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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!

Game on chess.com: https://www.chess.com/game/live/38279655687

[Event "Live Chess"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date "2022.02.10"]
[Round "?"]
[White "vitualis"]
[Black "lundy3719"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "C28"]
[WhiteElo "1280"]
[BlackElo "1212"]
[TimeControl "1800"]
[EndTime "17:13:46 PST"]
[Termination "vitualis won by resignation"]

1. e4 e5 2. Nc3 Nf6 3. f4 Nc6 4. fxe5 Nxe5 5. d4 Ng6 6. e5 Qe7 7. Qe2 Nf4 8. Bxf4 d6 9. exf6 Qxe2+ 10. Bxe2 gxf6 11. Nd5 Kd7 12. Bg4+ Kc6 13. Bxc8 Rxc8 14. Nxf6 Bg7 15. Bg5 h6 16. Bh4 Bxf6 17. Bxf6 Rce8+ 18. Ne2 Rhg8 19. g3 Rg4 20. Kf2 Re6 21. Bg7 Rxg7 22. c4 Rf6+ 23. Nf4 Rg4 24. h3 Rg8 25. Rhe1 h5 26. Re4 Rh8 27. b4 b6 28. Kf3 h4 29. g4 Kb7 30. g5 Rf5 31. Kg4 Rxf4+ 32. Rxf4 Rh7 33. Re1 Rg7 1-0