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Since I discovered the Steinitz Variation, this has become my default line when facing against the Scotch Game as Black. Although it’s unsound at master level play, it gives one of the best win advantages for Black against the Scotch at the lower-rated level. It’s also in the aggressive bombastic style that I like!

In this game, I was doing well with Stockfish giving a -2 evaluation by move 6. But then, I overthought a move resulting in me straight up losing a piece with basically no compensation. Stockfish now thought the game was at around +4!

I was determined to make the most of my position, and sought to develop rapidly, as this was the one minor advantage that I had – I won a step of tempo. And then in the early middle game, I was very lucky as my opponent blundered. They made a symmetric rook move to defend their bishop, but, they just ended up pinning their piece. Being that one step ahead made all the difference and the criss cross double pin with their dark squared bishop in the centre resulted in an overwhelmingly winning position for me – the evaluation swung in my favour from +4.5 to -7.5! Good game, GG!

Game on chess.com: https://www.chess.com/game/live/51065981155

[Event "Live Chess"]
[Site "Chess.com"]
[Date "2022.07.08"]
[Round "?"]
[White "rasec83"]
[Black "vitualis"]
[Result "0-1"]
[ECO "C45"]
[WhiteElo "1148"]
[BlackElo "1221"]
[TimeControl "1800"]
[EndTime "17:47:22 PDT"]
[Termination "vitualis won by resignation"]

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. d4 exd4 4. Nxd4 Qh4 5. Nxc6 Qxe4+ 6. Qe2 Nf6 7. Qxe4+ Nxe4 8. Nd4 Bc5 9. Be3 d5 10. f3 Nd6 11. a3 Bf5 12. Bd3 Bxd3 13. cxd3 O-O 14. O-O Rfe8 15. Re1 Bxd4 16. Bxd4 Rxe1+ 17. Kf2 Rae8 18. Kg3 Nf5+ 19. Kg4 Nxd4 20. b4 Nb3 21. Ra2 Rxb1 22. Rc2 c6 23. a4 Nd4 24. Rc5 Rxb4 25. Ra5 Nb3+ 26. f4 Nxa5 0-1