chess noob Game Review! #2 Jaenisch Gambit Accepted
#RuyLopezOpening #JaenischGambit
This is the second entry in the new series of videos, “chess noob Game Review” where the focus will be on identifying in how a game, whether I win or lose, could have been improved. This gives me an opportunity to reflect more deeply about a game and hopefully, the lessons that I draw for myself will be helpful to my fellow beginner and beginner-intermediate chess players!
This was a 10 min game of rapid, with 5 second increment on Lichess. I had the Black pieces, and my opponent led with the the Ruy Lopez Opening. Recently, I’ve been responding with the spicy Jaenisch Gambit, and my opponent accepted the gambit (1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 f5 4. exf5).
The Jaenisch Gambit is very much like a reverse (Falkbeer) Vienna Gambit. And just like how accepting the Vienna Gambit is bad for Black, accepting the Jaenisch Gambit is actually bad for White. After accepting the gambit, Stockfish 15 NNUE at depth 30 gives an advantage to Black at an evaluation of [-0.50]! Black now has a clear tactic by advancing the e-pawn (4… e4) and immediately attacking the White knight on f3. Just like in the Vienna Gambit Accepted, the knight has nowhere good to go as all the squares it has access to, other than undeveloping to g1, is defended by Black pieces.
My opponent attempts to pin the pawn to my king, but I can immediately unpin with a symmetric queen move (5. Qe2 Qe7). The tension is held for a turn with the Ruy Lopez bishop exchanging itself for the knight (6. Bxc6 dxc6). And then, I suspect my opponent relied on their usual moves in the Ruy Lopez by short castling (7. O-O) and taking their queen out of the prospective pin, and lost sight of the continuity that that knight was still hanging. Ouch. Needless to say, I captured the knight and was basically immediately in a winning position [-4.31] as long as I didn’t blunder back.
My strategy at this point was to castle as soon as possible to get my king to safety, and then to aim to force piece trades and simplify. For instance, on move 12 I had the opportunity to capture an unprotected hanging pawn on c2, or to take the pawn on f5. Stockfish prefers Qxc2, and in the game, I couldn’t see a problem with that move. However, I opted to capture the pawn on f5 (12… Qxf5) to try to encourage a queen trade – what I saw as a safer and conservative option that neutralised my opponent’s most active piece. Stockfish calls this an inaccuracy. I’ll need to reflect on this some more as the difference in evaluation was [-6.54] vs [-4.55] – both options are winning for Black regardless.
My opponent next captured my a-pawn with their bishop (13. Bxa7) and this is a tactical mistake. This is a pattern worth learning actually – the bishop cannot alone capture the seemingly undefended a-pawn after long-castling as it’ll be trapped by the b-pawn. After a forced queen trade with my opponent being forced to open up their g-file and exposing their king (13… Qxf3 14. gxf3), the b-pawn advanced locking the bishop in my territory (14… b6). Two moves later the king whacks the bishop (16… Kxa7).
At this point, I was feeling a bit smug as I had the bishop pair and both rooks, versus my opponent with only their rooks. This isn’t a good thing as I tend to be more reactive and thus, undercalculate. Indeed, although I was in no danger and didn’t blunder a piece, I nonetheless completely missed a beautiful checkmate on move 26 (26… Bxf3#) with bishop and rook, reacting to my opponent’s b-pawn advance that wasn’t a threat. However, being up two pieces was an overwhelming advantage and on move 30, I forked my opponent’s rook and pawn (30… Be5) and White gracefully resigned. Good game!
Game on chess.com: https://www.chess.com/analysis/library/471hwbeJHC
