wow... good thing I would've never played this.
My thesis on why the Englund gambit is a blunder + A simple system against it
Sort:
Jul 9, 2021
0
#3
icyboyyy wrote:
the englund is just a trap
a reflexive trap, no good things come to black from this
Jul 9, 2021
0
#5
Viznik wrote:
I don’t play it anymore because it never works now and is instantly losing, but the englund gambit was pretty much a guaranteed win sub 1000
unless people watch youtube...
Recently I've been seeing a lot of people try to pick up the Englund gambit as a mainstreamed repertoire against 1. d4. Whether it's beginners who mistake it for the Scandinavian or more advanced players trying to avoid balanced positions like the London, the Englund gambit has been played as an antidote against that first move. However, it quite literally goes against every principle known to chess and the very mechanics of the opening are faulty, which makes it a bad choice and a mistake on move 1.
From this position, black can put a maximum of two attackers onto that pawn. The knight can go to c6 and the queen can go to e7. White can put two defenders onto the pawn. White can play nf3, bf4 and qd5 (although I haven't actually tested out if this works, it's moot anyway as bf4 and nf3 are more than adequate to defend the pawn).
1. Black will never be able to capture that central pawn if white wishes to sternly defend it
2. The white pawn on e5 hinders black's kingside development
3. Given that it hinders black's kingside development, white will be able to exploit the fact that black cannot quickly castle and try to attack
So I'm not sure what the positives of this opening are. After 4. qb4+ in the main lines and 5. bd2, there are no continuations that black will be able to get a winning position. Even if black memorizes all of the moves from that point on, white will still be able to cling onto an easy to play position given that the moves needed to attack the queen and force it back are all extremely natural. In the main 5. bd2 line, black will probably regain the pawn back, but will have an extremely horrible position as a result.
However, given that I am extremely prone to blundering away winning positions, I've "created" this move order against it that gives the pawn back in favor of an undeniable better position for white with an extra tempo