Vienna Gambit, Declined 3… d6 | RELAXING CHESS!
#vienna #viennagambit #relaxing
I haven't had many Vienna Gambit games recently, so I was very happy to have this comfortable and nice smooth game recently!
My opponent declined the gambit with d6 (1. e4 e5 2. Nc3 Nf6 3. f4 d6) and the idea to know is to develop the king's knight (4. Nf3), with the aim of taking the full centre with d4 to take advantage of Black's slow development.
On move 6, I recapture the pawn with development of my bishop (6. Bxf4), and I notice that Black is struggling with being unsure of the opening approach. Black should have castled immediately, which was presumably the purpose of their (5... Be7), but instead responded with an unbalanced aggressive move (6... Bg4) which attempted to pin my knight to my queen. This was an inaccuracy as that bishop can be easily kicked with h3, and if Black attempts to maintain the pin, the bishop is at risk of being trapped!
Black's relatively slow development and lack of central control allowed me to keep my king in the centre (12. Kd2) relatively safely, connect my rooks on the back rank without castling, and create an attack on Black's king down the h-file. A few moves later, the aforementioned risk to Black's bishop materialises with (15. h5) with the bishop having nowhere to go. Black attempts to trade away some of the attack, but it's not enough.
After I capture Black's bishop which had been pressed against the black king's defensive pawns (20. hxg6), Black blunders by the very natural move of capturing back (20... fxg6). This not only exposes the black king to the light square diagonal, but also removes the only defender of the e6 square. My final move (21. Ne6) forked Black's queen and rook, inflicting emotional damage with an evaluation of better than [+11], and Black resigns. GG!
The big takeaway from this game is to know the response to the (3... d6) decline of the Vienna Gambit. Respond with developing the king's knight to its natural square of f3, with the goal of supporting the taking of the full centre with d4.
Game on chess.com: https://www.chess.com/game/live/91710519703
