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Today, we’re going to look at another game of my favourite opening line, the Vienna Gambit accepted! This was the final match of round 2 of the Lower-rated Aussies 2021 Christmas Challenge. I was lucky enough to win round 1 in my group, but came second in round 2 – meaning that I won’t be progressing to round 3. I was happy then that I had a strong finish with this game. My opponent accepted the Vienna Gambit, and like in the first video exploring the Vienna Gambit accepted, they made the natural looking early Qe7 move, which is an error. I didn’t play the most accurately in this game, but it didn’t matter, as we shall see.

According to Stockfish, d4 was the best response to my opponent’s Qe7. In fact, Stockfish’s best follow up move for black is to undevelop the queen back to d8, its starting square! It’s extraordinary to think that the best theoretical position on move 6 would be to have all pieces on their starting square, other than a single unprotected pawn, that is hanging no less! In this game, I opted to play more aggressively and less soundly, by immediately attacking the queen with Nd5, resulting in a sequence where the queen was chased across the board, and eventually jammed into the corner. After my opponent lost both of their rooks through the same tactic, a knight fork between king and rook, they opted to resign.

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

Game on chess.com: https://www.chess.com/game/daily/398351625

[Event "Lower-rated Aussies 2021 Christmas Challenge - Round 2"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date "2022.04.26"]
[Round "?"]
[White "vitualis"]
[Black "andymerlot"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "C28"]
[WhiteElo "1174"]
[BlackElo "1215"]
[TimeControl "1/259200"]
[EndDate "2022.05.02"]
[Termination "vitualis won by resignation"]

1. e4 e5 2. Nc3 Nf6 3. f4 exf4 4. e5 Ng8 5. Nf3 Qe7 6. Nd5 Qc5 7. Nxf4 Nc6 8. d4 Qa5+ 9. Bd2 Qb6 10. b3 a5 11. Nd5 Qa7 12. Nxc7+ Kd8 13. Nxa8 Qxa8 14. c3 a4 15. Ng5 Nh6 16. Bc4 axb3 17. Bxb3 Qa3 18. O-O Qe7 19. Rxf7 Nxf7 20. Nxf7+ Ke8 21. Nxh8 1-0