Match 3: 2022 Australia Day Tournament final round - Englund Gambit!

#EnglundGambit 

I managed to make it to the third and final round of the Team Australia, 2022 Australia Day Tournament (Division 3) on chess.com!  This is match 3 of 8 and I've managed to win my first two matches!

I entered the final round with the lowest rating.  The contestants:

• vitualis (the chess noob!) - 1158
• @gothedogs - 1159
• @KnightBeatsAll - 1186
• @edwardsl - 1229
• @flylikeaD6 - 1266

I'm really excited that I'll have a good chance of coming within the top three and getting a (virtual) medal!  I'm going to covering each of my matches, win or lose, in this round.

Match 3 (https://www.chess.com/game/daily/426285977) was against @gothedogs and I had the black pieces.  My opponent lead with the principled queen's pawn (1. d4).  I used to respond with d5 and then played the Slav Defense badly.  Very recently, I discovered a forcing response that better fit my style - the somewhat unsound, by very fun, and surprisingly effective at lower-rated games - the Englund Gambit.  I've only very recently created a video and article (https://www.chess.com/blog/vitualis/how-to-play-the-englund-gambit-win-against-1-d4).

We enter the Main Line of the Englund Gambit (1. d4 e5 2. dxe5 Nc6 3. Nf3 Qe7 4. Bf4).  And then, the moment of truth with the super aggressive triple fork by my queen on move 4 (4... Qb4+).  Stockfish gives this a rating favouring White at around [+2] but it is not easy to find the best moves, especially if you're a d4 player expecting a slower and closed positional game!

My opponent finds the best move (5. Bd2) but the threats aren't over yet!  Stockfish will recommends pulling out of the attack, but one doesn't play the Englund Gambit at this point without pushing forward!  I take the b-pawn (5... Qxb2), and my opponent plays again, one of the best moves developing their knight (6. Nc3).  I double-down on the attack with a forward knight move (6... Nb4) and now, it's all-or-nothing (Stockfish is now screaming [+3.48])!

However, there is only one good move for White, which is (7. Nd4).  Defence of the c2 pawn is a must as an unusually poisonous attack is on the verge of being sprung.  Simply, the white king is presently smothered.  Knight captures pawn on c2 comes with check, which forces the white queen to capture it and then be lost!  However, my opponent's last move (6. Nc3) sets up a common pattern that is normally good, and their next move proved this was their plan.

They moved their rook to attack my queen (7. Rb1).  Normally, this is a forcing move on a potentially misplaced queen.  However, in this specific scenario, it was a blunder [-4.72]!  My knight sprung forward (7... Nxc2+) attacking the smothered king, forcing the capture of the queen (8. Qxc2 Qxc2)!

At this point, I was feeling very clever with myself, but I did note that I had almost no development, though I was up 7 points of material.  I wondered how I was going to convert the advantage.  My opponent immediately attacked my queen (9. Rc1) and I saw that I had one of two options.  I thought that it was very likely that evacuating my queen must logically be the best thing to do.  However, with my lack of development, I saw a risk of having my queen chased around, potentially trapped, and then embarrassingly lose from a major opening advantage.

The second option was to immediate trade my queen for their rook, force some piece trades to reduce the differences in development, and then just play the game up three points of material.  The more I thought about it, the more I liked it!

The game of chess isn't just cold calculation and evaluation.  It is also psychological brinksmanship and there is a message of supreme confidence, a bluff that is conveyed, when you cold-bloodedly sacrifice your own queen to force a simplification of the board!  Effectively, it can cause damage at an emotional level which can result in opponent convincing themselves that they cannot win.

A few moves later, the dust settles.  Optically, it looks like I've most of my pawns in normal positions.  White has a gaping wound on their queenside.  My opponent doesn't continue, and I win my third match in this round!