Vienna Gambit Declined with Qe7? chess noob Game Review! #5
#ViennaGame #ViennaGambit
This is the fifth episode of the "chessnoob Game Review" series where the focus will be on identifying in how a game, whether I win or lose, could have been improved. This gives me an opportunity to reflect more deeply about a game and hopefully, the lessons that I draw for myself will be helpful to my fellow beginner and beginner-intermediate chess players!
Today, we have another standard (Falkbeer) Vienna Gambit game (1. e4 e5 2. Nc3 Nf6 3. f4) but where Black declined the gambit with their queen (3... Qe7), a move I had not previous encountered. This is not a good move [+1.73] as the queen is pushed around after recapturing the board in the centre (4. fxe5 Qxe5 5. d4). Black offers a queen trade (5... Qh5) and after thinking for over a minute, I couldn't see how this would be bad for me and accept (6. Qxh5 Nxh5).
At the end of move 6, I have two pawns in the centre and a developed knight developed, while Black had only one knight awkwardly on the edge of the board. Stockfish agreed that White was substantially ahead and despite material equality, gave an evaluation of [+4.5]!
On my next move, I advanced my knight to the d5 square, a powerful move in the Vienna as it threatens a fork of White's king and rook after capturing the pawn on c7. This was the second best move according to Stockfish. There is an extraordinary engine line that is worth highlighting!
Engine line: that line starts with (7. Be2), immediately attacking the undefended black knight on the edge of the board. It has only one square it can go (f6) where it won't be immediately captured for free, so this move (7... Nf6) is practically forced. However, as per the usual Vienna Gambit idea, we can now advance our e-pawn and attack the knight once again (8. e5) and now, the only square available for the knight is its home square of g8 making this a forced move (8... Ng8). Incredibly, the best possible position for Black according to Stockfish at the end of move 8 is where Black has no developed pieces or pawns!
Now, I wished I found that line, but as before, I played the almost as good and human move (7. Nd5) and my opponent found the best response (7... Kd8). One of the tricky things with Vienna Gambit lines is that White's advantage is almost entirely due to development and position as the material is equal. This means that inaccurate play can result in an attrition of that advantage, and this occurred in this game. Luckily for me, my opponent made some inaccurate moves as well and had some structural disadvantages in that they had given up the right to castle. The king in the centre is a liability and a target. This ended up being a decisive weakness when Black allowed one of my centre pawns to reach the seventh rank with a full open d-file for my rook. With Black's rooks stuck on the corners and unable to develop, my opponent opted to resign in that lost position. GG!
Game on chess.com: https://www.chess.com/game/live/58837840147
