Diemer-Duhm Gambit | CRUSH the French Defense! Quick Wins #60
#french #diemerduhmgambit #quickwins
chess noob Quick Wins! is a 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.
Today's game is from my mate @benhunt72 of the Chess Boot Camp club and channel who has recently been playing the rather tricky Diemer-Duhm Gambit with the white pieces against the French Defense (1. e4 e6 2. d4 d5 3. c4). Stockfish doesn't like it [-0.8] but as we shall see, it's a gambit where we smash open the closed nature of the French Defense, and thus, potentially take the French Defense player out of their comfort zone!
Indeed, the centre opens immediately (3... dxe4 4. d5 exd5 5. cxd5)! It's very interesting comparing the evaluation with the win ratios on the Lichess community database of lower-rated games of blitz and rapid. White with (4. d5), the provocative push that opens everything up is rated as a bad mistake by Stockfish [-2]. However, the win ratio is even at 48% vs 48%.
At the end of the trade sequence, Black delivers a check and White blocks the check with knight development (5... Bb4+ 6. Nc3) and although the evaluation is still clearly in Black's favour [-1.2], the win ratio is an astonishing 59% vs 38% (White vs Black)!
In essence, the position is practically a cognitive trap. Black plays the most natural (and most frequent) next move with (6... Nf6). This looks very reasonable. Black adds a second attacker to White's d-pawn on d5, and White's knight, which looks like a defender isn't one as it's pinned. However, this is a blunder [+3.6] as White now has the killer move which isn't necessary expected with (7. Qa4+), an absolute fork of Black's king and bishop on b4!
Consider why this works. Black, playing the French, will not be thinking about an open centre in the opening. From this point, Black is playing with a damaged position and down a full piece. On move 13, with White about to force a series of trades to simplify, Black resigns having suffered emotional damage. GG!
Game on chess.com: https://www.chess.com/game/live/92977862635
