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Today, I played a super fun dynamic line in the Vienna Game! I normally play 30 min games, and this was a rapid 10 min game so there are tons of errors from both my opponent and me. In this game, I played a “wayward queen”, that is, an early Qh5.

In the Anderssen Defense line of the Vienna Game, the goal of Qh5, or the wayward queen, on move three is to induce a potential future weakness in the opponent’s kingside pawns. Careless play by black can also result in early catastrophic material loss, or even a scholar’s mate, though this is much less likely to occur once the opponent is above 1000 ELO.

The interesting thing about this line is that it is objectively good for white, even though the regular Wayward Queen attack is objectively slightly bad. I hope you enjoyed this video, and thanks for watching!

Game analysis on chess.com: https://www.chess.com/analysis/library/55yFMAqADk

[Event "Rated Rapid game"]
[Site "https://lichess.org/5OHr41TP"]
[Date "2022.01.06"]
[Round "?"]
[White "vitualis"]
[Black "KarenNalchajyan"]
[Result "1-0"]
[UTCDate "2022.01.06"]
[UTCTime "00:10:27"]
[WhiteElo "1585"]
[BlackElo "1564"]
[WhiteRatingDiff "+11"]
[BlackRatingDiff "-5"]
[TimeControl "600+5"]
[ECO "C25"]
[Opening "Vienna Game: Anderssen Defense"]
[Termination "Normal"]
[Annotator "lichess.org"]

1. e4 e5 2. Nc3 Bc5 {C25 Vienna Game: Anderssen Defense} 3. Qh5 d6 4. Bc4 g6 5. Qd1 Nf6 6. d3 Ng4 7. Nh3 Qh4 8. O-O Bxf2+ 9. Rxf2 Nxf2 10. Nxf2 O-O 11. Nd5 f5 12. Ne7+ Kg7 13. exf5 Bxf5 14. Nxf5+ Rxf5 15. Ne4 Nc6 16. g4 Rf4 17. Bxf4 exf4 18. c3 Rf8 19. Qf3 Ne5 20. Qf2 Qxf2+ 21. Kxf2 Nxg4+ 22. Kg1 Ne3 23. Be6 d5 24. Nc5 b6 25. Nd7 Re8 26. Bh3 g5 27. d4 h5 28. Ne5 g4 29. Bf1 f3 30. Bb5 Rf8 31. Nd7 Rf7 32. Ne5 Rf4 33. Kf2 Re4 34. Bd3 Rf4 35. Kxe3 Rf5 {Black resigns.} 1-0