Wayward Queen Attack | STOP! 🛑 It's BAD! 😱
#waywardqueen #beginnertips
The Wayward Queen Attack (1. e4 e5 2. Qh5), is an opening that is commonly played by beginners. In fact, in the Lichess community database when limited only to players with an average ELO of 400, it is played by White in 10% of games after the Double King's Pawn Opening!
However, there is a massive cliff; in Lichess when we include all players other than those with the lowest average ELO range (i.e., average ELO ≥ 1000 in the Lichess tool), the Wayward Queen Attack is only played 2% of the time, and when limiting to average of 1800 and higher, it rounds to 0%. What this means is that outside of the early beginner level, it's practically never played.
Why is this the case? The Wayward Queen Attack is only one level of abstraction, or one level of sophistication beyond that of the simplest "quick win" tactical idea, the Scholar's Mate. I cover this in the Introduction of my book, 50+2 Chess Quick Wins! (get it on Amazon!). By bringing out the queen first, Black has more ways to make a mistake. However, the Wayward Queen Attack is fundamentally not a good opening as it is not only easy to refute, but Black will also typically gain a massive advantage in the opening after deflecting the checkmate attempt and counterattacking Black's queen with tempo.
This game was a great salutary lesson. I had the black pieces, and my new Brazilian friend on chess.com @Antonioax2 played the Wayward Queen Attack. Now, they're rated at just under 900 ELO in rapid, so I'm not entirely sure how we matched, probably a chess.com glitch. We actually played a second game, which I'll make another article and video, where my opponent demonstrated that their playing strength was much better than in this game. The thing to recognise is that if Black doesn't fall for the opening trick (and few do by intermediate levels), the Wayward Queen Attack is challenging to play for White.
The critical move for Black on move two is to recognise that White's queen has an attack on the e5-pawn, which comes with check. The simplest move to play is developing the queen's knight (2... Nc6), which defends the e-pawn. The critical mistake that White is fishing for is the immediate (2... g6), as with the dark square diagonal open, (3. Qxe5+) comes with an absolute fork of the king and h8-rook.
As expected, White next plays (3. Bc4), setting up a Scholar's Mate attack on f7. Now, (3... g6) is powerful! It blocks the checkmate, and counterattacks White's queen winning tempo. In this position, one of White's best moves is to un-develop the queen to d8. The attack has basically fizzled; pull out and accept the game as a Bishop's Opening where White has lost a move, and Black has seemingly had to commit to playing a kingside fianchetto setup, which might not have been what they wanted to do. However, most Wayward Queen Attack players opt to play (4. Qf3); this isn't a mistake according to the engine, but keeping the queen in play is not simple and requires very accurate play, meaning that it is difficult.
For Black, the immediate recognition is that with Qf3, Black is making a second attempt at a Scholar's Mate. Black's approach is simple - either Nf6 or Qf6 is good and basically ends the attack. In this game, and commonly in Wayward Queen Attack games, White now falls apart.
The bias that White usually has is a type of sunk cost fallacy - the insistence of keeping the queen in play despite it being problematic. In the game after (4... Nf6), White needs to defend against Black's expected counterattack with the powerful queen's knight to d4, as this has an attack on the queen and the weak c2 square, which comes with an absolute fork of the king and rook. White however, developed their knight to the edge of the board (5. Nh3?), possibly with the intention of quickly castling kingside. This was a mistake; (5... Nd4)! Here, White's single best move is clear - un-develop the queen to d8, but as noted, the bias! White keeps the queen in play with (6. Qd3?!) and the evaluation is now [-4.3]. Six moves in, White is completely lost!
In these positions, one of the best moves for Black is d5. The general opening principle holds; if you can take control of the full centre with pawns, it is typically good to do so! In this game, however, I had a strong sense that White's Wayward Queen Attack was not only practically refuted, but that White was psychologically vulnerable! Thus, I decided to aggressively counterattack myself, chasing White's pieces with pawns with the goal of rattling White. With each attacking move they are forced to respond to, White will increasingly feel like they are losing. The result is an increasing cumulative probability that White will crack under pressure and blunder, and more than that, the blunder will come with emotional damage! These moves are not the most accurate, but Black remains safely ahead throughout.
So, on move 6, I immediately attack White's bishop with (6... b5!?). When evaluated with a clear head, White should see that this is nothing to be feared as Bxb5 is "fine", with Black trading their powerful knight and a pawn for White's bishop. That's pretty good! However, as expected White couldn't psychologically contemplate the loss of their bishop, and so pulled it back, a mistake!
Seeing that my tactical assessment of White's approach was correct, I launch another speculative and threatening pawn forward (7... c5!?). The implicit threat is that the pawns will trap White's bishop! White desperately moves their bishop yet again (8. Bd5?). Notice: White has been forced to move both their queen and bishop multiple times in the opening. This almost always will result in a major disadvantage in development!
In this position, I could simply trade my f6-knight for White's bishop (Stockfish suggests that this is the most accurate move), but my queenside pawn launch was done with purpose! The c-pawn now steps forward yet again (8... c4), with an attack on White's queen! And my prediction came true - White cracked, (9. Qe3) is a blunder as (9... Nxc2+) royal fork! Emotional damage, GG!
The big takeaway from this game is that no matter how fun the Wayward Queen Attack is as a beginner player in grabbing some quick wins, at some point it needs to be retired. It just isn't any good! I love quick wins in the opening, but there are other gambit openings to try that are effective into the intermediate level and beyond.
