the GOAT, the man, the legend, Magnus Carlsen . This game shows that even Grand Masters crumble in the face of the Portuguese  Gambit!

Line 5 

In our the previous line, Vaibhav played 8.Be3 after Kxf7, but what if they don’t play Be3 and play 8.d5, the most popular move? Well I will show you, you will play Nb4 they will go 9.Na3 and here if you turn the engine on you will see it is -5.4 in blacks favor, for your position is already way to dominant, and we can see this as after your next move, 9...Bc5, black win 78% of games! And this dominance is because of the E file,as black can just go Re8 and Qe7 and blacks attack is just to devastating for white to handle.

Thank you for reading this blog! I hope it helped! In the future i will look to making more blogs like this one, if you want to see those then don't forget to follow my account @NoahdeAlwis .