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Today, I’m going to talk about a super tricky and fun opening, the Ponziani-Steinitz Gambit! As an example of its power, in the game I’m going to talk about today, I had a completely winning position with the black pieces at -10, on move 6 of the opening, with the opponent largely playing natural looking moves! I’m going to give a shout out to GothamChess, who recently covered this gambit in his video, of which I learnt a lot! I had previously tried this gambit twice before, but got caught up in complications with me not knowing any of the theory.

I really like this gambit. When I play with the black pieces and the opponent plays the Italian Game, I previously always found myself drawn into a positional game of the Giuoco Piano. This just isn’t my style as I prefer more tactical and aggressive games. I’ve tried playing the two knights defense to lure my opponents into playing the Fried Liver, and then striking back with the Traxler Counterattack, but my experience at my level in 30 min rapid is that Italian players knew enough theory to avoid the traps and basically outplay me. I’ve lost every game where I tried the Traxler!

I think this opening is great for people like me who don’t like playing against the Giuoco Piano as once the opponent commits to the knight attack, the gambit forces the game down one of three lines which blows up the position in a fun and aggressive way.

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

Game on chess.com: https://www.chess.com/game/live/45103146663

[Event "Live Chess"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date "2022.04.30"]
[Round "?"]
[White "frapocan"]
[Black "vitualis"]
[Result "0-1"]
[ECO "C57"]
[WhiteElo "1153"]
[BlackElo "1256"]
[TimeControl "1800"]
[EndTime "17:23:39 PDT"]
[Termination "vitualis won by resignation"]

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bc4 Nf6 4. Ng5 Nxe4 5. Nxf7 Qh4 6. Qf3 Nd4 7. g3 Nxf3+ 8. Kd1 Nxf2+ 9. Ke2 Qxc4+ 10. d3 Qxf7 11. Kxf2 Nd4+ 12. Bf4 exf4 13. Re1+ Be7 14. Nd2 Nxc2 15. Rxe7+ Qxe7 16. Rf1 O-O 17. Kg2 Ne3+ 0-1