Hammer of Von Hennig - Part 2

Next Thursday is here, and we're back with the highly anticipated continuation of our series on the "Secret" Von Hennig Gambit!

In the first part, we left off discussing Line 2 of our opening.

Let me be clear (after some lively discussion in the comments!): I'm not a salesperson for "rotten" gambits. I’m just an enthusiastic explorer! While Line 2 is theoretically well-known and contains sharp traps (which I covered), my conclusion remains: Black actually has good chances here if they navigate the traps successfully.

Check out this live game where I had to fight tooth and nail on the defending side! My opponent got carried away, "burning all his assets" in a misguided fire of initiative, after which the game lost all meaning for him. Sometimes, the best defense is letting the opponent self-destruct.

Here is the game!

Line 3 The Bishop Goes Nowhere

This third possible line arises after Black plays 5... e6. Black immediately shores up the weakness on f7 and avoids the catastrophic early losses we saw in lines 2 and 3.

However, this safety comes at a price: their middlegame position will be somewhat constrained, giving White excellent chances to mount an attack.

Black has a large defensive arsenal here, ranging from Queen-side counterplay to centralizing their pieces. I've gathered a few wildly different games to give you a concept of the possible actions for both sides.

In the first example, Black got totally carried away with Queen-side maneuvers, only to be met with a crushing central sacrifice. Ouch.

In the next game, Black also defended actively, though the idea of ...b5 looks highly dubious. We’ll pretend my opponent played it just to give us a good didactic example!

In this game, Black tried to avoid our previous trick by advancing another pawn (...g6).

And here’s the game where this gambit delivered the benefits: the final game of the Team Ukraine Blitz Championship (Amateurs). My opponent, Nikolay Kuzmin , surprisingly used the Caro-Kann Defense, maybe he thought he could confuse me! He was wrong.

This win is the Best game of November.

Line 4 Black declined the gambit 

It’s a common paradox with chess gambits: they’re not so great if your opponent refuses to accept the poisoned pawn!

In this final section, we look at the various ways Black can decline the Von Hennig.

This is actually a unique situation: I don't know many other gambits that can be declined in so many distinct ways!

Covering all of them would require a separate, massive blog post, so I'll only briefly show the most interesting declined lines.

Let’s start with the worst outcomes for Black...

In blitz, facing an unfamiliar gambit often leads players to improvise, resulting in... well, somethnig original.  

In contrast, the move 5... e3 gives Black comfortable play.

But don’t think White forgets his tricks! In the next game, I mixed an explosive cocktail of Von Hennig ideas, featuring a double Bishop sacrifice on e6 and h6! Enjoy!

The move 5... e5 is arguably the most effective decline. It forces a Queen exchange and leads to an equal endgame. However... sometimes, even here, we manage to find a special adventure.

I truly hope you enjoyed diving into the Von Hennig Gambit and that it has fascinated you as much as it once fascinated me.

A quick summary of our findings:

Line 1 really catastrophic for Black.

Line 2 mostly good for Black.

Line 3 interesting middlegame with chances for White to attack.

Line 4 generally equal.

I'm convinced this interesting gambit could be a weapon for blitz and rapid games, especially when your opponent is completely unprepared.

I wish you many victories!

Thanks for reading!