Aggressive, unsound, and fun attacks in chess!
#QueensPawnOpening
Those of you who follow my YouTube channel and blog would know that I generally prefer aggressive and bombastic games of chess, over more positional games. This doesn’t mean that I don’t enjoy the occasional careful positional game, but as I only usually play a couple or so of online games a day, I simply like big attacks that evoke a narrative in my mind.
At the beginner-intermediate level, I think this is where some of the most fun can be had in chess! For instance, there’s drama in launching a somewhat foolhardy push – whether it is successful or whether the opponent successfully defends.
In the opening, this is the realm of the named gambits. Most gambits place the player at a material disadvantage, and often, an absolute one according to computer analysis. But there is usually some sort of compensation that makes it work against humans – for instance, an improved position, accelerated development, or simply pulling the game into lines unfamiliar to the opponent.
Sometimes in the middle game, you can gambit a piece, that is, make a tactical sacrifice for some sort of advantage as well. Now, it’s best when this is entirely sound, but aggressive moves often invite the opponent to blunder right back!
In this game, the opening seemed to be moving the game towards a positional type of game, and I had the sense that the resolution of the tension in the centre of the board was going to be disadvantageous to me. So, I decided to take a very aggressive stance in the game. Firstly, I opposite-side castled to my opponent to create an imbalance, and also to prepare for a full-on attack on the opponent’s king. Then, when my opponent advanced their pawn to h3, asking my bishop on g4 what it was doing there, I decided to call my opponent’s bluff and whacked that pawn with that bishop! This is the equivalent of walking right up to king’s guards and stabbing one in the chest while surrounded and with no hope of escape!
The unexpected turn of events for my opponent resulted in them scrambling to plug the hole in their defence with a knight, forgetting that my bishop was on a suicide mission. So whack, the g2 pawn goes down as well, and their king is now exposed. My queen gives check on the now semi-open g-file and the opponent’s king hides in the corner. But just like before, my unsound attack doesn’t just affect me, but unbalances my opponent and in the scramble to counterattack my queen with their rook, these defenders also box in their king. With nowhere to move, my knight jumps into the fray, capturing the last of the king’s guards, the pawn on f2 with checkmate!
Game on chess.com: https://www.chess.com/game/live/47802610431
