Jaenisch Gambit Accepted | CRUSHING the Ruy Lopez Opening!
#ruylopez #jaenischgambit
This was a nice smooth game of the Jaenisch Gambit with the Black pieces, against White's Ruy López Opening. White accepted the gambit (1. e3 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 f5 4. exf5), which immediately gives me a nice advantage with Black!
The tactical ideas in the Jaenisch Gambit Accepted is relatively straightforward. For the cost of the f-pawn:
- We immediately strike forward with our e-pawn, which threatens White's knight on f3. This allows us to win tempo as White is forced to move their knight several times in the opening.
- White is often unable to safely defend their offside pawn on f5, and we make use of the semi-open f-file in an early attack.
- If White exchanges their Ruy López bishop for our queen's knight, then we can often also semi-open the d-file for a very early attack.
In this game, White exchanges their bishop (5. Bxc6 dxc6) and then addresses their attack on their knight by bringing it forward (6. Ne5). The problem for Black is that they now have two pieces (pawn and knight) offside and poorly coordinated. Stockfish this gives the evaluation advantage to Black at [-1]. Given that White is AHEAD one point of material, the interpretation is that Black is substantially better in position.
Black firstly recaptures a pawn with (6... Bxf5), and White decides to castle short immediately, an understandable move (7. O-O). However, this is a mistake [-2] as with the very thematic move in the Jaenisch Gambit of Qd4, Black's queen develops to a powerful central square with another attack on White's knight. This forces it to move yet again, this time to a slightly awkward square, winning Black more tempo.
The middlegame demonstrates White's disadvantage with delayed development. I set up an attack on White's weak f-pawn on f2, and White has limited means to respond. The rather early semi-opened central files (f-, e- and d-files) are difficult for White to navigate against the attack. White finds the correct move with (15. d4), attacking my bishop on c5 and blocking the diagonal, as well as opening the diagonal for their own dark square bishop to develop. However, after en passant (15... exd3), White needed to find their one good move (16. Be2), to defend the f2 pawn, blocking the diagonal and closing the e-file.
However, it's a complicated position and White doesn't find the move. Instead, they attempt to defend the f2 square with (16. Ne4), which blundered [-M2]. I didn't find the lovely sequence which involves a queen sacrifice, and then back rank checkmate (16... Qxf2+ 17. Nxf2 Rxe1#), but in this position, it didn't matter. After I captured White's knight with (16... Nxe4), I now had an overwhelming three attackers on White's f-pawn on f2. Although there wasn't a forced checkmate, White would lose massive material in the ensuring attack and so they opted to resign. GG!
The big takeaway from this game is to try the Jaenisch Gambit against the Ruy López Opening. Although it is theoretically a bit suboptimal according to the engine, it often leads to dynamic and fun attacking games for Black that is often very winning.
