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Today at lunch, I played a rapid game with the black pieces, and was very excited to have an opponent play the Vienna Game against me! The Vienna Game is my favourite opening as white and as it seems not to be very popular, I rarely get to play against it. Right after we entered the Main Line, I had a quick chat with the opponent congratulating them on playing the Vienna. They noted that they were new to the Vienna and were trying it out. Unfortunately for my opponent, they didn’t recognise one of the potential dangers when playing the Vienna that results from the delayed development of the king’s knight and the early f-pawn move. Specifically, that the opponent with the black pieces has the option of playing the violent-looking and forcing move, Qh4 with check.

I’d never actually played this line before with either the white or black pieces, but did know that Qh4+ was possible. The fascinating thing here in analysis, is that in the Vienna Game Main Line, black actually gives up a little bit of advantage making this move, and according to Stockfish, black and white are almost dead even. However, this equality is only maintained by accepting a trade of queens – something that might not feel right on move 7! The intuition to keep the queens on the board results in black being one step ahead with their queen creating threats with open diagonals for both bishops – and this is enough for a major advantage. The easiest way to avoid all this nastiness is to simply play Nf3 in anticipation.

I hope you found this game interesting, and thanks for watching!

Game on chess.com: https://www.chess.com/game/live/40540827361

[Event "Live Chess"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date "2022.03.08"]
[Round "?"]
[White "Magneto73"]
[Black "vitualis"]
[Result "0-1"]
[ECO "C29"]
[WhiteElo "1347"]
[BlackElo "1317"]
[TimeControl "1800"]
[EndTime "21:15:23 PST"]
[Termination "vitualis won by resignation"]

1. e4 e5 2. Nc3 Nf6 3. f4 d5 4. exd5 Nxd5 5. fxe5 Qh4+ 6. g3 Nxc3 7. dxc3 Qe4+ 8. Qe2 Qxh1 9. Nf3 Bg4 10. Qb5+ Nd7 11. Qxb7 Qxf3 12. Qxc7 Qd1+ 13. Kf2 Bc5+ 14. Be3 Qf3+ 0-1