Checkmate in 16! Jaenisch Gambit – chess noob Quick Wins! #2

#RuyLopez #JaenischGambit 

chess noob Quick Wins! is a new series of short videos, to demonstrate very quick wins!  As a beginner, you become aware of the Scholar's Mate and the Fool's Mate, but neither of these show up in real games.  However, there are tricky quick checkmates and wins that occur, even at the intermediate level of chess.

The second video in this series comes from the Exchange Variation of the Jaenisch Gambit, against the Ruy Lopez Opening, where my opponent plays the common, but blunderous, Qh5+ line.  I've covered this variation in some depth in my most recent chess noob Game Review video: https://www.chess.com/blog/vitualis/chess-noob-game-review-3-jaenisch-gambit-exchange-variation-6-qh5 

The trappy logic is that Qh5+ on move 6 by White looks very clever, as the typical pattern would see the White queen and knight devastating the king-side pawns as the h-pawn is pinned to the rook by the queen.  If the h-pawn captures the knight on g6, the queen then captures the rook in the corner.  However, the devious nature of the Jaenisch Gambit is that with the Black queen on d4, White will commit themselves down this line without calculating the stumble on the last step - that the rook is defended by the queen, meaning that the h-pawn wasn't pinned at all!

My opponent rushed through their moves in the opening like it was blitz, and I don't think that they even saw that the queen guarded the long diagonal.  They spent only a second playing move 8 where they captured my rook with their queen (8. Qxh8), and thus, losing their queen in the process!  This is a cautionary tale - don't rush out your moves!

At the end of the exchange, my pieces were developed, my king-side files were open, and I had a massive attack on my opponent's king.  Checkmate came on move 16.

Game on chess.com: https://www.chess.com/game/live/56935814125