---

Today, my opponent played a very unexpected response to the Vienna Game, an immediate f5 on move 2! Effectively, a reverse King’s Gambit! Now, I knew that this should be bad for Black, but that didn’t mean that I knew how to punish them for it!

Having never played this position before, I decided to go super aggressive, sacrificed a knight as a gambit to deflect my opponent’s knight, thinking that I might be able to exploit the weak light-squared diagonal to my opponent’s king. I tried, and failed, and entered a middle game over-extended, objectively losing according to Stockfish, and then soon, significant material disadvantage with the opponent up a full rook.

However, my opponent’s bold King’s Gambit type attack did result in a long-term structural disadvantage for them. Firstly, their king was forced to move very early – resulting in a loss of castling rights, it being a target for attack in the centre of the board in the middle game, with the resultant loss of tempo. My opponent missing a couple of crucial tactics that involved other an absolute pin or absolute fork against their king, resulted in a complete reversal in material balance, with me entering the endgame up a bishop, and thus, an inevitable win.

Game on chess.com: https://www.chess.com/game/live/48900607253

[Event "Live Chess"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date "2022.06.13"]
[Round "?"]
[White "vitualis"]
[Black "beltenthusiast"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "C25"]
[WhiteElo "1220"]
[BlackElo "1158"]
[TimeControl "1800"]
[EndTime "16:33:23 PDT"]
[Termination "vitualis won by checkmate"]

1. e4 e5 2. Nc3 f5 3. exf5 Nf6 4. Nd5 Nxd5 5. Qh5+ Ke7 6. Bc4 Nf6 7. Qf7+ Kd6 8. d4 Qe7 9. Qxe7+ Kxe7 10. dxe5 Ng4 11. Bg5+ Ke8 12. e6 dxe6 13. fxe6 h6 14. Bf4 Nc6 15. Bxc7 Nb4 16. O-O-O Be7 17. Bd6 Bxd6 18. Rxd6 Nxf2 19. a3 Nxc2 20. Kxc2 Nxh1 21. Bb5+ Ke7 22. Rd3 Nf2 23. Rf3 Ne4 24. Re3 Nd6 25. Bd3 Bxe6 26. Nf3 Rac8+ 27. Kd2 Rhd8 28. Nd4 a6 29. Rxe6+ Kf7 30. Bg6+ Kg8 31. Ke2 b5 32. Nf5 Nxf5 33. Bxf5 Re8 34. Kf3 Rxe6 35. Bxe6+ Kf8 36. Bxc8 Kf7 37. Bxa6 Ke6 38. Ke4 g5 39. Bxb5 h5 40. a4 Kd6 41. Kd4 g4 42. a5 Kc7 43. Kc5 Kb7 44. a6+ Ka7 45. Kc6 h4 46. Kc7 g3 47. h3 Ka8 48. Bc4 Ka7 49. b4 Ka8 50. b5 Ka7 51. b6+ Ka8 52. b7+ Ka7 53. b8=Q# 1-0