Why you can’t decline the Vienna Gambit with Nc6

#viennagame #viennagambit 

When I play the Vienna Game with the white pieces, many opponents have the intuition that they shouldn’t accept the gambit. But how does one decline the gambit? The best response is the somewhat unintuitive d5, which enters the Vienna Game Main Line. D6, which looks suboptimal as it seemingly blocks in the dark square bishop, is suboptimal but certainly not terrible. Practically all other intuitive looking responses to the Vienna Gambit are bad for black. Today, we’ll look at a game where the opponent declines the gambit with the sensible looking Nc6.

The power of the Vienna Gambit for the player with the white pieces is that it is quite forcing in nature. There is only one good response by black, which is d5. At the beginner-intermediate level, I’ve found that most of my opponents do not play this move. This means that as white, you’ve a very high chance of being substantially ahead after the first few moves in the opening. Occasionally, as in this game, the opponent compounds error with error, resulting in a completely winning position when entering the middle game.

I hope you found this video interesting, and thanks for watching!

Originally published: https://adventuresofachessnoob.com/2022/02/18/why-you-cant-decline-the-vienna-gambit-with-nc6/