Win against the Scotch with the Steinitz Variation!
#ScotchGame #SteinitzVariation
The Scotch Game is a great opening for the player with the white pieces, though it isn’t an opening I typically use. The opening received its name from a correspondence match in 1824 between Edinburgh and London. Previously when I encounter the Scotch Game when playing as black, I almost always played the “Classical Variation”, 4…Bc5. Reviewing my chess.com games, I’ve played 19 games where I enter this variation, and have lost 60% of the time. They are not great odds!
Very interestingly when I looked at the Lichess player database, the Steinitz Variation, or 4…Qh4?! is the most successful move by far for black, winning around 54% of the time. It’s also rarely played as it’s only the 8th most common move in the position. So, in this game that I faced in round 2 of the Team Australia, Australia Day tournament, I decided to give it a go. It’s a very aggressive move – in the theme of the Wayward Queen – and immediately threatens to capture the pawn on e4. Now, I love an aggressive style of play as my experience is that it often works! Place consistent pressure on the opponent and it increases the risk of blunders and mistakes.
As can be seen in the video and the chess.com analyses, white is objectively ahead according to Stockfish after Qh4. However, after a few moves which weren’t obviously mistakes, the evaluation starts to swing in black’s favour. Then, the opponent played g3 – it’s often an error to push king-side pawns when the king is being hunted by the opponent’s queen! This critical weakening of the king’s defence resulted in the loss of white’s rook a couple of moves later.
In the middle game, I continued the very aggressive strategy of hunting the opponent’s king and in fact, blundered a knight move as the opponent could have forked my knight and rook with their bishop. However, like me, they missed that counterattacking tactic which resulted in a completely winning position for me.
So why is the Steinitz Variation a dubious move with the “?!” notation? When examining master games, rather than community games, the Steinitz Variation does very badly with white winning most of the time! This is where context matters. A highly rated player, or someone very familiar with the Steinitz Variation will be able to punish the audacity of black’s aggressive move. However, in real-world beginner-intermediate recreational chess, it’s a very fun and effective line to play!
Game on chess.com: https://www.chess.com/game/daily/405068667
