Vienna Gambit | The MOZART of GAMBITS!

#ViennaGame #ViennaGambit #brilliant 

The Vienna Gambit is the "Mozart" of chess openings.  Mozart, of course, spent much of his life in Vienna.  He created works which are not only brilliant, but often also whimsical and fun!  This is the exact character of the Vienna Gambit!

In this game I develop an absolutely crushing position out of the Vienna Gambit. Well, not quite - it was a Vienna Game where on move 2, my opponent played a waiting move (1. e4 e5 2. Nc3 a6).  Effectively, it transposed into the same lines as the Vienna Gambit afterwards, but where I was effectively a step of tempo up.

And this acceleration absolutely destroyed the Black position!  One of the things with the Vienna Game is that it might look like a quite defensive position if you're not familiar with it.  However, down some lines, especially the Vienna Gambit lines, it creates a devastating early attack down the f-file.

One of the tactical themes is the brilliant bishop sacrifice capture of the f7 pawn, something that has featured in several Vienna Gambit and Vienna Game videos.  This forces the Black king to capture, drawing it onto the f-file, which in many of the gambit lines, will now be fully open, controlled by the White's rook.  The king then is relatively trapped that side while White marshals multiple pieces into the attack.  Not uncommonly, Black has little development and is at the mercy of White's invading forces.

In this game, Black had opened space on the queenside with some early pawn moves, and this allowed the king to desperately escape, eventually in an awkward and sad alcove on a7 on move 19.  Incredibly, apart from pawns, all of Black's remaining pieces (rook pair, queen, and queen's knight and bishop) were still on their starting squares!

Black fought on valiantly, but on move 37, I captured Black's last piece, a bishop with my queen, and Black resigned.  Happily, my ELO rating for rapid crossed back into the 1400s at the end of this game.  GG!

Game on chess.com: https://www.chess.com/game/live/67828298951