Englund Queen Sacrifice Line | The RORSCHACH of Opening Attacks! 🤪♟️

#englund #queensac #romanticstyle 

Over the weekend I attended an extended family gathering. I was making some small talk about how I had recently published a chess book (get your copy of Become a Chess Assassin!) when I made an extraordinary discovery. As it turns out, the husband of one of my cousins (a “cousin-in-law”?) is distantly related (cousin of a great- or great-great grandparent) to the magnificent Savielly Tartakower, one of my favourite historical chess masters! It was one of those magical six-degrees-of-separation moments! 🤩👍

Tartakower was an extremely strong player and a major advocate and developer of the Hypermodern approach. He is perhaps best known for his wit and chess aphorisms, including classic one-liners such as the following:

“The blunders are all on the board, waiting to be made.”

—

“The chess game is divided into three stages: the first, when you hope you have the advantage, the second when you believe you have an advantage, and the third… when you know you’re going to lose!”

—

“Erro ergo sum” (I err, therefore I am!)

GM Harry Golombek (1911—1995), three-times British champion and a massive Tartakower fan who translated his book into English, remarked the following:

“… he [Tartakower] would reject a simple advantageous line in the hope of creating something more worthwhile with a more complex line.”

Tartakower approached chess with a romantic spirit, even if he didn’t necessarily play what we would categorise as the pre-twentieth century Romantic style. With that in mind, I want to cover a couple of recent games of the Queen Sacrifice Line in the Englund Complex, a line that I recently labelled the Rorschach of Romantic chess openings.

* * *

Now, I have previously covered the Englund Complex: Queen Sacrifice Line before in a couple of articles and these are worth revisiting if you've never seen it before:

In this article, I’ll describe a way to conceptualise the Queen Sacrifice Line and tactics thematically, a way to play the flawed Englund Gambit in an unwavering and uncompromising style that is reminiscent of Rorschach! 🤪👍 Now, I’m not saying that you should always play like this. Absolutely not! Nor am I saying that this has philosophical truths that extend beyond chess. I’m not even saying that you should play this line! Rather, that this is a fun excursion into playing chess according to a thematic and literary narrative. Let’s begin!

As a quick recap, the Englund Gambit (1. d4 e5) is a flawed but forcing response by Black to the Queen’s Pawn Opening. Why flawed? On turn one, the engine already evaluates the position at better than [+1] favouring White! Why forcing? The advantage only exists if White accepts the gambit with (2. dxe5)!

If White declines the gambit, the evaluation mostly returns to equality and Black has undermined White’s potential of playing the typical positional lines that emerge form the Queen’s Pawn Opening. For instance, the London System which is sometimes declared as being able to be played against anything (1. d4… 2. Bf4), is completely negated by the Englund as (1. d4 e5 2. Bf4?? exf4!). Where White seeks to play a decadent positional game, Black responds with ruthless and combative tactics to capture the initiative.

White’s best responses inevitably result in the Englund Complex position with Black’s queen giving an absolute triple fork (1. d4 e5 2. dxe5 Nc6 3. Nf3 Qe7 4. Bf4 Qb4+). Here, White must find three consecutive moves to refute Black’s attack. Many beginner players will falter, but those will more experience will either find (or know) the Refutation:

• Move 1:               5. Bd2! Qxb2
• Move 2:               6. Nc3! Bb4
• Move 3:               7. Rb1!

For Black, the engine suggests the compromising move as the most accurate (7… Qa3). However, this is an admission of failure. It’s an acknowledgement that the attack has fizzled and that the best that Black can do is pull back and seek to play accurately against White’s counterattack and initiative. This feels like losing.

To that, we say no! 😐

Instead, we uncompromisingly hold onto the initiative with (7… Qxc3!?) even at the cost of our queen! The next several moves are practically forced (8. Bxc3 Bxc3+ 9. Nd2). Black now has an option to capture the only white piece not on the first two ranks, their e5-pawn with either the bishop or knight. Within the spirit of Rorschach, I usually play (9… Nxe5). White’s queenside pawns are smashed, their development constrained, and Black has numerically six pieces to White’s five. Yes, White has their queen and objectively the engine gives them the advantage at [+3], but they will have to prove it against a tenacious player with the Black pieces as we move into the middlegame!

Game 1: The pinned white d2-knight is a target

This was an unrated game against Random Noob. Although it was nominally a game of 10-min rapid, both of us played it much more like blitz, and this line is most effective in the potential chaos of short time controls.

White was probably at the beginner-intermediate level. They knew enough to blitz out the Refutation to the Englund Complex, and the initial best response to the position with (10. Rb3), an accurate though awkward developing move of the queen’s rook.

A tactic that arises simply from bishop’s pin of White’s d2-knight is to “place pressure on the pinned piece”. This is immediately with our e5-knight if permitted, and if not, then to develop our king’s knight on g8 to f6, and then Nxe4. The advantage is that these are easy tactics to play, it develops our pieces naturally, and White must think and respond carefully to the threat. The danger for White is the complacency of luxury; having won the queen they may believe that giving back material is “fine”. For Rorschach, this decadence is evidence of moral decay and can be (should be!) punished.

White plays (12. Be2?), a very understandable move with White giving up their e4-pawn to ostensibly prepare for kingside castle to move their king to safety. But this first trip results into a catastrophic fall! After (12… Nxe4) White carries out their intended castle (13. O-O?), but this hangs their d2-knight! White perhaps forgot that it being defended only by the queen is no defence at all when the attacking pieces are minor pieces (knight and bishop).

With (13… Nxd2!), the knight forks White’s rooks. White impulsively moves one rook (14. Re1??) and in doing so, blunders both (14… Nxb3! 15. cxb3 Bxe1). At the beginning of turn 16, White has five pawns to my seven, and only two pieces (queen and bishop) to my four (knight, bishop, and rook pair). Furthermore, Black’s d-pawn on its starting square is already a passed pawn! I’d achieved a reversal and was completely winning.

White played on valiantly, but it’s much easier to coordinate an attack when there is a big piece majority. White’s queen cannot launch a successful solo attack. They tried, but over-extended and perhaps a bit careless, White succumbed to a devasting royal fork (23… Bc6+) along the long light square diagonal. Emotional damage, good game, GG!

Game 2: Winning through sheer, bloody will!

This second game provides a useful insight regarding the tactical and strategic factors that contribute to “winning”. One critique that I’ve made in my articles, videos, and in my book is the learner discourse that overly focuses on accuracy over almost all other considerations, including fun and enjoyment, especially at beginner chess. In this second game, my American opponent is clearly the stronger chess player: their peak ELO in rapid (~ 1500) is 100 points higher than my peak (~1400). They easily played the Refutation to the Englund Complex and during the game, I could tell that they were playing well, by deflecting all my attacks successfully. This impression was confirmed when I analysed the game afterwards.

And yet, I won this game and did so with intention rather than just luck. How?

Let us consider the win-states in chess:

• Checkmate
• Opponent resignation
• Opponent runs out of time

An accuracy-only approach will support the first win state, which is of course, a good thing. However, learning Romantic chess opening attacks will often also result in checkmate wins (and in the right lines, can be empirically more effective than the most accurate lines), and when a devastating trap bites, the emotional damage on the opponent will often result in them resigning; the second win state.

With the third win state, the important thing to recognise is that some lines can have substantial asymmetry in the difficulty to play. For instance, finding a good move can be much more difficult for one player than for the other. In games with shorter time controls, you’re not only playing against your opponent, but you’re also playing against the clock!

One of the advantages of the Queen Sacrifice Line is that Black has some relatively straightforward tactical ideas, and starts with the initiative, in a position with an advantage in development. Although it isn’t trivial, I would argue that it is easier to play with the Black pieces, while White needs to respond to threats accurately, which can take time to find.

In this game, White chose to avoid the accurate but awkward rook development of Rb3 and deflected the threat on their pinned d2-knight with (11. f3). However, this “cost” them 24 seconds to find.

On turn 13, White attempted to liberate their knight from the d2 square, but I played (13. Nb3 Bc3+), inviting White to draw by threefold repetition should they return the knight to d2, seemingly their best move. Remember, draws are ties! White finds the solution to this conundrum with the assertive (14. Kf2), choosing to manually castle their king. Excellent find! But this cost them 30 seconds.

A few turns later, I play the unsound (16… Nh5!?) to attack White’s now “castled” king with a combination of minor pieces. White plays (17. Qd5) and I gambit my a8-rook with (17… Nf4!?). Stockfish thinks I’m mad, but my logic was that trading my inactive rook for White’s light square bishop on e2 and damaging White’s defences was better.

As per Tartakower: a more complex line can be more worthwhile over a simpler one. When one is objectively losing, simplifying the position makes it easier to play for the opponent. We want to keep the play difficult! So, on turn 23 (23… Nc4!?), ostensibly sacrificing my c3-bishop, but after (24. Nxc3 Ne3), I had manoeuvred both of my knights with an attack on White’s g2-pawn, in the form of a triple fork as the knight also had an attack on White’s rook and queen. This won tempo and guaranteed the capture of the g-pawn the next turn (25… Nexg2).

This is another tactical idea in the Queen Sacrifice Line. We make use of our numerical superiority of minor pieces to launch an attack on White’s king, which is often otherwise defended by major pieces (rooks and queen). In this game, White’s g-pawn was the base of their pawn chain, substantially weakening their king’s defence. Stockfish, of course, isn’t concerned, but it isn’t easy to defend against, especially when a third attacker enters the fray (26… Bh3).

White once again finds a good move (27. Ne2) but this cost them over a full minute to find and commit, leaving them with 43 seconds on the clock to my 102 seconds. My attack on White’s king forced them to trade their queen for the two minor pieces (knight and bishop), and to White’s credit, they recognised this quickly, and definitively made the trade (29… Bg2+ 30. Qxg2 Nxg2 31. Kxg2).

At the end of turn 31, we entered a rook and pawn endgame where White had a clear theoretical advantage of the rook pair to my single rook. However, I had seven undamaged pawns. White’s five pawns were smashed into four pawn islands! I had 104 seconds on the clock to White’s 26 seconds! And so once again, it was simpler to play with Black. I had no immediate risks to my material or structure while White had to manoeuvre carefully to avoid losing further pawns, which could be catastrophic. I played (38… Rc3) and White looked like they would lose their c4-pawn, which would immediately turn my c7-pawn into a powerful passer. They had 10 seconds left, but couldn’t decide on a move on turn 39, flagging from a nominally winning evaluation. Good game, GG!

* * *

To learn how to play the Englund Gambit and other opening attacks in the Romantic style, check out my new book, “Become a Chess Assassin! Learn to play the best chess opening attacks”.