Opening Repertoire: The Scotch 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 !

Intro: 

Hello guys welcome to part 4 of the series of blogs and today we will discuss the very exciting opening we call the Scotch Game 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿! 

So, let's jump into it! 

Details:

So the Scotch opening comes after e4 e5, Nf3 Nc6, and instead of the Spanish or Italian or whatever we play d4 the Scotch Game. 

Here black must accept the pawn because anything else is not good so we may see takes. The mainline here is to take back and here black should not take the knight as that activates the white queen 👑 and now white is dominant. So, the line would continue with Bishop c5 pressuring the horsey. This line is perfectly fine and nice and it is totally enough to crush your opponents. But I have something better, the Scotch Gambit! It is when exd4 happens and you play Bc4 not taking back and allowing black to defend it. 

Now before I show it in details I want to give you a slight overview of another move here which many also call the Scotch Gambit but actually it is nameless and it is the move Ng5!?. As it is nameless I call it the Dager opening.

This is a mistake according to stockfish but practically it is fine only if your opponent is a beginner or the low levels of intermediate chess and more effective if it is blize or bullet. I defeated quite a lot of people OTB with this! And there is a trap that actually many fell for and it is the following........

But anyways let's look at what really is known as the Scotch Gambit. Now here two moves are the most common-----  Nf6 & Bc5.

Let's look at the most common move white with and that is Nf6.

When Nf6 is played often castling is a good option but I will show a lesser known line and that is Ng5 a later dager. Here variation may most often go as Ne5 or d5. If Ne5 then a nice response is Bb3 dropping back and also keeping an eye on f7. And here we are already threatening to kick the knight on e5 and capture the f7 pawn and maybe also the Rook. So here black should play h6 and give the no parking 🅿 sign. And here we counter attack with f4 and so now black has to take our knight ♞ (pony) and now we take theirs again attacking and black mostly will take the pawn with the knight and now a very important move you can't forget Bd5. It's idea is that black ain't going to now be able to play d5 developing the bishop and also it attacks the horse 🐴 ♞. The most played move here is Nc5 and by the way stockfish 🐠 here say f5 is the best move but it is very crazy and I doubt anybody will play that. Now we castle and now just follow the follows (Yea I knowit seems weird yes!).........

So, coming back instead of Ne5 black play d5 which is a bit better. Here their are a few options after we take it and they are Na5, Ne5 and Nxd5. If takes the following:

If Na5 or Ne5 they are quite same take the pawn with your queen they trade and it is very equal. But what is the best move for black? It is Qe7 and for that the following line

So all the way back and now the second most common line comes on the Haxo Gambit. 

That's the Haxo Gambit to know more check out this video (link-- https://youtu.be/NLkv7jbPrRI?si=xej5sTRPf7Ee_oB0)

Outro:

Hope you enjoyed! 

Bye👋🏻!