EAT FRIED LIVER | Ponziani-Steinitz Gambit! Quick Wins #36

#friedliver #italian #ponzianisteinitzgambit #quickwin 

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 subscriber (@uriahshonor) who won with a crushing 9-move checkmate with the Black pieces using the Ponziani-Steinitz Gambit (1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. Ng5 Nxe4)!  I'd like to think that they learnt it from me!

Stockfish in the chess.com analytic engine now calls the Ponziani-Steinitiz Gambit a "mistake" (previously, it was just listed as a book move). This is great as it hopefully means that even fewer people will learn the move!  It is technically unsound, but at the beginner-intermediate level, it is absolutely lethal to the unprepared Fried Liver Attack player!

And this is what happened in this game.  My sub's opponent persisted with the Fried Liver Attack with (5. Nxf7) instantly erasing the "mistake" with the evaluation now favouring Black! The response to know is (5... Qh4), immediately giving a checkmate threat with queen and knight against f2.  White played the only good response with (6. Qe2), something that is quite hard to see.  However, it is apparent that this was an accident as after (6... Nd4) attacking the queen, White now plays (7. Qe3), a game-ending blunder.

My sub sees it - (7... Nxc2+) a royal fork, they win the queen with check again, and White blunders into a checkmate on move 9. Superb!

Game on chess.com: https://www.chess.com/game/live/78631312841