Kamikaze Fail: How To Effectively Combat Reckless Offensive Maneuvers

In a recent game, I was extremely disappointed in the desperately low level of gameplay from a 1400+ rated player on Chess.com. My opponent, as White in a 10 minute blitz game, used a Kamikaze attack very early in the game to find his way back into the match.

At move number 7, White chose a Kamikaze attack with Bxf7+ (see diagram) by taking a pawn and checking, in order stop me from Castling and hold me in a weak position. White did this, obviously, in order to gain some sort of meager tactical advantage by following what he expected to be Kxf7 with Ng5+ and then Qxg4.

This is a desperate strategy that many players, regardless of their current rating, use on Chess.com. They tend to employ the Kamikaze as a shock or scare tactic when they think they're in a bad spot.

Here's how to deal with it when comes at you.

By choosing the option that causes the least damage, Kd7 in my case, the pressure was still on my opponent to act and act quickly.

Instead of a strong offensive series, White never got a chance to move it's Queen because there was no opportunity for Qxg4. White found out at move #16 that most of it's defensive capabilities were stripped away as a result of this single, unwise offensive tactic.

This was a real game, if you are noting the amount of bad moves by White. If you doubt it - here is the link to the actual game on October 22nd of 2013.