Vienna Game | Max Lange Defense 4... d6 | Game Review #12
#vienna #maxlange #gamereview
Welcome to another episode of the "chess noob 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!
In the Vienna Game, one of the slightly annoying responses by Black is when they play the Max Lange Defense, and then on move 3, the super solid d6 (1. e4 e5 2. Nc3 Nc6 3. Bc4 d6). Effectively, this tends to move the game down a more positional lines and it often isn't possible to launch an early massive attack against Black's king.
In this video, I'll go through some of the typical themes and ideas that crop up when a Vienna Game goes down this path!
Firstly, on move 4, a decision will need to be made. Evaluation-wise, the best move is probably (4. Nf3). However, in doing so, the game will head down an Italian-ish path. Is that what you want to do? For myself, I play the Vienna to avoid playing the Italian, so I don't usually play this, but you do you!
A very Vienna-ish idea is to play f4 and then develop the knight behind the pawn. Before we can play f4, we need to support the f4 square with the dark square bishop, and to do that, we need to move the d-pawn. So, the next move is (4. d3) - not the most optimal in this position, but perfectly fine. And without Black doing anything unusual or immediately exploitable, the next two moves are also as before - f4 and then Nf3 (4... h6 5. f4 Nf6 6. Nf3).
In this game, Black attempted to pin the knight to the queen (6... Bg4), quite a common manoeuvre. However, it's a mistake in this context as we can chase the bishop with our kingside pawns, and the bishop almost gets trapped. By move 9, we've developed a powerful connect 4 diagonal of pawns, and forced the bishop to move 4 turns in a row to an awkward square on the edge of the board!
As we move out of the opening into the middle game, we both castle queenside. The interesting thing about this position is that Black has an okay position according to Stockfish evaluation for most of this part of the game. However, it doesn't "feel" like it to human sensibilities as I have a more straightforward attack on Black's position. This comes to a head on move 22 where Black offers to not only trade queens, but also, offer a concession where they damage the structure of the king's defensive pawns. And in doing so, the evaluation shifts from [0.00] to almost [+2].
Almost immediately afterwards, Black blunders [+4.6], having been drawn into the wake of my attack. In attempting to trap my bishop, they potentially lose sight of what is potentially their most valuable piece, the pawn on f6, which is a passed pawn. This results in me capturing not just one, but now two pawns, and immediately forcing a series of balanced trades.
By move 32, we'd entered an endgame where Black had a rook and knight vs my rook pair, and I was up two pawns with a passed pawn on the h-file. Stockfish evaluated this at better than [+9]. There was quite a bit of shuffling in the endgame and although Black played well, it wasn't difficult to play with the White pieces. On move 50, one move away from mate, Black resigned. GG!
Game on chess.com: https://www.chess.com/game/live/74214024679
