Recently, I discovered another chess content creator on YouTube and chess.com, Boot Camp Chess. I’d watched their video on a variation of the Vienna Gambit from the Max Lange Defense line of the Vienna Game. The Max Lange Defense is a fairly solid response to the Vienna and in fact, if both players make the best moves, you might end up transposing into either the three- or four-knights defense or an Italian Game. I personally find this a bit depressing as I don’t particularly like playing those lines, which tend to be more positional.
So, I was quite excited to see that the Vienna Gambit, a straight up f4 on move 3, was playable in the Max Lange Defense.
As you will see in this game, however, I make a mistake in the opening fairly quickly. Playing f4 weakens the dark squared diagonal to the king, something that my opponent cleverly exploited well. The thing to learn against this line of attack from black is to be willing to move the king and give up the right to castle, something that might be a bit counterintuitive.
This game otherwise went down a fairly weird path, with my king entering the centre of the board. Having lost all three king-side (f-, g-, and h-pawns), the king was better protected and placed, behind my pawns controlling the centre. The critical error made by my opponent was castling short. With that part of the board being wide-open, it gave me the opportunity to launch a strong counterattack. While Stockfish rated my penultimate move of the game, 19. Raf1, a “blunder” (from -2 to -6 in evaluation), this was only if my opponent with the black pieces found the only good move, which wasn’t at all obvious. Other than that, the next best moves was completely winning for me at +5 to +6! They didn’t find it, blundered their queen, and resigned immediately afterwards!
Game on chess.com: https://www.chess.com/game/live/46315739635
[Event "Live Chess"] [Site "Chess.com"] [Date "2022.05.14"] [Round "?"] [White "vitualis"] [Black "minghiaue"] [Result "1-0"] [ECO "C25"] [WhiteElo "1253"] [BlackElo "1145"] [TimeControl "1800"] [EndTime "18:22:50 PDT"] [Termination "vitualis won by resignation"] 1. e4 e5 2. Nc3 Nc6 3. f4 exf4 4. Nf3 Be7 5. d4 Bh4+ 6. g3 fxg3 7. hxg3 Bxg3+ 8. Kd2 Nh6 9. d5 Ne5 10. Nxe5 Bxe5 11. Qh5 d6 12. Bh3 Bxh3 13. Rxh3 Qf6 14. Rf3 Qe7 15. Kd3 Ng8 16. Bg5 Bf6 17. Bxf6 Nxf6 18. Qh4 O-O 19. Raf1 Nd7 20. Qxe7 1-0
Adventures of a Chess Noob 
[…] Earlier in the month, I discovered that the Vienna Gambit, f3 on move 3, was playable when black responds with the Max Lange Defense to the Vienna Game. I was particularly excited with this as my previous response to the Max Lange Defense was Bc4. Although this is a very solid move, fairly natural play after this can lead to the game transposing into Italian Game like positions, which is what I’m trying to avoid by playing the Vienna. […]
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