BLUNDER! Can you decline the Vienna Gambit with Bb4?
#ViennaGambit
At the late-beginner, early-intermediate level, I find opponents trying to experiment with novel ways of declining the Falkbeer (standard) Vienna Gambit (1. e4 e5 2. Nc3 Nf6 3. f4). Typically, all of these are bad and this is one of the advantages of the gambit. It is actually quite forcing and most of these creative responses can be punished quickly.
Recently, I had a match where my opponent declined the Vienna Gambit with an immediate aggressive bishop move (3... Bb4). This is most like the Zhuravlev Countergambit (https://www.chess.com/blog/vitualis/awesome-giraffe-ish-response-to-the-zhuravlev-countergambit-vienna-game), or a kind of "reverse" Ruy Lopez.
This is a straight up blunder [+3.77] as the pawn on e5 is under attack by the f4 pawn, which then follow with an attack on the knight on f6 (4. fxe5). One of the ideas of the Vienna Gambit is that if Black refuses the gambit pawn, it is often okay push the attack and open the f-file.
My opponent opted to sacrifice their knight to recapture their pawn, and probably thought that they had a neat tactic with a wayward queen attack with check (4... Nxe4 5. Nxe4 Qh4+) to recapture the knight. However, it doesn't work as the check can be blocked by the attacked knight and White is completely winning in this position [+6.44]. On move 8, Black hangs their queen, I oblige and capture it on move 9, and they resign. GG.
Game on chess.com: https://www.chess.com/game/live/59694561095
