
Scotch Gambit | DESTROY with Dubois Reti Defense!
#scotch #scotchgambit #duboisretidefense
I've recently been having a good run with defeating higher rated opponents! Most of this is just luck, but it still feels good!
In this game, my opponent with the White pieces played the Scotch Gambit (1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 exd4 4. Bc4). I'm not a Scotch Game player, but if I were, I would probably play this line! It's a very winning opening according to the Lichess community database of beginner-intermediate rated games of blitz and rapid with an amazing White vs Black win ratio of 56% to 41%.
Those are pretty incredible odds by move 4, especially where there is a very high chance that you'd get the position (all normal/main line moves by your opponent) and the evaluation is almost still equal according to Stockfish at high depth [-0.1]!
However, I've studied this before in terms of how we should respond with the Black pieces! In my opinion, the best response for Black is the Dubois Reti Defense (4... Nf6)! This move aligns with a general opening principle - develop pieces, knights before bishops! Furthermore, if we know the line (and it narrows to a single path), we effectively bait White into playing (5. e5). This is a good move for White, pushing forward their e-pawn and threatening our knight. However, this is what we want... if we know the critical next move, and that is (5... d5)!
We counterattack the bishop on c4 with our d-pawn and the very interesting thing here is that the win ratio is now reversed! White vs Black is now 43% to 53% even though the objective evaluation is [0.00]. The natural looking moves here for White is an e-pawn move - either capturing the knight on f6 or the d5 pawn via en passant. Both moves are mistakes. The best next move for White is Bb5, not necessarily the most obvious move, and even then, the win-ratio is basically balanced between White and Black.
In this game, White blitzed out the next move - castling - and this was a mistake [-3] - as after we mutually capture each other's pieces (6... dxc4 7. Bg5 Be7 8. exf6 Bxf6) - I'm up two pawns in material. In essence, this line results in Black avoiding some of the nastier Scotch Gambit traps (e.g., the Haxo Gambit), and White not being ahead on development despite giving up a pawn. This is the result of their pawn having moved multiple times in the opening.
On move 24, White makes a fatal blunder [-M4] with (24. Kh2). I think they wanted to move their king off the back rank, but lost sight of the fact that they hung the pawn on f2. This allowed my queen to infiltrate, chasing the king to the centre of board and checkmated. However, my view is that my opponent's mistake is that they simply played too quickly for a 15+10 game and undercalculated their moves. They lost the game on move 27 with 16:07 on the clock! Effectively, they lost but had gained over a minute in time at the end!
Game on chess.com: https://www.chess.com/game/live/80440885833