Openings: The Queens Gambit

Introduction

d4, d5, c4

I usually like to play this as white, because there are so many ways to get back your pawn with a winning position, with you controlling the center and ahead in development.

Here is how most of the Queens Gambits I play end up with me as white-

As you can see, black is in quite a squished position, so they don't have space to develop, on the other hand my pawns, they have advanced and are now attacking enemy territory. I am also ahead in development, and closer to castling and winning the game due to immense space.

So what should you do if you are in this situation?

First we should go a few moves- a lot of moves back to this position;

Instead of moving their bishop to a patheitic square, they should accept that their pawn is dead, and continue developing, not making the situation worse- Here's what they probably should have done, but before I show that to you, try to find the move yourself

So, you found the move, if they push the pawn to attack your knight you just developed you can move your knight to e5, and you can actually protect your pawn!

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Different Variations

So what if they don't take the pawn, and do something else?

The most usual responses are either Queens Gambit Accepted, Queens Gambit Declines, or Slav Defense, lets start with the third wheeler - Slav Defense

This position is interesting, because if you take, and they take back, you have an open C-file

I'm not usually comfortable with open files so early in the game, I feel like my defense is craking open, so I don't usually take in Slav Defense, the other thing about Slav Defense is that your knight can't go to c6, where it usually is, which is why I usually see Queens Gambit declined, or accepted in games.

Other than that in the Slav Defense, it's not really special for anything, so just do what you normally do, develop, castle, get a rook into play, bring out your queen ( Not in the openings of course )

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So we went over Queens Gambit Accepted, and Slav Defense, now lets go over Queens Gambit Declined, so queens gambit declined is like this:

I am fine with taking the Queens pawn, because it's now a half open E-file and they don't have a pawn on the E-file, only I do. But anyways, the main reason is I have 2 pawns in the center, and they only have 1. ( Once you move your E-pawn of course, into the center, then you have 2 pawns in the center )

So again there is nothing special about this, they might want to trade pawns, but you can give backup.

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So anyways in conclusion, the reason I am showing the queens gambit is that if they play this wrong they will pay, like the game I showed you in the very beginning.

So I hope you try it out, and that's it for this blog.