Four Knights Italian | AMAZING Opening Attack Pattern to Know!
#fourknights #italian #brilliant
When playing with the Black pieces, every now and then, you'll face against the Four Knights Game, Italian Variation (1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Nc3 Nf6 4. Bc4). Down this line, there is a specific aggressive move available to Black to know; (4... Nxe4)!
Although this almost looks like a gambit, the correct line for White is not obvious and my experience is that the unprepared opponent will almost always make a mistake! After White captures our knight (5. Nxe4), Black now has the powerful (5... d5), a pawn fork of White's knight and bishop!
Most of the time, White will presume that they'll need to capture the d-pawn with their bishop, a mistake, and Black will have the opportunity to capture back with the queen with development (6. Bxd5 Qxd5). And on the end of move 6, the evaluation is [-1.4] and according to the Lichess community database of lower-rated games of blitz and rapid, Black has a commanding win ratio advantage of 59% (Black) vs 36% (White)!
White doesn't play the most accurately from this point onwards, but it's a difficult position to play. Black had a development advantage as White had to move their knights several times in the opening. This allowed a rapid attack on White's king while still in the centre. White's careless weakening of their dark squares (11. b3) resulted in a loss of their queen.
By the "middle" of the middlegame, the winning attack was clear! I managed to infiltrate with my queen (20... Qe2+) down the open e-file. With three attackers (queen, rook, and bishop) a mating net was being woven! On move 24, I found a brilliant move with a rook sacrifice! This forced White to trade away their knight, the second last defenders around White's king, which then allowed a forced win of the king's rook, their last guard! Move 28, mate! GG!
The big takeaway from this game is to be aware of the opening attack pattern available to Black in the Four Knights Italian! In this game, White never recovered pretty much from move 4!
Game on chess.com: https://www.chess.com/game/live/90127134117
