Vienna Gambit | MAGICAL GAME!
#vienna #viennagambit #brilliant #doublebrilliant
Every now and then, you get a MAGICAL game of chess. This was one such game that I played today where, of course, I had the Vienna Gambit Accepted (1. e4 e5 2. Nc3 Nc6 3. f4 exf4)!
Black attempted to pin my e-pawn to my king, but those of you who know the Vienna Gambit would recognise that this doesn't work as we have the symmetrical queen move (5. Qe2), which develops our queen, unpins the pawn, which is once again attacking the knight on f6. In the second part of the opening, Black plays an uncommon approach - aiming for an expansion on the queenside. I knew that this was unlikely to be good as it was too slow, but as it was unfamiliar, I had to play carefully.
On move 11, I castle queenside, and we enter the middlegame. Black is significantly behind on development, with no development on the kingside, and I had full control of the centre. On move 12, I had a long-ish think of around two minutes of what I should do. Strategically, I wanted to launch an attack on Black's king, which was still in the centre. But how? Then, I saw a devious plan and on move 12, advanced my knight forward (12. Ng5).
Black must have assumed that my target was their h7 pawn, as both my queen and knight attack it, and it's only defended once by their rook. So, their (12... g6) makes sense. However, my actual target was the f-pawn on f7! I sacrificed the knight (13. Nxf7 Kxf7) and was very gratified to see that Stockfish rated it a brilliant move! What's the idea? Firstly, it traps Black's king in the centre, and it is pulled onto the f-file, where I have a future discovered check. It also punches a hole in the defences around Black's king, create a route for piece infiltration.
Then on move 14, I push the e-pawn (14. e6+), expecting Black to capture with their d-pawn (14... dxe6), which they do. This was actually a blunder by Black [+M8]. The reason is that the d- and e-files are now opened, full exposing the king to my attack down the centre. On move 16, I miss a very lovely criss-cross checkmate-in-1. I must admit to not being so good with seeing diagonals still on an actual board (I played this game on my Chessnut PRO). However, on move 18, I find another brilliant move - I sacrifice the rook (18. Rxf8+ Rxf8)! The tactical logic here was to remove one of Black's defenders of their pinned knight on e7. And then on move 20, I had a truly beautiful DISCOVERED CHECKMATE when moving my bishop to any legal square! This meant that I had 7 possible checkmates! MAGICAL!
The big takeaway from this game is to think tactically in your middlegame. Material is of course important, but also think in terms of piece purpose and function in a position or attack.
Game on chess.com: https://www.chess.com/game/live/87529910089
