Quick Wins #22 | 5 move checkmate Englund Gambit!

#EnglundGambit #quickwins 

chess noob Quick Wins! is a series of short videos, to demonstrate very quick wins!  As a beginner, you become aware of the Scholar's Mate and the Fool's Mate, but neither of these show up in real games.  However, there are tricky quick checkmates and wins that occur, even at the intermediate level of chess.

The quickest win by checkmate possible in "real" games other than very early beginner games falling for the Wayward Queen Attack (4 moves), or contrived positions, is in FIVE MOVES.

I don't think that I've ever had that occur before this (very short) daily game on chess.com with a subscriber.

I had the Black pieces and my opponent opened with the Queen's Pawn Opening, and as usually, I played the Englund Gambit.  White opted to decline the gambit (1. d4 e5 2. d5) which is instantly okay/good for Black.

The evaluation is near equal, if not slightly favouring Black. My approach in the Englund Gambit Declined is to to develop mostly normally, but there are some potential traps as White has a somewhat overextended e-pawn, and a relative loss of tempo by moving the e-pawn twice.  The position isn't necessarily natural for a Queen's Pawn Opening player.

I develop my king's knight (2... Nf6) and then my king's bishop (3... Bc5) to their natural squares.  White, perhaps feeling aggressive, developed their first piece, the dark square bishop to pin my knight to the queen (4. Bg5).  This is a mistake [-2.3] as the knight isn't actually pinned due to a dynamic threat.

I set a trap (4... Ne5), seemingly moving my knight out of the attack of the bishop and counterattacking the bishop, but, "oh no, my queen!".  White, thinking I just blundered and hung my queen, captures it gleefully (5. Bxd8), not recognising that (5... Bf2#) is checkmate!  GG!

Game on chess.com: https://www.chess.com/game/daily/472214673