END your 1.d4/London/closed game/positional woes forever with 1.d4 e5!? 2.dxe5 d6 3.exd6 Bxd6!

That is positional aggresion.

Or constantly threatening to make your position better.

YES!! A commendation of the Englund gambit! And not the 2...Nc6 3...Qe7 line, which is fine and all, but 2...d6! in the spirit of rapid development!! It was a favorite of mine for many years(With exactly 350 games of 2...exd6 here on chess.com!), until I switched to a more indian-wing-gambit approach with 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 a6 3.Nc3 b5. But if I could telepathically infer that 2.Bf4 was coming after 1.d4 Nf6, then I'd certainly switch back to 1...e5!

Anyhow, @1983B-Boy, I love your enthusiastic writing style, and lots you've said really struck a chord with me! Such as, "even when opponents confuse me, I'm finding just staying calm and developing and/or pressuring will eventually provide me with a juicy target or trap" is just such a relatable spirit! You may be worse off, or even losing if you push the aggression too far, but they're going to have to walk a tightrope to prove it!!

It's correct that its certainly not the best, scientific way to acquire an advantage, and one can conjure up a refutation with proper preparatory analysis, but it's fun! Play the style you find to be most intrinsically valuable, and see where you go! Because at that point, you're operating off of inspiration! Absolutely correct is: "it's an all you can eat buffet of "defend yourself now!" on your opponents." I share your passion!!

I mean, it has swindle potential. Perhaps it's not a refined or elegant way to play chess, but hey sometimes being silly can work out! If you aspire for great chess heights then maybe Englund is a poor choice, but if you play in jest then go for it, right? I think it's fun!

Of course it's a dangerous opening in blitz or bullet, or even rapid, but it can work in long time controls against good players. Here's vs a ~2150 uscf in 110 minutes +10s delay:

Of course, when white plays actively, they'll have a better position soon enough; the Englund doesn't have to prolonged scariness that sounder gambits do. After 1.d4 e5 2.dxe5 d6 3.exd6 Bxd6 4.Nc3, white has Nb5 and Ne4 tricks eventually, despite losing tempo, to mess with Bd6 and pawn structure, or getting to trade queens. And, when white castles on the same side, its often much tougher (subjectively) for black to utilize their lead in development to attack the king. But I feel like it's a fun gambit to try out, and thank you OP for putting so much effort into writing about this! Its been inspiring!

positional openings aren't just boring FOR ME... they're ratings sponges.

here's the last game I played, a very annoying advance variation I just had to figure out, but I'm very satisfied that my accuracy was 82% even here. when sidelines get to be pesky, I'll start booking up.

Ah yes, position chess takes time, but fortunately, 2.d5 is nothing to fear!! And if you want, 2...Bc5 can be fun, since d4 moving to d5 opens that diagonal for you! The idea being getting the undeveloped Bf8 to a open (and attacking-f2-diagonal, perhaps forcing them to play e3 and shut their Bc1 in!), and 3...d6 (bishop outside the pawn chain!) and possibly 4...f5 with a pawn phalanx in the center!! Although 2...Nf6 is of course a nice developing move too!

3...c6 is an interesting undermining attempt! May have to watch out for 4.d6 possibilities, but you can snag the pawn with Ne4! Neat!

On move 4 Bc5 can strike again, both logically and if you're fond of some hope chess! After which, simple developing moves like 5...Nf3 or 5...Nc3 both fail to Bxf2+! Or they play 5.e3 and keep their Bg5 out of d2, thus weakening the a5-e1 diagonal before they castle!!

Although, 6...Bd6 really hurts developmentally. It would be nice to get this Bf8 out to c5 or b4, both being active squares, and play d7-d6, so you can get Bc8 out to say, g4, and Nd7. Also, 6...e4 instead of Bd6 would prevent white playing e4 themselves, and closing the position! Closed positions just feel like such a time dilation into assuming the life of a snail, I feel like you relate! But congrats, those dreams came true later!!

Pretty impressive how by move 15 the king is still in the center of the board! 14...exf3 15.bxc5 Re8+ would've set the king without residence for a good while, but still precariously perched after Bxf2!

Love how the knight ventures over towards the king so quickly, nice coordination with the Q, N, and R at the end!!! That seems to happen in cases of 2.d5; white just loses the dark squares, and even if they close the board, black has undermines like c6 and especially f5!

I always hate facing d4 cuz I think it’s just you getting squeezed positionally by white and you have little to no counterplay I’ll try this gambit out but I always forget that the Englund is an option. And the English is the most annoying one it’s litterally facing a sicilian dragon but a tempo down and facing a Sicilian dragon also ain’t fun hope I’ll use this opening nicely as I worked on my puzzle rating for quite a lot of time and I love finding tactics in positions like finding a beautiful queen sac is much better than winning a long dead drawn endgame and then ur opponent makes 1 tiny mistake imo

OP, I remember you saying something about wanting to switch away from the Scandinavian eventually, might I recommend the Elephant Gambit? vampirechicken on YouTube has a really good series of games explaining how the lines work and it seems very much so in your style of piece play and tactical sacrifices.

I mean against both d4 and the English you can just play a KID setup and then there really isn’t a whole lot of positional play going on for either side. Even the positional lines of the KID are still quite tactical when compared to more closed openings.

An absolute 2nd on the elephant gambit!! A very fun rapid-development line! Bravo!! 👏

And if you ever find yourself with a need for space instead of a need for speed, then, bias I may be, I think wing gambits (there are many, many forms of them) and the halloween gambit are just great fun!

But yes elephant! The e4 cousin of the Englund!!

I have no problems with tactical players playing theoretically dubious but practically powerful weapons like the Englund Gambit. I like to watch them slump as I let them take back the gambited pawn and watch me develop normally, at which point they realize that they don't know how to play a quiet middlegame

The real purpose of the Englund gambit is to avoid d4-types games entirely, at the possible cost of one pawn. If White returns the pawn I'm very happy since I've already gotten what I wanted and pushed White off his rote memorized choreography. Hopefully we've both outside theory and thus start playing chess.

That is why i play e4, Less ways to throw theory out the window!

anyone wanna refute

RIGHT NOW? I'm here. If you can't beat me @ +2 points... well.

wing gambits? NOPE! hated both it and my lousy excuse for an opening book, MOST of which wasn't even wing gambit anyways sicilian pamphlet. I like attacking from the center.

if i didn't rousseau, which is what I really want to do on my road to f4/f5 specialization, I'd go to old plan A... 2 knights and fritz.

englund/englund repertoire? HAHAHAHA!

Dude, Im the type of troll to challenge you and then play e4...

yeah, that's what I hate about trolls talking doodoo in a convo, then not backing it up. been there wasted that time already. it reflects poorly on you as far as honor and integrity go

yeah, I hate positional snaking, you got that right, but some openings minimize all that. better it's in the sidelines than main lines. that's my whole point... less pawn pushing, more piece swinging

taking another look at the elephant. I can't remember why I dismissed it. could be I'm not a fan of elephants

my entire point is after decades of playing white's kind of game BADLY (closed & positional are my natural enemies along with effing pawns, I hate pawns), now I'm making 1.d4 play on my UNSOUND tactical turf. you know, the part where so many players get crushed in theoretically unsound lines badly despite whopping TWO PAWN advantages says something some of you don't want to hear.

rapid piece mobility. if you can't disprove it, then I'm right (stats are agreeing).

elephant > paulsen gambit has decent stats

If I recall correctly the line is 3… Nf6, sacrificing the second pawn, after which the going gets rough for White.

Historically the main line has always been 3...e4, but there was a recent book from quality chess suggesting 3...Bd6 as a alternative.

3...Nf6 is probably the least sound of the three, but also the most aggressive. Jobava has used it a bit, and I wouldn't be surprised if it becomes more popular in the future. Black's idea is to play some sort of Urusov gambit with reversed colours.

It can also be reached via a petroff from 2...Nf6 3.Nxe5 d5.

Yeah, 1983 just has this thing where he hates both soundness and his own pawns, so I figured he’d have more fun and success with something more similar to what he’s used to.