Englund Gambit Accepted | Reading your opponent's weakness! ⚡ Quick Wins #99
#englundgambit #quickwins #tactics
Well hello here! We’re now at Quick Wins #99 and today, I have an unrated 10-min game of rapid against a Random Noob. This game is a simple, but good example for beginner players on reading and responding to your opponent’s mistakes. The corollary message for us all is that we must look beyond the next turn, and this is made easier by learning to recognise tactical attack patterns.
I had the Black pieces in this game, and we started with the Englund Gambit Accepted (1. d4 e5 2. dxe5), to which I progress down the typical line by placing pressure on White’s forward and doubled e5-pawn (2… Nc6).
At this point, White’s best move is to defend their e-pawn by developing one of their minor pieces (3. Nf3 is best) and move the position towards the Englund Complex. In the game, White played the less common (3. f4) to defend their e5-pawn. The curious thing here is that at high depth, Stockfish identifies that the move is “fine” for White [+0.2], but I would argue that for humans, especially at the beginner-intermediate level, it is a mistake. The problem with f4 is that White has created a permanent weakness along the dark square diagonal to their king on the f2-square. The engine might be able to account for this with precision, but for humans, this tactical weakness is ripe for exploitation by a wily opponent!
A brief historical digression
The oldest recorded game of the (3. f4) response by White in the Englund Gambit Accepted is relatively contemporary. It was a game between two German players in the 1976 chess Bundesliga (English: Premier League): (Kastenholz — Holstein, 1976, Germany).
Check out this exciting Englund Gambit Accepted game where Holstein (Black) crushes his opponent with the game ending in 16 moves, which included the offer a brilliant queen sacrifice! 🤩👍
Firstly, I developed my dark square bishop to target White’s weak f2 square (3… Bc5). White develops normally (4. Nf3). And here we reach a critical position with (4… d6)! Evaluation-wise, White is almost fully ahead by the value of the won gambit pawn [+0.8]. However, the Lichess community database demonstrates the trickiness of the position which has been reached almost 51,000 times at the time of writing – Black has a major win advantage of 52% over White 44%.
After White captures (5. exd6?!), there is a potential trap which I opted not to go for in this game. The best move for Black is (5… Nf6) as if White is greedy and captures down the chain with their pawn (6. dxc7??), then Black has the brilliant bishop sacrifice which deflects White’s king (6… Bf2+! 7. Kxf2), the queen’s look at each other across the fully open d-file, and Black’s queen flies across the board for the kill!
EMOTIONAL DAMAGE | The MOST BRUTAL Chess Move EVER! 😅
Note: this isn’t the identical position, but it’s the same tactical trap in the Englund Gambit Accepted as this previous short!
However, first a principled move (6… Nf6). When setting a trick or a trap, it’s much more likely to be effective if the opponent doesn’t see it coming. And to do this, there must be enough intuitive rationale for them to step into the trap willingly.
This came immediately with (7. g4?!). We should ask ourselves, what is White thinking with this move? White’s tactic is quite transparent with a bit of introspection and projection – they are making a kingside pawn push to attack my f6-knight. What I realised was that White was likely blind to the risk along their dark square diagonal, or else, they would have never played the moves they did. Importantly, their f4-pawn was pinned by my d6-bishop to the g3 square, but this isn’t obvious, especially if they didn’t see the risk.
After thinking for almost a minute, I found a tricky move based on my reading of White’s thinking – (7… g5!?). Now, this move is technically a mistake as White could simply ignore the provocation. However, as White was already intending to attack my f6-knight, how are they likely to interpret the move? Ostensibly, it seems that it blocks the further advance of their g-pawn, and as their likely next move was g5, this would “make sense” to White. This reduces the likelihood that they will be suspicious of the move, that there is “more than meets the eye”. I’d also expect that they’d see that in my attempt to block g5, that it seemed like that I had hung my g-pawn, and that capturing would result in the attack on my f6-knight – what they were aiming for.
It seemed that I was right as White snapped captured my pawn in only 5.5 seconds (8. fxg5??). I imagine they were shocked to hear the checkmate chime almost immediately with (8… Bg3#). Good game, GG!
Next week will be the Quick Wins #100 (🥳) and I have lined up one of the best historical quick wins, a fantastic example of one of the most beautiful checkmates in chess, achieved through epic trolling by one of the masters of the Romantic Age!
