The Alien Gambit: Top Five Traps
In today’s blog I am going to show you the top 5 BEST traps in the Alien Gambit, an extremely tricky gambit for white that has been invented by streamer @WittyAlien that even titled players find hard to defend against, so lets get into it!
The Alien Gambit starts of with 1.e4 c6 ,the Caro-Kann defense, 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 dxe4 4.Nxe4 and black plays Nf6, a sound and the most popular move for black, and here instead of the usual Ng3, instead we play 5.Ng5 h6 and here we sacrifice with 6.Nxf7!!
Now you may me ask, “Noah, what is the point of this sacrifice, doesn’t it lose the knight for no reason?” well I will now show you why, the Alien Gambit is an extremely tricky opening for black to defend against, with white having a none stop attack on black, and of course there are the traps, which even 2000 rated players fall for, and you my friend are no lucky enough to see some of the very best of these traps now!
Trap 1
After black plays 6...Kxf7 taking our knight we follow up with 7.Nf3, aiming in the future to go and play Ne5+, blacks most popular response is Bg4, which looks good at first but is actually a mistake because then we play 8.Ne5+ forking the king and bishop which already gives white a 84% win rate and a +4.0 advantage according to the engine!
That’s already bad for black, but it gets worse as after Kg8 instead of capturing the bishop you play 9.Bc4+! Kh7 and you follow up with 10.Qe3+ g6 11.Qxg6#
Trap 2
The second most popular move for black after 7.Nf3 is 7...Nbd7, here you play 8.Bc4+, if Ke8 you play 9.O-O and the most common move here is Nb3 where you respond with 10.Bd3 and here the most popular move is Bg4 again, with the average rating for playing this move is 1951, and yet again it is a terrible mistake! Here you play 11.Ne5!! and if they take our queen we play12.Bg6#
Even if they don’t take our queen we should win this game because our attack is so strong that white has a 94% win rate and a +4.6 advantage.
Trap 3
Another very popular move after 7.Nf3 is 7...Bf5, here you play 8.Ne5, blacks best move is Kg8 9.Bc4+, and here the most popular move is e6, which is actually wrong because we play 10.g4 attacking there bishop, and here the best move is b5 striking back, however the move that most people play is Be4, but we play 11.Bxe6 Kh7 12.f3 and here the most popular move is Bd5, a critical mistake because we play 13.Qd3+ Ne4 14.Bf5+ g6 15.Bxg6+ and here whites position is to strong, as they win 85% of the time and have a +8.3 advantage.
Trap 4
If instead of 9...e6 , another popular move from black is Kh7, after this you still go 10.g4 and they will still play Be4 and here we go 11.g5!! sacrificing THE ROOOOOK (sorry I couldn’t help not saying that lol) Bxh1 is h most popular move, which falls for checkmate with 12.g6.
Instead of being checkmated black can also play 11...hxg5, here you play 12.Nf7, and here in one game black played Qc7 13.Nxg5 Kg6 14.Bf7+ Kf5 15.Nxe4 and black made a huge mistake by playing 15...Nxe4 , because white plays 16.Qf3+ and black resigned because it is checkmate in two with Qf4 (the only move) and Qxf4#. The black player was rated at the time of the match 2181, it just goes to show how deadly the Alien Gambit can be, even against people with nearly 2200 elo.
Trap 5
After 7.Nf3 the third most popular move for black is 7...e6, attempting to block of the a2-g8 diagonal from your deadly light squared bishop, here you play 8.Ne5+ and here there are several ways black can lose immediately, like if 8...Ke7 ,with the average rating for black being 1878, they lose because of 9.Ng6+, forking the king and rook.
If they play 8...Ke8 we will go 9.Bd3 there most popular move is Bd6 you play10.Bg6+ Ke7 and you fork with 11.Nf7 and there king is so weak that you will comfortably win this game.
And then there is 8...Kg8 the most popular move for black and the best move according to the engine. Here you play as always 9.Bd3 and they will play Bd6 yet again, and here you should play 10.f4, the move that gives white the biggest win rate in general, but not only that as the most popular move here by a big margin is Bxe5, a big error as after you recapture they have to move there knight, usually to D5, here you play 12.O-O Nd7 the most popular move 13.Bg6 Nf8 14.Bf7+ Kh7 is forced 15.Qd3+ g6 we sacrifice with 16.Bxg6 Nxg6 17.Rf7+ Kg6 and finally Qxg6#.
The average rating for black in this checkmate is 2221.
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 .
